by Alex Walters
To celebrate the publication of 'Late Checkout' today we have, not one, but two book giveaways for you.
We're giving you two chances to win signed paperbacks of the first two novels by Alex Walters, 'Trust No One' and 'Nowhere To Hide'.
On this blog post I just want you to leave a comment telling me about your oddest or most humorous experience of staying in a hotel. Anything from fire alarms going off in the middle of the night, to locking yourself out of your room in your pyjamas!
You've got until the end of Sunday and we will pick a winner on Monday morning.
On Alex's blog there is a separate competition where we are looking for the most obscure or interesting fact about your home town. You can find the blog post here.
You can buy 'Late Checkout' here.
For more news about 'Late Checkout' you can follow the Alex Walters Facebook page here, or follow him on Twitter at @MikeWalters60.
We are also having a Thunderclap to publicise the book on 14 June. For anyone who doesn't know what this is, it's just a way of getting as many mentions of the book on social media as possible at the same time in order to give the book a boost. It only takes a couple of clicks and just means that you're allowing your FB and/or Twitter to put up a one off promotional post. If you're willing to help, you can sign up here.
14 comments:
I was woken by a fire alarm in a small hotel in Bath. I came out of my door at the same moment as the occupant of the only other room on that landing. She was a woman of about the same age as me. We were both wearing blue fleece dressing gowns and pink towelling mule slippers, and were each carrying a large black handbag. We looked at one another, did a double-take, and burst out laughing! Joyce.
I think I'd have to go for the B&B in rural Kent that offered the 'unique' feature of an en-suite in the wardrobe!
The rest of the room looked pretty good - spacious, clean etc - but we couldn't find the bathroom. The only connecting door was locked so we were totally mystified until we went to hang up our clothes. There was a whole wall of sliding wardrobes but it turned out only one half was wardrobe whilst the other housed a loo, shower and sink...
I can't tell you how weird it felt to get up in the middle of the night and go for a wee in the wardrobe, or to sit on the loo with your knees touching the wardrobe door and just a thin sliding panel to protect your modesty!
Those are both brilliant!
Claire - I had a similar experience to yours, not in a hotel but at one of the residential colleges where I teach. I looked everywhere for the en suite bathroom, including in the wardrobe. There's no way it could have been in there since it was just a normal old-fashioned wardrobe. Turned out my 'en suite' was actually across the corridor and accessed by the same key as my room. That wasn't much fun late at night!
Fire alarms. On 4 occasions in a hotel (3 of them Premier Inns) I have had to evacuate the hotel in the night due to a fire alarm going off. Presumably people smoking in bedrooms -not us I hasten to add!
Claire - when we moved into our current house the door to the ensuite was via the wardrobe. Very Narnia-esque and the estate agent was very gleeful showing it off! It was a whole room though, just accessed via one of the wardrobe doors, not actually an ensuite in the cupboard.
We went to a hotel in Malta two years ago. It had a balcony with sliding patio doors. One evening I was sitting on the balcony with my Ipad writing, husband asked if I'd like a glass of wine (silly question) As he brought the two glasses of wine out, he closed the door with his elbow, to keep the insects out of the room... and locked us out. We couldn't climb over to anyone else's balcony to knock on their door to tell reception. There wasn't any one around to shout below, and to make matters worse, we'd put the bolt on the main door too. Neither had our phones to phone the hotel reception. I tried emailing the hotel reception... no reply. After a while I had the idea to use the SMSmessage app on my Ipad to message my son's Iphone! Husband despaired as son never answers his phone! I text,' Are you around?' Obviously his mum asking a weird question from Malta got him worried, I got an almost instant reply. "Yeah, you ok?" I explained we were trapped on our hotel balcony, dad had shut the door behind him and it locked, and needed him to phone Hotel reception and ask them to rescue us, although the bolt was also on the room door." Reply? "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!" He did phone them and sent a message that the porter would rescue us soon. After another 30 minutes we could see the handle being wiggled then a knife blade working on the door frame and lock and another 15 minutes later the porter opened the door. We were very pleased to see him as there were loads of biting insects gathering near my bare arms and legs. Apparently, he carries his trusty penknife around with him, as we were not the first people to get locked out. We were so grateful, but he wouldn't take a reward ! After that we threw a towel in the door way to stop it closing.
That's a brilliant story, Awen. You'd think if it happened a lot they'd put some sort of warning sign on the door. But I guess that's less fun!
Kath - I was thinking of the Narnia aspect as well!
There was a sign on the door. Ironically it said "Please close the door when using the air conditioning!" :)
The next evening we had to call them because a lizard was running along the tiny gap in the coving over the bed. Another porter came. Small and agile man, jumping up and down on the bed to reach the lizard. He caught it, but it bit him in the process. Apparently he was used to it too... He got called to a lot of lizard rescues!
It was a lovely hotel. I'd recommend it ! :)
Goodness! I have to say, on my one visit to Malta I loved it.
Love your story Awen!! But I am not surprised your son's first reaction was to laugh his head off.
Some great stories. I can't really compete, but one memorable stay involved the lock breaking on the communal toilet of a B&B (long time ago) and another guest having an 'accident' on the carpet outside as they couldn't wait for the manager to jemmy the door open :-O (sorry to lower the tone.)
Oh, no! How mortifying for the person concerned!
My first trip to Spain, saw me plugging a UK plug adapter into the socket, and taking out the electricity in the whole hotel!
Nooooooo!!!!!!! That's the sort of thing I'd do!
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