Hotel

Belonging to a middle-class family, visiting hotels was quite rare for me and my family. However, the thought of staying in hotels with beautiful lawns, amazing ambience, and their scrumptious breakfast spreads fascinated me. So, in the year 2007, when I went for a vacation with my husband, he booked our stay in the hotel. We, along with the luggage, were ready to hit the road.

When we reached the hotel and walked to the reception, we were first told that our bookings had not been done. More importantly, all the rooms were occupied as it was the peak season. My husband showed them the details regarding the booking confirmation. The receptionist was perplexed as there were no corresponding names in the booking records. It was quite late at night, and the tiredness of the journey made me more restless, so I sat down on the sofa. I was cross-checking my messages and emails regarding the confirmation from the hotel when I found an unread email with the hotel name. I opened the mail and read it thoroughly twice before showing it to my husband. That was one moment in which one could laugh and get annoyed at the same time for not reading the details properly! My anxious expressions turned to a giggle. I showed the email to my husband, and he glared at my phone and looked at me with a smile.

We apologised to the receptionist regarding the misunderstanding that happened due to the same name of both hotels. Yes, the hotel we were supposed to go to was located on the next street in that area. The hotel’s name was the same, but with another ‘a’ in its name that we overlooked. We left the hotel and told the taxi driver to go to the next street according to its correct location. When we went to the entrance of that hotel, the staff came to pick up our luggage.  Going through the corridor of the hotel itself started giving me those wonderful vibes that I was looking forward to. The ambience, the fresh flowers in the antique, huge vases, the white satin curtains, the lovely fountain surrounded with beautiful lights around mesmerised me completely!

We were extremely tired, but at last elated and excited to spend the next couple of days in such an exquisite hotel. Definitely, that was a learning experience for us! After that, we both now make sure to accurately check every last detail of the resort or hotel we book!

Garima Sudan Kapoor