The Problem: Back to the employees of Crowne Plaza.

We made it in late after a track meet and we were starving. Two ladies in our group asked the doorman what the shuttle's schedule was. He said he could take us to a restaurant that was open after 10 if we didn't want to order in from the 24 hour Chinese food restaurant. Come to find out, there wasn't such a restaurant, all of them closed between 9-10. We opted to take the shuttle...only he didn't want to take us once he realized he wasn't taking the ladies by themselves. He joked about taking just the ladies to the bar down the way that had food.

...

Since one of the ladies happens to work at a 4 star preferred hotel (one of 128 in the world) she headed directly to the supervisor on staff. He didn't want anything to do with the problem blaming the problem on the schedule of the shuttle. He called the doorman and asked if he would take us...the doorman said yes, like he had the first time, and the supervisor acted as if nothing was wrong in the first place. So we waited, and waited, and waited, and waited...45 minutes later we went back inside where the supervisor saw us. He asked us about the shuttle we said that the doorman said it would take us and then took off.

Another problem here needs to be pre-explained. All doormen barely speak English, it seems, and even in the fanciest of Hotels I have stayed at they have had thick accents. That's not the point. I live in an accent dominated family and social group...my wife's friends and coworkers speak over 30 languages, some speaking no English at all and I can under stand all of them, every single one of them. I had never met a person I couldn't understand.

That brings me to the problem. I could barely understand this guy. To make problems worse, no one else in our group could either...despite speaking 8 languages between us. On top of those problems he was trying to joke around with us, saying the shuttle was $15 but he had free passes for a tip and that it could take us there but couldn't get us back (it would save us a cab ride one way at least...right?) and constantly telling the women in the group to go to the bar with him and ditch us. Funny or not it frustrated the members of our group beyond their wits and the manager, who spoke English just fine, kept referring to the schedule and told one of the softest spoken ladies in our group to stop yelling. I could go on and on...the entire situation seemed like we were in a time warp.