Through the eyes of an intern:

My palms were sweaty, knees weak and arms were heavy at the mere thought of the night that I was about to embark on. I was hosting an extravagant event at a unique boutique hotel that provided a one-of-a-kind type of backdrop, this was the selling point for me; but, at the same time the range of reviews that I heard surrounding this hotel and their customer service worried me. The rumours were that because it was a boutique hotel that also served as a residence, the hotel staff wasn't event friendly; they do not like loud noises or excessive amounts of people in one room.

I feared that the hotel would not tolerate such an event, since we didn't have the conference room booked but rather just a room booked. So, how did it go? Well, the night was drama filled, that's for sure... but, what motivated me to write this blog was how pleasantly surprised I was with the hotel. The hotel staff in fact were extremely generous offering whatever help was needed.

Other than this blog serving as a beaming recommendation for boutique hotels, hotels that a lot of people may have misconceptions about, I would also like to inform people about an important lesson I learned that night during my experience at the hotel: Always keep your receipts.

Always, always, always. And here's why: that night one of my friends with a car who planned to stay over that night, wanted to park at the hotel and was aware of the overnight $30 valet parking fee she would be charged. Absolutely fine, and she was more than willing to do so. As soon as she got the valet ticket from the valet man in the front, she approached the front desk and gave them $30 for the parking fee. The next morning, as I was alone checking out, I found a $30 valet overnight parking fee charged to my hotel bill, surprising as my friend had told me she paid that fee, yet there was no record of it in their system.

At the end of the day, what ended up happening was the hotel agent my friend paid the $30 fee to didn't record it on the system and it was only the receipt (that my friend ended up picturing to me, so I could show the manager at the front desk) that served as the saving grace to excuse the $30 fee. Otherwise, if she happened to throw out her receipts, something I know tons of people do, there would have had to be an extra $30 due, an employee who had got off the hook without recording things properly, and a dissatisfied and confused customer.

However, an overall fantastic experience with the two main takeaways I preach being: 1) Never knock boutique hotels, until you've stayed there and 2) Always keep your receipts, regardless of the amount.