[DavidGordon10]

Absolutely at the acceptable level of ranting, Tim.

This is a fascinating thread. Top of the list:
1. Showers, bathrooms, lighting and other controls in hotels
2. Mobile phone mis-use
3. People who are slow with cash, in queues and so on
4. Size of seats in trains and planes
5. Hotels without free wifi.

Maybe this should be a thread permanently kept active….

[knightflyer]

Great thread 🙂

My rants…

1. Booming in-flight announcements late on redeye flights, spaced about every hour so you’ve just fallen asleep again when jolted awake, usually announcing the food trolley is on the way or the duty free sales will be closing or something utterly irrelevant to one trying to sleep.

2. Horrible seat-back baskets with pointy wire corners that are seemingly designed specifically to extract cartilage from the knees of a 6′-2″ human.

3. Airports (in China most often) where incoming flight delays are not quantified at all – quick check of flight tracker sites will tell you you’re in for a 5 hour delay but the gate attendants cannot tell you ANYTHING and no revised time is posted until the incoming aircraft touches down. Inhuman and unforgivable.

4. Why are some airlines providing only facial tissues in bathrooms and not paper hand towels? Anyone ever managed to dry their hands with tissues and not ended up with little bits of white fluff all over your hands that you then have to wash off…

[TiredOldHack]

Oh, let me add:

Bottles of mineral water, sometimes wine, left out on a side table so you think they’re freebies, and only after you’ve necked the contents do you find you could have had a bottle of wine for the cost of the water and a three-course meal for the cost of the wine.

[Carajillo2Sugar]

I’ve put this list up before but it seems a good opportunity to bring it to the attention of a wider audience….. 🙂

Travel Gripes

1. Airlines – crude oil prices have fallen by 50%, so it’s way past the time for you to drop the extortionate ‘fuel surcharges’. Also, when your one-way fares are so eye-wateringly expensive, stop griping about your customers using ‘dummy coupons’ to reduce the cost of a trip. Dear Mr Airline CEO, if you were in any other line of business and had to pay for your family to relocate to America, ask yourself what you would do?

2. Airports – this fad of snaking us all through the tax-free shops in order to reach the sanctity of the bar is beyond a joke. Concentrate on making ‘airside’ more user-friendly and efficient. Fear not; people who want to buy stuff will always be able to find the shops.

3. Hotels – don’t make me wait until I have gotten to my room before I become aware of the need to obtain a key/code for the safe; please tell me at check-in. Better still, if you are unable to guarantee the security of my property in your rooms, don’t make me pay for the use of the in-room safe.

4. Car-Hire Co.’s – check the screen-washer bottle is full BEFORE every rental commences and if the parking-brake is now a hidden button please tell me where to find it when handing over the keys. Similarly, if the clutch needs to be engaged whilst I’m in Kama sutra position no. 85 to enable the engine to start, tell me about that, too!

5. My Travel Agent – You have all my details; my seat request, special meal request, frequent-flyer numbers, car hire and hotel preferences. Please feel free to use them accordingly. In every booking I make. That’s how you start to justify your fees.

6. UK Immigration – greet me with a smile and make me feel welcome to be back in my country. You instruct travellers that abuse will not be tolerated, so please return the favour.

7. UK Customs – the free movement of people, goods, services and capital within the EU is enshrined in the evil empire’s rule book so stop carping about the six cartons of cigarettes I’m carrying. I really don’t need an inquisition every time I travel. Nor do I need a lengthy lecture on HMRC’s interpretation of the rules.

8. Governments – stop using flyers as a cash-cow to fund your ever-more ludicrous spending plans. Just quit wasting our money and remember YOU work for US!

9. Barpersons – there is a very strong possibility that your customers will want some ice and a slice (preferably lime!) in their G&Ts; please ensure these items are present behind the bar at all times. The tonic has to be Schweppes; there really is no acceptable substitute. Ever. Also, it has to be from a bottle. Not a syrup spray-gun.

10. Restaurants – what’s with this seemingly obligatory ‘optional service charge’ you insist on adding to my bill? I’ll decide whether the level of service provided merits a tip, thank you very much!

[AllOverTheGaff]

TiredOldHack – 22/01/2015 15:31 GMT
Bottles of mineral water, sometimes wine, left out on a side table so you think they’re freebies, and only after you’ve necked the contents do you find you could have had a bottle of wine for the cost of the water and a three-course meal for the cost of the wine.

