On Thursday, July 2, myself and my daughter checked into Planet Hollywood Resort in Las Vegas. She had flown down from Vancouver and I had just been to the NECC conference in Washington. It was her birthday, and it was going to be great sharing a few days together to celebrate (she's been travelling for around 2 years, and I try to catch up when I am travelling if at all possible)
We went for a walk to check out the strip, but both were fairly tired so went to bed around midnight.
Woke the following morning and she was scratching, with two quite large welts on her arm.
We put this down to some randomness and went out for the day, returning around 4 for a snooze after the heat of the day.
WHen we got up at around 6 or 7, she had a lot more welts. I didn't have any, so it looked like her bed was the culprit. She said the welts looked and felt similar to bedbug bites she had received in a backpackers 2 years ago in Thailand.
So, I called Housekeeping who sent two guys up within 10 minutes (one of whom was visibly shaking).
Examination of the bed showed no bugs, but the housekeeping guy took the headboards off the wall (they were attached with velcro) and said "yep - they're there". He read to us from a pre-prepared statement written as a script on a sheet of paper he had brought with him. Guy number 2 went pale and shook some more.
Lots of radio traffic and we were joined a few minutes later by a security guy who asked us to fill out forms declaring what had happened, and photos were taken of the welts on my daughters arms and face, and the "nest" in the headboard space.
"You'll have to leave the room" we were told, and were told further that our clothing and luggage would be destroyed. We weren't allowed to touch anything, except two laptops and a camera which we put in the room safe.
The room became a sea of pink plastic bags, labelled "Biohazardous material" and I asked the security guy what would happen next. He said that he would get hotel slippers for us (we wern't allowed to retrieve our footwear), we would be moved to another room, and the hotel would provide $500 for us to buy new clothes in the morning.
I asked what would happen after that and he answered "I don't know sir, that's above my pay scale", but assured me that we would be contacted by the Head of Risk Management (I'll call her "Ms A" here) before 8am in the morning. He gave me her card, and suggested I could call her or Housekeeping if she hadn't called by 8.30.
He asked if we needed anything else, but we asked what he meant, and he offered a refrigerator, which added an element of surrealism to the night. I'm still not sure why we would need a refrigerator, but still.
We went to sleep, feeling dirty, a bit punch drunk and embarrassed - you don't expect this sort of thing in a 5 star hotel: Thai backpackers, yeah, Planet Hollywood, no.
The next morning, no more bites, but no call, so I called the Head of Risk Management and got an answering machine, left my details and the nature of the call and asked to be rung back. Heard nothing.
Called Housekeeping, who knew nothing of the incident and after a bit of explanation, said they would call us back.
15 minutes later, we get a call saying that if we supplied out shoe sizes, they would purchase some shoes for us so we could go to the shopping mall downstairs and get some replacement clothes. I didn't know our US shoe sizes as they have a different system of measurement, so the Front Desk Manager would come up and help us.
A guy identifying himself as the General Manager then rang and apologised profusely, saying that he recognised my Platinum status and wanted me to return to the hotel again, and offered us show tickets anywhere in town. I thanked him for the offer, but we were still a bit confused as to what we were going to do, and had some existing plans that would need some changing anyway. I told him I'd get back to him if we changed our mind, but would spend the day regrouping. He gave me his personal cell phone number in case I needed to call.
Front Desk Manager arrived, with some other guy, who took us back into the old room to retrieve our shoes (not sure why they had suddenly become OK to wear) and our camera and computer gear. The other guy assured me that our clothes would be dry cleaned (not destroyed as was mentioned the previous night) and returned to us by Sunday (as I was flying out on Monday). He said that he would replace our luggage fre of charge, but I asked that we choose as we had both carefully selected our luggage to accommodate extensive air travel with carryon only.
The Front Desk Manager gave us $500 in cash from the reception area to purchase clothes, but it was not clear whether this was to purchase one day's worth, or perhaps replace the clothes in case the dry cleaning didn't appear.
We then went to grab some breakfast, (it was around 10.30am), then look at luggage and clothing.
We had one luggage shop to look in, which sold one piece of gear that I had lost, and nothing to replace my 18" rollaway (Australian domestic won't take anything larger) and a fairly basic selection of backpacks for my daughter, but we selected and moved on to clothing.
Malls in Las Vegas are not where you would expect to find travel clothing, more "resort wear" but, again, we made do and found amesage on eturn to the room that the Front Desk Manager had found another room for us, which turned out to be a 2 bedroom suite - very nice. We took our possessions in plastic bags to the new room, showered and joined some friends for dinner and a show that we had prebooked.
We'd planned to drive to the Grand Canyon on the Sunday, so took off early and, on return, found no dry cleaning so rang Housekeeping. Here's where it got interesting.
They didn't know about any dry cleaning so I rang the Front Desk Manager and got an answering machine. Left a message to call me as soon as he picked up.
Rang Housekeeping again and they had a package for a "Ms A" to which we replied that she was an employee of the hotel which caused some confusion, and then got a second call coming through from the bell desk who asked if there was a "Ms A" staying in our room. Pretty funny.
The dry cleaning was delivered, we packed for the following day and on checkout Monday, were presented with a $500 charge on our bill.
I explained to the front desk clerk and he said that as I had signed for the money therefore it should be charged, so I asked him to check with a supervisor.
Ten to fifteen minutes later he appeared with an amended bill, we paid and left.
Now, a week later, we still haven't heard from "Ms A", the Front Desk Manager or the General Manager, even though they have my cellphone and my email address.