Planning The Experience.

The kettle in the photo was taken in a room in a fairly expensive, exclusive hotel in Sydney. The hotel provides each room with a gourmet selection of complementary teas, replenished daily. So what's the problem?

Firstly, the kettle and cable were wrapped up and packed away in an unmarked cupboard on the opposite side of the room to the tea. Second, there were no spare power points available in a convenient place in the room to actually plug in the kettle (I ended up unplugging a lamp). And finally, the power cable for the kettle was precisely long enough so that - once plugged in - you couldn't actually lift it up off the table to pour a cup of tea, you had to unplug it first.

I didn't have a major problem working any of this out, except it wasn't my room (I'm not the target audience for the hotel) - it was for my 76-year old grandmother. How was she supposed to crawl under a table to make a cup of tea?

I can think of two possible options; Either little or no thought has actually been put into the guest experience at this hotel (where the nightly rate is more than many people earn in a week), or there has been a concious effort to discourage guests from entertaining themselves as an alternative to room service or the restaurant.

I'm not sure which is worse.