HA!

Agreed.

🙂
AOTG.

[seasonedtraveller]

I think I’m getting into the swing of this now!!

In no order;

1 – Inconsiderate loud mobile phone use in public places – self important fools.

2 – People staring at smartphones instead of watching where the hell they are going….

3 – People making a noise in the 1st quiet coach on East Coast trains – it’s a QUIET coach

4 – UBER drivers who have NO idea where they are going & despite having Sat Nav, ask you for directions

5 – On a night flight – when everyone is ‘sleeping’ – suddenly turning ALL the lights on at once instead of slowly – pretty sure cabin crew do this as a joke!

6 – Hotels – why the hell have a ‘mobile check in’ line when it’s always unattended (Marriott) or likewise unattended, the VIP Hhonors line?

7 – Hotels (mainly UK) – why no plug socket by the bed?

8 – Hotels (USA) – why bleat about how we need to save towels & save the planet in One fell swoop whilst raving about your Green credentials but at the same time, have a family sized fridge / freezer in each room (empty) but turned on full.

9 – Waiters (mainly USA) – don’t ask me “how’s it tasting sir” when its plain for all to see, that I haven’t started yet….

10 – Cabin crew – when you lower the privacy divider to pass something to the window seater, please remember to raise it again before rushing off – several times each flight.

11 – UK immigration (particularly LHR) – get a bloody grip!! – I have a UK passport, I was born here and I live here – don’t make it so difficult for me to enter my own country.

12 – People who wait in line at the security screening area for 20 mins and only when they finally get to the front do they start to remove laptop, coat, belt ad infinitum – holding up everyone else, who are already prepared…

13 – BA – Don’t send me another Email offering me 1,000’s of Avios points for some credit card or other, the day after I’ve wasted 3 hours trying to get any Avios availability on any flight I’m looking at for the next 6 months.

14 – Luggage on chairs – in lounges, boarding gates, buses, trains, heathrow express etc – for god’s sake put your luggage on the floor or the luggage racks so others can sit down you stupid self centered, ignorant fools.

15 – People who leap out of their seats and scramble to retrieve their luggage from the overheads the minute the aircraft arrives at the gate (although I do enjoy watching the inevitable chaos that ensues)

16 – Hotels, even very expensive ones, where the heating/cooling is either impossible to figure out or the heater/cooler makes more noise that a jet engine.

17 – Heathrow airport’s ‘expedited connection orange card’ – you may as well hold up a schoolboy type “kick me in the arse” notice for all the good these orange cards will do you….

Rant over – for now but, perhaps more to follow…

[MrMichael]

Ok, a bit more from me them,

People that go out of their way to ruin my day by pointing that I cannot do something for the old chestnut….Health and Safety.

Restaurants and airlines that describe on the menu “fresh cream” or “whipped cream”….and then serve me some disgusting aerated white sugary gloop that came out of an air freshener can…..Ruddy Peasants.

[Carajillo2Sugar]

‘Freshly-squeezed’ orange juice that comes out of a plastic bottle that just happens to say ‘Squeezed From Fresh Oranges’ on the label.

That aint fresh orange juice, lady!!

[transtraxman]

Travellers who take suitcase, laptop, suitbag and a variety of other things on to the aeroplane and then complain that the overhead lockers are full so cannot put their overcoats in them.

Travellers who insist on removing shoes during flights even if the flight is no longer than two hours. All feet smell.

[AviationGeek]

Canucklad – LOL!!!
I too find overly complicated shower tap contraptions a nightmare.
Worse however are the light switches that always seem to leave one one / turn one light back one.
In one hotel I’ve stayed in Barcelona (awful with regards to switches, available plug sockets, sink / plug, shower settings, lighting in the public areas (dim, dim, dim), …) I spent over 20 minutes trying to turn off all the lights – I only managed by removing the key card from the slot by the door, this switching off all electrics in my room.
What I hadn’t realised was that the curtains (electric) had been left open and so I was woken at sunrise by the light streaming in through the east facing window.

