Brisbane, Australia Gone WRONG

I know I said I was going to post about our stay in Cairns next, but I thought this would be MUCH more entertaining since this is our first stay gone wrong!! As mentioned in all of my other Australia posts, our trip has been unbelievably incredible and a dream come true. Since I have kept all of you guys in the loop about all of our breathtaking experiences, the time has come where we have experienced our first couple bumps in the road. Basically, our two night trip to Brisbane was a complete bust!!!
Here’s why- PS: Make sure you don’t stop reading until you’ve heard about the grossest part of the story,.. (You’ll find out soon)

We started off our trip to Brisbane by learning that early flights are the best way to travel and still be able to have majority of your day! Mentioned in my latest blog post ( Our Guide to Sydney, Australia ) we thought it was a “rookie mistake” taking the early flight from Sydney to Cairns. After our 3pm flight from Cairns- Brisbane we learned that after wasting an entire day on travel, the early flight (like we took leaving Sydney) would have definitely been the best way to go.

By the time we got our luggage, left the airport, and checked into our hotel, Morgan Suits it was around 8pm. Morgan Suites was our accommodation for our entire trip to Brisbane, which ended up being a horrible mistake! We started off having a rough check in, by having to make three different phone calls to find the key to our room, and then another phone call to find out which room we were in because the room they told us didn’t exist  (we had to do this because their reception desk closes at 5pm, and this was their after hours “procedure”) . By the time we got access to our room, all we wanted to do was take a shower and go for a nice meal. This night, we learned that our hot water didn’t exist and the only temperature we could get was freezing cold. This was pretty annoying but after the check in we just had, neither of us really cared.
After getting all freshened up, we took an Uber to the Spaghetti House which was actually the best dinner we’ve had so far on our trip, and ended up being the best thing about our visit to Brisbane?!!! At dinner, we had bruschetta to start, shared an incredible ricotta and spinach ravioli, and an arrabbiata penne dish. To drink we split a pitcher of sangria, and got a little tiramisu for dessert. The pastas were to DIE for and I can honestly say I haven’t had that great of Italian food in my life!

Day two in Brisbane is where our troubles started occurring. We were able to sleep in which was very needed, and then we headed over to the Beer Garden for drinks and lunch. Since it was Sunday there was a really cute market going on which was walking distance from the Beer Garden. Our lunch wasn’t the greatest, but we continued on with the hot day and to our next stop being the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. It was a $24 Uber ride to the sanctuary where Erika got sick, and we found out the koala holdings were sold out for the day (a huge reason on why we wanted to come). After talking to one of the employees we discovered you can’t reserve a spot online, and its based on a first come, first serve basis. She also mentioned groups are able to reserve spots from third party companies, but unless we are a big tour group we are unable to do that. After being disappointed with this visit we found another Koala and Kangaroo Sanctuary in one of our upcoming stops. Finding out this new information, we made the decision to go to the sanctuary in Burleigh Heads, take another $25 Uber back, grab our swim suits and check out the Southbank City beach and unwind. This beach was awesome to check out because it was the first man made beach I’ve ever been to. The weather was around 34C, and after around thirty minutes on the beach it started pouring rain which is when we decided it was a good time to call it quits on our beach trip. We made the decision that based on the day we had, we would just go to a grocery store, pick up some food, a couple bottles of wine, and make dinner at our hotel.

Back at the Morgan Suites Hotel, we thought it’d be a good idea to take a dip in the pool and wash away our worries. After swimming, we were excited to take hot showers, jump into our pjs, and start dinner. When we returned to our rooms soaking wet, we were about to shower when there was absolutely no hot water coming out… again. This time, we decided to call the front desk where they told us maintenance would come up in no more than twenty minutes and fix our problem. 35 minutes passed, and no maintenance person. When we called back a second time, they promised the manager was on their way (who I guess is also the maintenance person) and they would be no longer than 10 minutes. Another 20 minutes passed, and still no manager. In the mean time of waiting for the manager (just so we could shower), a fuse blew, shut down the fridge, washer and dryer machine, and completely burnt my iPhone charger (my charger was literally SMOKING, and as I’m writing this I realize how happy I am that I can finally laugh about this awful night). Now having a new, and an additional problem, we really needed a manager to come to our room.

It took a total of five phone calls to be told each time that the manager was coming. It took over an hour and a half of us waiting to shower, start dinner, and holding us from completing our wash, for a manager that even after an hour and a half still never came. Our last phone call was the most disturbed because after we decided we would just start dinner (instead of waiting to do it after the manager came) we pulled out the pot we were going to use for soup which was full of rust,  random brown liquid, and also full of MAGGOTS. When we called the manager for the last time, we sent pictures of the pot and maggots, and she sat there having no idea what to say. When we asked what she was going to do about this problem, she explained she was 40 minutes away and “how typical this is” of the on-site manager to not show up. After listening to her bash her own staff in a very unprofessional manner, she gave us directions to another key for a complete different room to spend the night in. She explained to us that she would be working the next morning, so to come visit her at the desk when we wake up, and we’d work everything out.  After being exhausted from having to deal with all this,  we made dinner in our now clean apartment (yay), drank our wine and called it a night.

8:00 in the morning is when we were randomly awoken to our loud, hotel phone ringing continuously until we picked up. When we answered it was the manager from last night asking if it was fine if maintenance came in to fix the water of the room in our old, vacant room. 10am was our check out time, so to be awoken from the manager so they could fix a problem that wasn’t even a problem for their guests anymore, (instead of waiting till we checked out) was pretty annoying. When we woke up, we made our way to the front desk and prepared for another annoying conversation with their unprofessional hotel staff. A long story short of our conversation is, when I explained the obvious of how all of these problems were not okay, the General Manger told me it was my fault (I’m laughing right now while reliving this moment in my head). He explained that I should of called the first night after our check in (that was miserable, and tedious) and we should of complained about the water. ***SIDE NOTE: When there are a pot full of maggots you’re about to cook your dinner in, the original problem of no hot water DOES NOT MATTER NOW!**
Anyways, when he repeatedly told me it was my fault for these problems, I interrupted and said “So to understand, it was my fault there was no hot water, my fault a fuse broke with having one thing plugged in, my fault my iPhone charger got fried and burned, and my fault there were maggots in a pot we tried to use.” After he listened to how ridiculous this sounded, he explained how it was just my fault for there being no hot water. Ok, thanks General Manager. When we told him about how we waited for the manager who was suppose to be on her way to our room, who never showed up, he first accused of us lying and then after looking at my call logs, and speaking to the other female manager realized we were right.

Overall, from always working in customer service and specializing in the restaurant and hotel industry, I know what treating a guest is supposed to look like. From dealing with The Morgan Suites horrible professionalism, dirty hotel rooms, not loyal and very disrespectful staff, it would have just made sense to stay at another hostel! Obviously, when the owner found out about this situation, he refunded our entire stay. So, looking on the bright side when we left that place, we left a couple hundred dollars richer! I celebrated this news with buying an iced coffee from next door that I soon realized was made with expired ingredients (LOL my luck). 

I am so happy that I am able to write this blog post crying with laughter. Remembering these feelings of anger, annoyance and being extremely grossed out and but being obviously 100% physically and emotionally okay from this, it’s good to laugh about these things. This was a huge reminder for us that travelling isn’t always going to be a piece of cake, and is definitely not as easy as Instagram makes it look! We are so thankful that this has still been the only bad experience we’ve had with having spent almost three weeks in Australia! If anything bad happens to you or friends while travelling, and at the end of the day everyone is OK, realize that this will be an awful memory you’ll be able to laugh about for years.