Day 852 to 857. Mon 28th August to Sunday 2nd Sep 2007
Well, kp was off to “sunny” Prague this week with Ronnie and Jane. kp and I love Prague and had always sung its praises to everyone. No more !!
Although the girls had a good time, they experienced another side of Prague, which will mean we won’t be going back.
The palaver started on the evening they got to the hotel.
The Hotel, btw, was the Hotel Jalta (off Wenceslas Square). It was picked because it was 4-star and close to the attractions. Normally, we stay a bit out of the centre and take the trams in, but that’s tricky for kp now.
Anyhoo, kp was knackered and wasn’t up to going out for a meal, so they decided to order room service. It arrived at the room and the order was wrong. This happened a further twice !!
By the time the third attempt came, it was clear that they were rewarming the correct dishes in the microwave as the salad garnish was wilted and the sauce congealed on the plate. Enough was enough and they ate what they had been given. When they came to drink the tea they had ordered, there was no milk, so they rang down for milk, and a New York lad who must have been on a year out from University, came up.
He brought the milk in and the tirade started……
Waiter :- “You are really messing us around now, we are getting sick of you downstairs.”
Ronnie :- “I beg your pardon”
The girls were agog, but he continued…..
Waiter :- “Your kind shouldn’t be staying in a hotel like this.”
(I think he meant that they were too common for the hotel).
Ronnie :- “Look, just give us the milk. I think you should leave the room”.
Waiter :- “Can you sign for the milk ?”
Jane :- “I don’t think so.”
Ronnie :- “Please leave the room. We are not signing for anything after that kind of abuse”.
Waiter :- “Well, should I pay for the milk, then……”
At that, he started delving into his pockets to get out the 50p for the milk.
Ronnie yelled at him to leave the room, and he did.
Needless to say, the girls took this up with the manageress and found a bottle of Champers in their room on a later evening.
You would think that was as bad as it would get, and service-wise it was, but the quality of the food wasn’t what kp and I had previously experienced.
They also had an incident with a taxi driver who took them on a 5-minute ride to the hotel, and then told them it was £20 (or equivalent Koruna). kp started to get out the money, but Jane (the human ready reckoner) said “No, that can’t be right”.
kp put the £20 (or equivalent) away and got out something smaller (£10 equivalent). He snatched this, jumped out of the car, ushered them out, and threw kp’s wheelchair out of the boot onto the pavement and sped off. The trip should have cost £5 (for the distance travelled).
So, not the nicest Czech welcome, but the girls, in their usual fashion, made light of all these incidents and in one way, it probably made the holiday, ‘cos of all the laughs they had about the incidents.
The other thing of note, is that every night, kp had a magnificent sleep, which goes to show that if she is kept busy during the day, she sleeps like a log 
She came home absolutely knackered. She slept from before the takeoff until after the landing, and all the way home in the car.
We are now minus an NHS walking stick and a hair dryer stand as she left these in a disabled loo and the hotel room (respectively). Thankfully we have a walking stick we bought in Lake Garda as fallback (the brown one that Jane borrowed in the photos below).
