Guest User
June 11, 2024
Boutique seems to be code for “ we owners know how a hotel should present itself, we have a style, and if the customers find things are not quite as they expect, well, they are philistines..” My wife and I recently stayed at Hotel Mirlo. Location is good, room a very decent size and the bed gigantic, but…..for a supposed 5* hotel there were a number of irritations which should not be occurring in such an establishment. The first night, we ate in the hotel and, returning to our room, thought we’d watch something on tv for a short while before going to sleep. Except…of the 100 or so channels, 99 were broadcast in Spanish. The only exception being BBC World News which appears to provide its content on a 20 minute loop. No Netflix, Amazon, no streaming services whatsoever. The tv remained unused for the rest of the stay. Not that there were any chairs suitable for comfortably watching tv anyway. The only seating being a single, straight-backed, desk type chair. Very poor in a room set up for 2 people. The room lighting system comprised a metal square, set into the wall, one either side of the bed. Press one side of the square, the bedside lamps lit. Press again to switch them off? No, the main light came on. Press the opposite side…and the hall lights came on. After a lot of random pressing of the square, we finally got all lights off, resolving not to put the lights on again unless absolutely essential. All was well until around 2 am when suddenly the room flooded with light. My wife had got up to use the toilet and the lights were motion activated… Keen to avoid this happening again, we took the room card out of its slot with the result, our devices stopped charging… In the morning we thought we’d have a cup of the tea that the hotel proudly advertises as part of the room facilities. Except,…we found that the only cups in the room were very small expresso coffee ones. The tea-bags were as big as the cups. And there wasn’t any milk provided anyway. So, we had 2 black coffees instead. Only 2 though since there were only 2 pods provided for the coffee machine. Later that day, I told the person on reception that our room did not have cups suitable for tea. He said that it was not the hotel’s policy to provide such items and that people were quite happy to use the expresso cups for tea. Disbelief from me. He then offered, if I insisted, to send up 2 mugs. I asked him if he would also arrange for some milk to be provided. This, apparently, was a step too far. He advised me that ( again) it was the hotel’s policy not to provide milk to guests. He then suggested that, if I were to go to the kitchen each morning, someone there would probably be able to provide me with milk. He seemed rather bemused when I suggested that it really shouldn’t be the responsibility of the guest to have to wander down to the kitchen in the hope that someone there would let me have some milk. Why this inconvenience was the hotel’s policy, I wasn’t able to establish. Other n