My "wonderful night away" at a well known hotel in Al Ain

The weekend was just priceless!

We arrived at our hotel yesterday at 12.00pm and were told our room would be ready in 1 hour. We toddled off to the pool to relax and two hours later Mr F saunters back inside to get the key so we can get the kids sorted out.

In the meantime we had been at the pool for 2 hours and there were absolutely no towels available and the kids were blue. The fact that the surly b!tch behind the counter kept saying 20 minutes maam for towels didn't help either.

Mr F comes back muttering to say room not ready and so we sit back down and try to keep blue kids occupied. Half an hour later he goes back in..same story.

All this time I was having kittens trying to keep the kids away from part of the pool as it was taken over entirely by a group of local (and yes...I say local..sue me) kids who were at a party. These kids were just vile...unruly and dangerous. Twice I yelled at the lifeguards to do something and all they did was yell back at me!

By this time I was getting a tad cheesed off to say the least so I girded my loins and went in to reception. No it still wasn't ready.... by this time it was 4.30 p.m. I kind of had a little meltdown so eventually the housekeeping manager came out and we went to look at the room..which was disgusting....someone had had a party in it...streamers, stale pizza etc etc all over the place. Anyway, he had the nouse to apologise and got housekeeping in to clean it up.

So, we eventually get into our room..all good. Kids hadn't been killed in the pool and were slowly returning to a pale pinkish colour.

Then Mr F started to feel sick...and from that moment to this moment (he is actually upstairs fast asleep as I type) he has had the running trots. Can't say it was the hotel's fault but who knows.

Anyway, we had a quiet night, got up this morning and went to the pool. Guess what.....no bl00dy towels!

Then, at 12.30 we headed back to the room to get showered and changed as we had a 2.00 check out and they had cancelled our door key. I head off to reception and they say after 12.00 all the keys are cancelled....I "calmly" explain the fact that we have a 2.00 checkout so he gives me a new key. I walk back across the hotel, out past the gardens and the pool to our room and suprise suprise the effing thing doesn't work. Kids are fractious, Mr F is about to poop himself for the 20th time and I just about explode.

At this point I would like to apologise to the man on the front desk for my language and manner but it really was the last straw. Anyway, finally got a key that worked, got changed, Mr F relieved himself and we hightailed it out as fast as we could.

Such a shame as we love this particular hotel but this weekend was seriously an abomination.