Assholes do Vex Me

There are different types of people who take tours. I’ll describe one from time to time, but today’s species is known as genus fuckwitius. 

Their comport zone is either self-drive or budget.

The thing that stands out for Sarah about Trafalgar, is that staff pick up your luggage from outside your room one hour before departure every morning, and they take your luggage to your room when you get to a new hotel. In some hotels you’d be eternally grateful for the service. That’s just the standard they hold themselves to, with something they can control. 

What they can’t always control, are the features of each hotel. There is obviously a budget to work to, and location is a factor. As Liza Minnelli would have said, if she were a Tour Guide, “Life is a compromise, my friends.”

More expensive tours will be able to choose hotels with better features and location, with fewer compromises. 

Often there a walking tour, or lunch, after arriving at a new city and before getting to the hotel. The advantage here is that while you’re trying to order a Big Mac in Latvian, the bus is dropping off your luggage at the hotel. By the time you get to your room, your bags have beaten you there. This can’t happen with self-drive and it WON’T happen with budget tours.

The reason I mention facilities is that some places have a limited number of lifts, and they can be pretty tight.

Once everybody gets their room key from the tour director in reception, they start queueing up for the lifts, to get into the room. Many lifts will take maybe 4 at a time, so a single lift is busy for a while. If the bags arrive when you do, staff wait till you’re gone from reception to start shuttling the bags upstairs.

Now back to the fuckwits.

Whenever they arrive at a new hotel, they don’t quite know how to behave. So they wander out to where the bags are coming off the bus, and get their own. So helpful, right?

Fuckwits!!

First, they have fucked up the security of everybody’s luggage. The staff have a set number to move, and if I pick mine up, their numbers are off.

Also, what if somebody rocked up and brazenly takes a bag and rolls it away, never to be seen again? Who do we blame?

The other issue is how inconsiderate these fuckwits are. They’re in a hurry to get themselves and their luggage into their rooms, so they will be as close to the front of the queue for the lift as they can. Taking up twice as much room as everybody else in a limited area. And when they get into the lift? No room for anybody else. 

If everyone was as inconsiderate as this, you’ve just doubled the length of time it takes to get everyone upstairs.