Hotels round the world

Hotels round the world - Mercure Hotel Koblenz

I had been staying a couple of times at that hotel with my usual request "high floor, quiet side, away from elevators, pls". The place (on top of a large public parking lot) is nicely located near the Rhine river next to a convention center and can be accessed reasonably easily by car. I had learned to avoid the top (10th) floor where I had been disturbed by people using meeting rooms there, talking, phoning and conferencing in the corridor. The a/c equipment on the roof is also perceptible from that floor. The Northern side (odd room numbers) has to be avoided since it is facing a busy bridge. Thus, for this particular hotel, my request for a so-called Privilege room was routinely completed by "Room 908, if possible. Thks." Most of the times, I could get that room.
However the mess generated at my last visit will make me hesitating to go back to that hotel.
Since I arrived a bit early (towards 13:50), I left the luggage in the car and went up to the reception, enquiring when my room would be available. I was told that Room 1020 had been assigned, but not cleaned yet. It would be available by the official check-in time (15:00). There was no meeting on the 10th floor and I would not be disturbed. Fair enough.
So I managed to kill some time in the city. When I came back towards 15:20, I was given a key set and, only when reaching the elevator, I realized that it was not, as announced earlier, for Room 1020. It turned out that this room was still not ready. No use to wait: the previous occupant had been given a check-out time by 16:00 and there was nobody left to clean the room. Would you believe it: in that hotel, there is no cleaner after 15:00. What about the need of having sometimes to refresh a room in case of an "accident" in it? Absurd per se, this policy is also commercially incomprehensible, especially if late check-outs are granted, since those rooms cannot be re-used and overnights are lost.
I refused a suite (#1017) offered on the noisy bridge side and, after all the talking, I ending up after 16:00 in Room 808 which was apparently the only other possibility.
The situation could have certainly been properly assessed when I first appeared. The mixture of astonishment, embarassment and irritation impacted onto the customer could have been spared. The time lost could have been usefully spent in working in my room.
(30 January 2020)

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