Getting over Hotel Oberland ... Camp Bern

This is my first post dedicated to a hotel. which is funny considering that the last three hotels (two here and park Hyatt at Goa) that I stayed in were so divine.



I was cribbing about Oberland yesterday. Felt perked up at Bern. Headed back. To a hotel room where the beds looked worse than if they had been made by me. And that calls for a lot. The pillows weren't fluffed. There were strands of hair all over the bed ... hopefully ours. And there was the odd crumpled tissue lying on the floor.


And this is an upper mid range hotel! And after we stayed at the aristocratic Villa Toscane at Montreux and the prince's mountain retreat like Christiana at Zermatt.

Should have know what to expect when we lugged our luggage and got into a musty lift. When we got a card when we entered the room which said 'we will be charged money if the bathroom flooded... that the bathroom didn't have a drain. That we would be charged if we took away the 'room decorations'. We looked around the gloomy room with stained carpets and eighties German kitsch brown tiled stinky bathroom and wondered, 'what decorations?' When we opened the window and almost banged our head against the window of the adjacent house. When we got our room changed for a better view and fewer square feet and a stained pot in the loo. When we were told that we would be charged as we had stayed in the first room for a couple of hours. When we were welcomed in the morning breakfast with a sign which said 'don't pack your food'. When I looked at the bathroom mirror which instead of the usual flowery spiel on the envt they tersely wrote ' we wash a lot of towels everyday. A lot of them are unused. Please help us conserve the environment'. When they wrote that they could give us a fan, electric kettle, iron etc for a deposits of 100 francs or 5000 Rs. When I saw that instead of toiletry bottles they put a one size fits all - hair, face, body gel - in a tube attached to the wall. When the key card didn't work twice in succession. When they didn't clean the cobwebs in the verandah grills despite my asking them to. I would have myself but that might qualify as 'taking away' their property.

I can go on and on. But there is a silver lining. We are leaving tomorrow :)

After the last few inspired suggestions this was a big let down from our T A.

And someone should tell the guys at Oberland that surprise surprise that most guests here (50 p c Indian) have travelled the world and have stayed in real hotels.