Terry Prone: A surly receptionist and shirtless clientele, but no sign of my cookie!

Originally published in the Irish Examiner.

The guy naked to the waist, a pit bull between his legs, might have been a hint.

First impressions can be misleading.

But when you walk into a large, internationally-branded hotel at 8.30pm, you don’t tend to expect semi-starkers guys in the lobby, drinking in the company of their big threatening dog, surrounded by pals covered in tattoos and singing at the tops of their voices.

The receptionist didn’t seem to notice anything unusual, though. She processed me as if we weren’t surrounded by heavy metal, body art, and threatening canines.

Indeed, it could be said that she processed me as if I were the most boring person in the lobby at that time, which was probably the case.

I handed over a credit card and was handed plastic door-opening cards in return.

The hotel organisation — DoubleTree by Hilton — had emailed me in advance, telling me I didn’t even need to do any of that old-fashioned stuff like going to reception.

If I downloaded a new app, I could go directly to my room and my phone would open the door. Which, you must admit, is a cool technological advance which would save any hotel a lot of hassle.

I couldn’t see it saving a customer any hassle at all, at first arrival, especially if the customer was straight off a transatlantic flight, as I was, and had large suitcases and other bags with them.

In that situation, you don’t just want a receptionist, you want a porter who does the traditional porter things like get your bag in and onto the bag-frame, show you how the air-conditioning works, and get you up to speed with the coffee machine.

But hey, let’s cut the DoubleTree Hilton some slack, here.

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