“This hotel is full of surprises,” says KwaZulu Natal’s Oyster Box Hotel GM Wayne Coetzer. “I started here as GM in 2001. On my first night, I was walking around the restaurant introducing myself to guests and asking some of them when they had checked in. Believe it or not, one charming, elderly gentleman looked up with a twinkle and told me ‘1982’.

“On another occasion, I was called to a room by a crying guest. She claimed she’d been bitten by a fish when swimming in the sea and was now in terrible pain. I assumed it had been a small shark — are there any other fish that bite you?

“She was standing in her room naked when I arrived, and immediately presented me with her buttocks. I could see she’d been stung by a bluebottle. Oh, the perks of the job!”

Country House & Spa, Magaliesberg

“It was the festive season of 2003. December 23, in the heat of summer. I was manager on duty at Cape Town’s Twelve Apostles. My role included personally checking the rooms of arriving VIPs.

“So, off with an A4 notepad I go, to check 18 rooms. At room 210 I knock, open the door and call out — standard routine — then enter. All good. The bathroom is immediately to the left and I start the check there. Five minutes later, entering the bedroom, I find the occupants have already checked in, are kitted out in plastic Santa and Mrs Santa outfits and are seriously making out on top of the writing desk.

“I stumble. He looks up. I apologise and have the retort ready: ‘I am so sorry to have disturbed Mr and Mrs Santa, and while I am here, is there anything I can get you?’

“On the whole, a standard experience. Bar the fact that we were asked later by one of the housekeeping team for a gate pass — the official permission to take something that had been left in the trash or was among the lost and found items. And guess what it was? Plastic Santa and Mrs Santa outfits that had been sold by Adult World!”

Cape Town

“A media executive put a Chinese vase over his head as a prank during a birthday party in the penthouse at The Bay in Camps Bay, where I was GM. He couldn’t get it off, and someone phoned to tell me he’d broken it.

“I knew the executive, and when I was asked what the replacement cost would be, I jokingly said it was authentic Ming with a price tag of R35000. I had to call him later, when we heard he’d approached the bank for a loan and had cancelled the swimming pool he had planned to build.

“Life was never boring at The Bay. One Monday at 12.45am I was woken at home to be told the hotel was on fire. I went from deep sleep to complete alertness in a second. I issued a few instructions on the phone and then raced to the hotel.

“Our small team had been enlarged, not only by other staff members who had been called in, but also by people who had been drinking next door and came to help. While we were extinguishing the fire, which was on the top floor, we brought the guests who were staying there down to reception and prepared vacant rooms for them. One excited couple wanted to take a short cut by jumping two storeys from their balcony. We had to advise them that it was not a good idea. By 3am all were fed, watered and re-roomed. Interesting times.”

Horst Frehse, GM of the Twelve Apostles Hotel, Cape Town

“I was doing my practical at the Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva in 1976, when petrol prices were very high, the wealthiest Middle East sheiks dominated the hotel guest market and night prostitution flourished.

“One night I was at the reception desk when I saw four scantily dressed young women pressing the lift button. When it arrived, they dropped the little they were wearing and departed naked in the lift, giggling. A surprise for their wealthy customers. Soon afterwards, at about 6am, I received a phone call from a Middle East guest. He sounded desperate but could not communicate except that he spoke a little French. He kept on phoning. Eventually, at 7am, my Frenchspeaking relief receptionist arrived. He got hold of the man and immediately called for an ambulance. The guest had a prostitute with him and for some reason the two of them had tried to commit suicide by cutting their wrists, but had then changed their minds.

“Africa was another story. I was in Namibia in the years leading up to independence, managing Protea’s Kalahari Sands in Windhoek. We hosted the UN’s Untag peacekeeping force, as well as administrators, generals and business people from SA pursuing the lucrative UN deals. Occupancies increased from around 55% to 120%. Guests were paying hotel prices in private homes. After the last SA Airways flight of the day had arrived at 10pm, there would usually be some guest floating despondently around reception [without a room to go to].

“It was mostly the disorganised UN contingents that were causing these overbooked situations. They would arrive in huge delegations, book four suites and 20 rooms and then, without telling us, extend their stay indefinitely, simply by not checking out. It was chaotic.

“When one day I confronted a general he advised me that [if I took steps to deal with the situation] my actions could jeopardise Namibia’s independence efforts. If I wanted to force his delegation to depart, he said, I would have to put my case to Carl von Hirschberg, who was then administrator-general.”

Source: Financial Mail