As mentioned previously, Sam and I stayed at a famous budget hotel chain while away last week. Really all we needed was a couple of beds, and a bathroom and a kettle... and it's a good job, because that's pretty much all we got. Hotel chains are using the Covid crisis to strip back the service they offer to the bare minimum, so the famous "all you can eat breakfast" has been replaced by a box of cornflakes, cartons of OJ and milk, a flapjack and a dried up pain au chocolat. Sam loved it! I longed for the days of eating so much at the inclusive breakfast bar that I didn't need to eat again all day.
This wasn't the only evidence of stripping back. On arrival, we were told that "due to the pandemic", our rooms wouldn't be cleaned while we were staying... "to avoid us having to touch any of your things". I wonder if it's also to avoid having to pay a cleaner, as the lady on reception appeared to be the one cleaning vacated rooms... in fact, I have a strong feeling there was actually only one member of hotel staff active at any one time, since when she wasn't on the reception desk, she was replaced with a cardboard cut-out holding up a mobile phone number that allowed us to contact her wherever she was in the hotel if we needed her. We'd have to do that via our mobile phone though, as there's no phone in the rooms anymore.
Still, you pay budget, you get budget, I suppose.
I have slightly more sympathy for a colleague of Louise's who booked a luxury break at a 5 Star hotel for him and his wife last week, only to be called up two days before their stay and told he'd have to bring his own bedding due to a "national linen shortage". It's not actually the sheets that are running out, but the laundries that clean them are suffering shortages and cut-backs due to covid and Brexit.
Three days into this series and I'm already losing the will to shout at the sea anymore.