[IanFromHKG]

Hotel plug sockets. It seems to have escaped the designers of hotel rooms that travellers travel with laptops, smartphones, battery packs, tablets and a host of other things all of which require charging at some point. So why the *** do you:
1. Not have international multisockets
2. Have the only two sockets near the desk so close to each other that you can only plug something into one at a time
3. Hide the sockets under the desk, or behind a bedside unit, or have it randomly halfway along an empty wall so there is nothing to put the thing that is being charged except on the floor
4. Have all the power sockets turn off when you remove your room key from the little slot by the door or when you turn the master light switch off at night

Instead, try installing several usable multisockets near convenient surfaces, with both 110V/220V power. Stay in the Peninsula Bangkok if you want an idea of how it can be done. While you are there, note the other clever things they have done, like having just one, intuitive remote control for the TV/DVD/sound dock; and a load of sockets on the front of the TV cabinet (with another power multisocket!) so we can connect our own devices and play our own content. And watch it in the TV over the bath as well. And have buttons by the bath that let you answer the phone without having to get out. Then note all the controls on the bedside phones that let you control all the major things in the room, with clear labels, that automatically light up when you put your hand near the phone. I love that. And note the headphone sockets on each side of the bed that allow you to continue watching your TV programme in bed while your partner sleeps. Think about how all these things make life easier for guests.

Oh, and while we are on electrics – yes, I know lots of people like coffee. I don’t. So don’t give me some stupid complicated coffee machine that is incapable of producing hot water for tea that doesn’t taste of coffee. Or, if you do have one of those, give me a proper kettle as well. And for god’s sake give me proper decent mugs, not some pathetic little cup suitable only for mini-espressos. That’s just irritating. Bastards.

[K1ngston]

+1 Ian_from_HKG you have made me spit out my coffee from the ridiculously small cup thats in my room with laughter 🙂

In addition to my list earlier, cab drivers in cities (here in Bangkok) that get you in start to drive forget to put on their meter and then do not know where they are going and demand an inflated price from you when they don’t want to take you there!!… Not f***in likely boyo

Flying into an airport and having to go through security when you have just got off the flight??? Whats that all about ???

And last but by no means least, being asked nay suggested that I have to pay 18, 20 or 25% service as a minimum for a steak or any other food in a restaurant in the US is ludicrous surely put the service into the cost and split it out with the staff afterwards? Better still allow them to finish off the plate from the ridiculously huge portion that 4 people could not eat thats put on to the plate!! Why?????

[LondonViking]

A big gripe of mine is arriving at the airport after an 11 hour long haul flight from LAX – LHR T5. They parked us in what seemed like Dorset, then packed us like sardines onto shuttles to take us to the terminal so we could que for an hour at immigration.

The cabin crew were embarrassed as they said this was a flagship route and long flights like this should always have a gate.

@K1ngston

In the US you tip what they deserve. If the service is subpar then their tip should reflect that.

I find it much easier than here in the UK where they automatically put it on the bill. Then you have to call over the server that gave you the bad service and demand the charge be taken off the bill. This can be quite awkward and add quite a lot of time onto an already unpleasant experience in the restaurant.

[AllOverTheGaff]

LondonViking – 23/01/2015 08:03 GMT
I find it much easier than here in the UK where they automatically put it on the bill. Then you have to call over the server that gave you the bad service and demand the charge be taken off the bill. This can be quite awkward and add quite a lot of time onto an already unpleasant experience in the restaurant.

I tend to agree with LondonViking on this one. Having spent a lot of time eating out in the USA, I find their service levels to be fantastically higher than those here in Blighty. It can verge on the sycophantic, but it beats the usual ‘can’t-be-arsed’ brigade who bring your food to you with a scowl and then act as though you’ve asked them to undress and perform a magic act at the table when you ask them for another bottle of wine/water et al.

I’d rather have the tipping culture where I know I can reward and lace someone’s take-home pay, or I can deduct accordingly.

It’s been my own experience that poor service in the US is rare. That being said, I can go to Asia and get even better service, without the sycophancy and not have to tip anything…….

Rgds.
AOTG.

[canucklad]

My Friday rant
Similar to Carajillo2Sugar’s food description rant , I unlike Ian, do like to get the day started off with a coffee.

An easy peasy “Black Coffee” suits me fine I certainly am not seeking a “CAFÉ AMERICANO” at 3 times the price, nor are any of my colleagues wanting to pay for a “CAFÉ ****** AU LAIT “ !!! A traditional old fashioned beverage called a “white coffee” might just suffice.

As an ex Vancouverite, Seattle has a soft spot in my heart , but their coffee shop culture that exported this pretentious behaviors a blight on the emerald city.

Oh, Go Seahawks Go………

[Author]

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