[05.11.18 - 05.17.18]
Activities, duties performed and accomplishments during the week
Another crazy weekend was in store for the hotel this week. Over the weekend, we had several baseball teams check into the hotel. The group occupied most of the hotel rooms, but we still had some regular transient guests. Each baseball team was composed of different age groups as well. We had guests as young as nine years old and some as old as fourteen years old. As such, we had to pre check-in the group teams before they all started arriving. That way, we could just hand over the keys to the teams right away and be able to focus on checking in the regular guest. That being said, days before these teams arrived, we prepared for the arrival of the baseball teams by pre-assigning the rooms and pre-charging the room and tax so it would be easier for us during the day of their arrival. It is exactly what we did with the dance tournament a month ago. So throughout the week, our main focus was on preparing for the baseball team and checking them in.
Challenges or difficulties encountered and how you are dealing or have dealt with the situation
The main challenge this week was keeping all the kids under control all weekend long. Believe me when I say how amazed I am at how our hotel did not burn down due to the rowdiness of all these children. Literally at every corner of the hotel, you would see groups of children running around, tossing baseballs and footballs, swinging bats, and a lot more. They even took over the indoor pool. It was very hard to control them because their parent’s would even condone their children’s actions. Our regular transient guests started to complain due to the noise and wildness from these kids. As such, we made it a point to give warning to these kids. If they still misbehave, we confiscate their toys and only hand it back over after we talk to the parents. Moreover, we also had our security guard’s walk around every floor continuously to control the kids and to stop them from running through the hallway especially when it is late at night.
Notes, observations or insights on things you have learned this week
An observation I had this week is that parents will always be in denial when it comes to the naughtiness of their children. They will complain about other children’s noise and rowdiness, but when you bring up the fact that their child contributed to it, they will deny (even if we know for a fact that their child is guilty). When it comes to this point, we just choose to apologize about it, rather than argue so that the guest would not get more aggravated.
List any pleasant or unpleasant experiences that occurred this week
An unpleasant experience that occurred this week was when one group of parents came after me after I kicked them out of the hospitality room for bringing in outside food. One of the dads even said that they would not come back next year due to it. It was very annoying considering that we sent out hotel
reminders to every participant before they got to the hotel. We also gave them printouts upon check-in about the different rules we were implementing for the weekend. One of the rules said that guests are not allowed to eat outside food in any public area of the hotel. The hospitality rooms we had that weekend were not specifically for the teams only; it was for all hotel guests that needed to use a holding or entertainment room. Since the room was for everybody, it is considered as a public area, which is why we had to implement the rule. The guest was angry as well because they said this was the first time they had a difficulty in eating at the hospitality room because apparently, they were able to eat there without any problems that past years.
Other comments and observations or suggestions
Since this competition happens every year, my suggestion would be to be strict with implementing the rules so that guests do not end up comparing their experience from the previous year. Moreover, this will prevent them from using their past experience as an excuse for their actions.