XVII. A potential guest is phoning a country house hotel about differences between the rooms. Complete the sentences using degrees of comparison.

Hotel: Good afternoon, Farmer Court Hotel. How can I help you?

Guest: Good afternoon. I'm phoning to ask you about the three suites you feature in your brochure — the Yellow, the Silver and the Pink. I'm trying to decide which one would be 1) ________ (suitable) for me. Are they all more or less the same?

Hotel: No, they are all individually designed. I'll start with the Yellow suite — it has a single bed, a sitting-room and an en-suite bathroom. It costs £ 70 per night, so it's 2) ________ (cheap) of the three suites, but of course it is also 3) ______ (small) of the three because it is for one person.

Guest: How much 4) _______ (big) are the other two?

Hotel: About twice the size. The Silver is quite a lot 5) _________ (spacious) than the Yellow, and has a double bed, en-suite bathroom, and a small dining-room. It's a little 6) _________ (expensive) and costs £ 85 per night per person, but that does not include dinner for two. It's the only suite on the top floor, so it has 7) _________ (good) view of the city.

Guest: And what is the Pink Suite like?

Hotel: Well, it's £ 105 per person per night including dinner, so it's our 8) _________ (expensive) suite, but it's also our 9) ________ (popular) one, and reservations need to be made well in advance. It is 10) _________ (large) than either the Yellow or the Silver, and it's 11) ________ (quiet) than them because it's at the back of the hotel.

Guest: Thank you very much. I'll be in touch again soon.

Read out the dialogue again and sum up the in­formation about the suites. What suite do you think the guest will choose? Why do you think so?

XVIII. Read the three dialogues between a prospec­tive guest and the information desk at three different hotels. Decide which class of a ho­tel is offered in each.

Dialogue 1

Caller: And what about the facilities within the rooms?

Receptionis t: OK. The rooms are on the third floor over­looking the park. They are en-suite with bath and shower in each. All our rooms have a colour television and a telephone in them. There are coffee-and tea-making fa­cilities. There's a mini-bar and trouser press, too.

 

Dialogue 2

Caller: What facilities do your rooms offer?

Receptionis t: Well, the rooms you're interested in are quite unusual. First of all, let me say, they're on a split level. This means you go up to the sleeping area and then down f again to the bathroom. They have beauti­ful crystal chandeliers and still have the original high ceilings from the time it was; a country home. And, of course, they're fitted with all the necessary features of a modern hotel.

 

Dialogue 3

Caller: And what are the rooms like?

Receptionis t: They're medium-sized, I suppose. They're traditional,... homely. There's plenty of wardrobe space and the ladies like them because they've got large full-length mir­rors in each. What else can I say? Oh, well, the rooms facing south have a view, of the bay. That's about it, I think.

Act out a similar dialogue, enquiring about the facilities at the hotel you're planning to stay at.

XIX. Read the story about staying in a motel. Ana­lyse and discuss the information.

The site was a good one for tourists. There was this road through the forest and halfway along it was a small lake, called Dreamy Waters, that was a traditional favourite with the picnickers.

It was on the southern shore of this lake that the motel had been built, its reception lobby facing the road.

There were forty rooms with kitchen, shower, and lava­tory, and they all had some kind of view of the lake behind them.

The whole construction and design was the latest thing — air-conditioning, television in every cabin, children's playground, swimming-pool, golf range — all the gim­micks *. Food? Cafeteria in the lobby, and grocery and liquor deliveries twice a day from Lake George. All this for ten dollars single and sixteen double.

Those dreadful Phanceys' took me on as receptionist for only thirty dollars a week plus keep. What a couple! It seemed their receptionist had walked out twenty-four hours before and, what with the housekeeping and tidying up before they closed the place for the season, they would have no time to man the desk*. Would I care to take on the job of receptionist for the final two weeks — full board* and thirty dollars a week?

Now it happened that I could do very well with those sixty dollars and some free food and lodging. I had overspent at least fifty dollars on my tourist spree*,and this would just about square my books. Besides, this was the first job I had been offered on my travels and I was rather curious to see how I would make out. Perhaps, too, they would give me a reference at the end of my time, and this might help with other motel jobs on my way south. So, I said the idea would be fine. The Phanceys seemed very pleased and showed me the registration system, told me to watch out for people with little luggage and station wagons*, and took me on a quick tour of the establishment.

The business about the station wagons opened my eyes to the seamy side* of the motel business. It seemed that there were people, particularly young couples just married and in process of setting up house, who would check in at some lonely motel, carrying at least the minimum "pass­port" of a single suitcase. This suitcase would in fact con­tain nothing but a full set of precision tools, together with false license plates* for their roomy station wagon that would be parked in the carport alongside their cabin door. After locking themselves in and waiting for the lights to go out in the office, the couple would set to work on in­conspicuous things like loosening the screws of the bath­room fixtures, the anchoring of the TV set, and so on.

Once the management had gone to bed, they would really get down to it, making neat piles of bedding, towels, and shower curtains, dismantling light-fixtures, bed-frames, toilet seats, and even the Johns themselves if they had plumbing knowledge. They worked in darkness of course, with pencil flashlights, and, when everything was ready, say around two in the morning, they would quietly carry everything through the door into the carport and pile it into the station wagon. The last job would be to roll up the car­pets and use them to cover the contents of the station wagon.

Then change the plates and softly away with their new bedroom suite all ready to lay out in their unfurnished flat many miles away in another state!

Two or three hauls like that would also look after the liv­ing-room and spare bedroom, and they would be set up for life. If they had a garden, or a front porch, a few midnight forays around the rich out-of-town "swimming-pool" resi­dences would take care of the outdoor furniture, children's heavy playthings, perhaps even the lawnmower and sprin­klers.

Mrs Phancey said that motels had no defence against this sort of attack. Everything was screwed down that could be screwed down, and marked with the name of the motel. The only hope was to smell the marauders when they/ reg­istered and then either turn them away or sit up all night with a shotgun.

In cities motels had other problems — call girls who set up shop, murderers who left corpses in the shower, and occasional hold-ups for the money in the cash register. But I was not to worry. Just call for Jed if I smelled trouble. He could act real tough and he had a gun.

And, with this cold comfort, I was left to ponder on the darker side of the motel industry.

(adapted from "The Spy Who Loved Me" by Ian Fleming)

 

NOTES:

all the gimmicks sl. facilities

to man the desk to hire someone as a receptionist

to man = to fill the vacancy

full board free food and lodging

on tourist spree spending too much money on travelling

сравн. on a shopping
spree — spending
too much money on