Well been gone from US for a week. I hope that the rest of my trip will be as educational. wonderful and add to my life experiences was this trip to the Amazon Rainforest. I woke up at 10AM at the Holiday Inn Hotel in Manaus. No early rising to see the sunset, or morning trips to see an indigenous tribe, or handle wild animals, or swim in the Amazon Basin, or have a 2 hour siesta in a hammock in the jungle. Nope, just a regular day in a soft bed and a breakfast buffet. I was a little restless last night, even woke up early this morning thinking I was slapping mosquitos. Well all my clothes are pretty much dry, so I venture down to the restaurant for the breakfast buffet. I'm 15 minutes too late.
Then probably one of the best customer service experiences I've ever had occurred.
The dining room manager who had told me that the buffet was over 15 minutes ago noticed my frustration, didn't help I used the F word. Sorry mom. The manager calls over one of the waitpersons, Carlos, and says something to him in Portuguese. Carlos takes me back into the kitchen and starts pulling food from the refrigerators. He hands me two plates and says to take what I want; cheeses, salmon, etc. Then he calls over someone else and ask if I would like some eggs. I say if no trouble, yes. The gentleman ended up frying me up 4 eggs over easy and had grabbed some bacon off a tray and said take as much as you want. Then after some translation problems, they fixed me a smoothie. They had me pick out what fruit and veggies I wanted in the concoction. After picking up a few more odds and ends from one of the fridges. I go back to my table a bit dumbfounded. This shit never happens to people! I called over Carlos and the dining room manager, Sesas, and ask if I could meet their boss so I could tell them what a great thing they had done for me. His response was, "no, he might get mad I did this after hours" Really? He did say if I wanted to fill out a response card on line he would be happy with that. After I finished the meal, I go to the counter to pay. The Dining Room Manager, Sesas, is manning the register and says the register is already closed "no cost". I go to pull out some tip money and he refuses to accept it. Just tells me to have a good day. HUH! That crew I hope gets moved up in the managerial ranks. I did fill out a survey on line and raved about the service but did not want to give details. I didn't want them to get fired for "good customer service."
I go back to my room and get ready to pack. I lung my 60 lb bag, a gym bag carry-on and my back pack down to the lobby. The go-fer from the tour group is there and picks up and loads my bag as I check out. Luckily the traffic isn't bad so we make the airport in less than 30 minutes. The Manaus Airport has had a very extensive upgrade. Several World Cup Football (Soccer) games were played in the new Manaus stadium just a few months ago. Sixty-five thousand seats were built for the new stadium, that now stands idle. A $250M US$ stadium that is now collecting dust. My flight leaves at 5PM and gets into Rio at 10:30 PM, there is a one hour time difference, forward. I'm staying at the airport hotel, Lynx. since the BnB I was in before was dreadful and thus I cancelled the reservation for two nights. The Lynx hotel is very different. There are no frills. The rooms are spartan, but the beds are comfortable. No free soaps or shampoos or any of those other freebies. If you want them, they direct your attention to the 24 hour store/cafe downstairs. But, I'm okay with that. I just want to get on that plane and get to RIO.
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