The Great Asbury Hotel Trip, 2011
When Adrian brought up the subject of going back again this year, I was totally excited. I had a blast last year, and knew that even if I couldn't do terribly much, there was still the good food, good company, and some crafts to look forward to.
What I didn't count on was the fact that I was feeling rather ill in the days running up to it, that I was short on anti-depressants and therefore had horrible mood swings all weekend, and that it would be the busiest weekend imaginable. Even the staff said so. So while I had fun, it was definitely a mixed bag this year.
The Good
What I didn't count on was the fact that I was feeling rather ill in the days running up to it, that I was short on anti-depressants and therefore had horrible mood swings all weekend, and that it would be the busiest weekend imaginable. Even the staff said so. So while I had fun, it was definitely a mixed bag this year.
The Good
- The food - this has to top this list. It stood as last year as a good reason to go, since it's included in the price, delicious, and tons of it. I won't say how much I went over my weightwatchers limit for the week, but it wasn't by a little, to my shame. Still, I was on holiday, and one does not get that kind of food often. I especially love that they have a salad bar, as I'm actually very partial to salad, but have to go to a lot of effort to get the same thing a quick trip to the bar will get me when I make it at home.
- I got to do all the crafts I wanted to - candle dipping, silk painting, and enamelling, which was kind of a last minute decision. I had been waffling about whether I wanted to do it when Nicola said she had signed up for it, and that kind of decided it for me.
- Playing games with people. Despite the fact that my fogged out brain could not think of good stories, or sometimes of even the right reasons, in Chrononauts, it was a fun game. I played it years ago and remember it being a really good game. Shame about the brain fog really. It was actually better on Saturday night when I had two glasses of wine in me and was learning Steve's game of Dominion: Intrigue. Now THAT is a fun game.
- Customer service at the Manor House. There are two hotels, the Manor and the Ashbury. We stayed at the Ashbury, which is the home of the golf courses, and everything was great there. The Manor has all the crafts, and so you have to go there to sign up for the crafts that you want to do. Nicola and Neil and Cat went over there Thursday evening to sign up for enamelling, and found it to be full, so they went to the front desk. Reception took down their names and said when they opened up more slots, they would put them down. Cat wasn't keen, but Neil and Nicola gave their names. They were told to call and see if they had gotten in. They called later that night (about nine, I think) but there was no one in, so they decided to go over first thing in the morning after breakfast to make sure signups had been done. I wanted to sign up for my crafts, so I went with them Friday morning. Well, we got there, and looked at the sheet, and they had put another time out, but had failed to put their names down, and it was full. I signed up for silk painting, but candle making was full, so I went down to reception, like they said you should last year, and asked for another slot to be opened. From the amount of people trying to sign up for things, I knew that it would fill up quickly and not be cancelled due to lack of people. I said we also had an issue with the enamelling, and needed another slot for that. I was told by the receptionist that the duty manager would be with us to take care of it. A minute or two later, he appeared and told us he wasn't opening anything until 11. Cue looking at watch - 9:45. We had made a special trip, I pointed out, to sign up for things so that we could plan our activities over the course of the entire weekend. He said he wouldn't open anything until 11. I got angry, (didn't loose my temper, for once) and said it was bad customer service, and insisted we get more slots so that we could get on with things. I just kept saying that he was showing appalling customer service and made it evident I wasn't leaving until we got our slots (and I made a big deal out of how they had opened up enamelling without putting down the names, which they still had behind the desk!) until he pawned me off on one of his underlings, who was marvellous and made sure we all got signed up for what we wanted. He even went and opened up another archery thing when the only candle slot he could open conflicted with the archery I had signed up for at the Ashbury. Still. The Duty Manager was just unbelievably out of it. It was as if he couldn't see everything was full and that people were trying to sign up for things that weren't there, and refused to do anything about it. I found out later from the archery guy that they were booked out, and the Ashbury was really busy too, (bloody half term) so obviously families who had wanted to go to the Manor ended up at the Ashbury.It was a melee.
- Little kids - mostly running around and screaming. Thursday was the worst, since I had no room to retreat to, had had very little sleep the night before, and was feeling run down and on edge. There were also tons of families there that day. They left over the next two days, so by Saturday evening it was quiet. I can understand small children crying, and even screaming a little. But there were bigger children screaming, and running around. Honestly, if you're going to take your children on holiday to a hotel with small corridors and lots of people, don't let them run.
- Feeling like crap all weekend. I couldn't have been very fun to be around. I was not only moody a lot of the time, but I was physically not in very good shape. My stomach had been acting up all week, and while it got better Thursday and Friday, late Saturday night it started acting up again. I spent most of Sunday in my own company - a good portion of it asleep.
- The fact that we can use the facilities all day, but can't check in until 3 - so we get down there to use the facilities, and then I have to hang around in public places instead of retreating to a room when I feel I need to. I'm a homebody, and like to have someplace I can go and be by myself. This is especially true now, when I want to go lie down when I feel bad. I mean, I completely understand why there's a check in time (after all, there is a check out time and they need time to clean the rooms) but it's still annoying.
- The trip home. It rained all weekend, which didn't affect me much since I was inside and is therefore not really mentioned here. But it did affect me (and Adrian) when the windscreen wipers decided not to work on Friday evening. We got lifts over to the Manor on Saturday so were able to get our crafts done, but come Sunday and it was still raining, we couldn't drive home with wipers that didn't work. It wasn't safe. A call to the AA was in order. Adrian called them while we were at lunch, so pretty soon after we finished they arrived. The company had sent a local guy to see what could be done. He looked at the mechanism and found the problem, a bent bar, but wasn't able to do anything about it, so he referred us back to the AA for towing, since Adrian has a plan that says they have to tow us anywhere he wants to or some such thing. We were hoping to get towed back to Bristol and the local garage. At this point, most people are in the hotel playing cards, and I'm sitting in the car sleeping because I feel like death incarnate. Adrian goes back in while we wait for the AA man to come and tow us. In due course, he shows up, asks what was wrong, and Adrian shows him. Enough time has passed that this is about 4 and everyone else has left (we called originally about 1:30) and the AA man says "well I can fix this" - the other guy couldn't because he didn't have something that's usually not included in the standard breakdown equipment. Plan A is to use said equipment (a blowtorch) to bend the bar back into some semblance of what it should be so we can put it in and the motor will turn it and it will move the wipers and everything will work. I think. I didn't see the insides. So he goes to work, but it turns out there's not enough metal left to be useful, so eventually they settle on plan C (I don't really know what plan B or C was) and it works. It's not perfect, but the wipers will work, so we head our merry way up the M5 to Bristol, leaving about 5.