Fawlty Towers, The Pink Panther

Every time I thought that my hotel couldn't become more weird, I was proved wrong. It was like living in a series of TV programmes and films. Fortunately, I had a flexible rate at the Holiday Inn Civic Centre @ 8th Street which allows me to leave early without penalty. After the Fawlty Towers dinner on my day of arrival, this was followed by Tuesday morning breakfast, where I was served by a lookalike & soundalike of Cato Fong (played by Burt Kwouk) from the original Pink Panther movies with Peter Sellers. When I asked for the bill, I was presented with a bill for $21 (for two eggs, two overdone strips of bacon, two small slices of toast and a coffee) and a polystyrene cup in which to take my coffee away - implying that I had to leave.

I didn't have occasion to use the restaurant in the evening, as I ate out and then went to the Athletics/Angels games in the East Bay. But this morning, it was the "Fawlty Towers" crew again at breakfast and it was more of the same awful service, notably when the waiter shouted to "Manuel" across the restaurant to go and ask me what I would like to drink and my reply was shouted back across to the bloke behind the bar. I was going to have just the oatmeal for breakfast at the buffet (for only $10!), but couldn't find it and there was no sign of the usual accompaniments promised by the menu either, so I just helped myself to bacon, sausage and toast (for which I was charged $22!) Since the hotel has a guest laundry, I thought I'd have a look at it and possibly delay my departure a day as the Marriott doesn't have one. You have to use your room key card to access the different floors in the hotel and when I exited on the laundry floor, the sight that greeted me was just bizarre.

The guest room doors all had yellow pieces of A4 paper stuck to them with black text reading: "Test room XXX" where XXX was the room number. Not necessarily strange in itself, but what was strange was that each door had a chair outside in the corridor with a person sitting on it, holding a clipboard. All were completely still, as if stuffed, and sat there in dead silence. I don't know what kind of experiments they were carrying out on the guests, although I didn't actually hear any screams coming from the rooms. I had to walk past all these people to get to the laundry, which was spooky. The laundry turned out to be OK, but very expensive, so I returned quickly to my room and decided to leave this Hotel California as soon as I could - which turned out to be entirely possible, fortunately.

So I checked out at 11.40am, caught the 'F' streetcar that was just coming along Market Street as I came out, and by 12.40pm, I was in my new room in the Marriott at Fisherman's Wharf - hugely different. I walked in and although the lady on reception was dealing with another group of people checking in, she acknowledged my arrival immediately, and when it was my turn, greeted me properly with a genuine smile, speaking English that I could understand, offered me a choice of rooms (despite this being 4 hours before the official check-in time), gave me a free drinks voucher for the bar, and I felt pleased to be there. When I got to my room, I found it quiet, with an OK view over the landscaped internal courtyard area, and with two complimentary chocolates on the beds! The room rate's cheaper too, although Internet is extra. Another useful point is that it's much closer to the departure point for my tour tomorrow, so I won't have to leave as early to get there in time.