My wife and I were at the Hyatt Regency in Newport Beach over the weekend for FTU – where it was great to meet many of you. If you saw me on Sunday, though, you would have noticed some bags under my eyes from a sleepless night on Saturday. Blame my neighbors two doors down.
We were up relatively late (for us) on Saturday, but finally turned in around midnight with the alarm set for 6am. I was speaking five times on Sunday and had been up early on Saturday, so I was really looking forward to six hours on uninterrupted sleep.
Just as I was drifting off to sleep, we heard yelling from outside. A man and woman were fighting about something – I heard the terms “love” and “other woman” being thrown around. That always turns out well…
Heidi, who becomes about as irritable as one can possibly be if her sleep is disturbed with any sort of light or noise, demanded that I do something about it. Still groggy, I told her to give them a few minutes and then I would call the front desk.
The fighting continued and all of a sudden Heidi jumped out of bed, ran over to the door, threw it open…and to her credit very politely asked the couple outside if they would argue somewhere else. The arguing immediately ceased.
That was that, we thought, and I was soon asleep. About 30 minutes later we were both awakened by a violent rapping on our window (each room has a window adjacent to the door and the hallways are exterior) followed by a frenzied patter of footsteps and the slamming of the door two doors down.
Jerks, I muttered…or something like that.
I was wide awake and could not fall back asleep. Neither could my wife. So we lay in bed, hoping to fall back asleep. It was now after 1am. At this point I should have called the front desk, but I thought the couple was just vindictive and now had extracted their revenge.
We did drift back to sleep only to be awakened about a half hour later by the couple yelling again. This time I jumped out of bed, opened the door, and saw the woman sticking her head out of the half-open bedroom door with the man yelling inside.
I looked at her, I said, “Please”, and stared at her for a few seconds longer. She rolled her eyes.
But the raucous quieted down again. I tried calling the front desk but gave up after no picked up after 10 rings. I laid down and managed to fall back asleep…
Bang! Bang! Bang!
They did it again. It was now 2am. My wife started to wail and I called the front desk again. This time, someone picked up immediately, listened to me recount what had happened, and promised to send someone down right away.
Minutes later, we heard a stern knock on our neighbor’s door (they were fighting loudly again) with an announcement that it was hotel security. The door was opened and security demanded to enter the room. The couple were separated, the man was brought outside, and eventually escorted to the lobby.
We did not hear from them again…but it took 45 minutes to fall asleep, so it was only three hours before the alarm went off.
The following day I received an email from the Front Office Manager apologizing for the incident, checking to make sure it was handled to my satisfaction, and offering me free breakfast or lunch. It was a nice gesture and though breakfast was covered by my Diamond status and lunch by the conference, I apprecited the effort.
Talk about a horrible night, but there are a few things to take away from the story –
- I don’t think we made a mistake by initially asking the couple to quiet down. Though it turned out this couple was (and I put this charitably) childish, adults should be able to talk to adults and it is a sad world if we must call in backup for incidents of this nature.
- Once the window rapping started, however, I should have held on until someone at the front desk picked up – that act, juvenile as it was, crossed a line.
- Hyatt handled this incident well – security promptly arrived and was able to restore calm. The note from the manager was appreciated.
Have you ever dealt with unruly hotel guests? I know some people were not blessed with the gift of common sense, but it still boggles my mind that anyone, particularly anyone staying in a fancy hotel, would not have the common decency to realize that having a fight in close-proximity to several others at 2am is not a nice thing.
I would not say your #1 was a mistake, but when the other people are not acting like adults on a hotel or on a plane, getting involved rarely works out well in my experience. it is better to let the hotel/flight attendant handle it.
It seems like every time I stay in a Marriott Courtyard with the wife in attendance, we get the 3am fire alarm – that’s usually a good way to be jolted from a deep sleep . Needless to say, we don’t stay in many Courtyard hotels these days.
Noisy neighbors or kids running up and down the halls on the other hand, been there, done that – I always call the front desk and normally within 20 minutes the situation has been handled.
Seems like Friday and Saturday nights are the worst. Lots of door slamming (like 50 slams from one room), people moving furniture on the floor above me (for hours), someone pacing back and forth on the floor above me who sounds like they are stomping (for hours), and weird yelling like they are having a mental breakdown- often at nobody, just yelling at the wall. I think people save up all they’re frustration for the hotel room. Seems to be getting worse, or more common.