Grand Canyon was beautiful. We did the drive up to it at the end of the day and got to our hotel, the El Tovar Hotel right on the rim of the canyon after dark. When we walked around looking for something to eat, we came across three grazing Elk, chewing calmly right in front of us, completely oblivious to our presence. Later on, we ordered room service because all the restaurants were fully booked, and woke up really early the following morning. We were able to appreciate a beautiful sunrise over the canyon, followed by a nice hike along the rim. We did another good hike in the evening while we were waiting for a table at the hotel restaurant - the wait was an hour and 40 minutes…
Aside from the serene beauty of Grand Canyon, there were lots of interesting things that came up while we were there.
Englishman in New York (actually, in Grand Canyon)
I love Sting’s “Englishman in New York”. It highlights some well known differences between people from England and people from the US, and as an immigrant to this country from a different culture, I can relate. On evening at the El Tovar, a fellow hotel guest and his wife, both from England, were trying to book a table at the hotel restaurant. The restaurant is always booked days in advance, so naturally there were no tables. That surprised the guest - he apparently was expecting to be able to dine at the restaurant of the hotel he was staying at. Shouldn’t he get priority? He then tried to get on the wait list for a table, in case one became available later in the evening. But when asked for his phone number so he could be sent a text when his table is ready, his response was “00 44 ….”, which the hotel’s system rejected (he probably needed to say “+44…”, to indicate an international number), and causing the waiter to say “I’m sorry sir, but I can’t put you on the waitlist without a phone number”. At that point the guest, already tired from a long day of travel, lost it. He demanded to see the manager, and was quite vocal in his criticism of the hotel’s handling of the whole situation.
This was a great example of how the two cultures clashed. From the British point of view, the restaurant is part of the hotel. When you pay for the hotel, you are buying access to exclusive services, which include a hotel near the rim of the canyon and a table at its restaurant. Guests should get priority at that restaurant, and if there is extra room, non-guests could be allowed. Additionally, sending a text to let one know that their table is ready is overly complex, when a simple solution - calling one’s room - is available. Why on earth should that not be the default‽ From an American point of view, the hotel and the restaurant are public assets, being inside of a national park. They are to be used by everyone, and only by necessity - there is a limited number of rooms and tables - there is a limit, and a requirement to make a reservation. It therefore makes sense that one is disconnected from the other, and that you could make a reservation to the restaurant independently of your reservation to the hotel. It actually is better that you can reserve a table at the restaurant in case you were unable to reserve a room, so you can at least enjoy part of the experience.
But what was the most striking was the incompetence of the hotel staff. The waiter didn’t have a clue about how to handle non-US numbers in the system. He didn’t know how to set it up so it calls the room instead of a mobile phone number. He presented a dead end in front of a hotel guest instead of finding a way to make things work. Others around him stood awkwardly, waiting to see what happened rather than intervene and try to help. No one took the angry guest aside and tried to see if there was a way to figure this out without making a scene in front of a bunch of other waiting restaurant patrons. It was shocking to see how badly the hotel handled the whole situation. The reason might be that the staff is new to the job. You’d think that a prestigious hotel like El Tovar is run by a well trained, highly functional team that has been in place for years and know everything about it. In fact the staff were mostly new, some of them working at the hotel for less than 3 months. It is not entirely clear why that is, and whether it has anything to do with The Great Resignation, but it is clear that the hotel is being run by a group of people that, while being very nice human beings and well intentioned, are still learning the ins and outs of their jobs.
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