The Bintan hotel where a Singaporean guest was caught on video ranting at a staff member wants to share its side of the story.
In response to a Stomp query, Mr Eric Saw, director of Doulos Phos The Ship Hotel, sent Stomp a letter on Friday (June 9).
The letter is excerpted below with the name of the guest replaced by the pseudonym Mask Crusader:
We are somewhat hesitant to respond as we would like to avoid a "he said-she said" exchange, we feel we must so that your readers will have both sides of the account.
The gist of it all, without going into too great detail is as follows:
In the early morning hours of Tuesday, May 30, at about 2am, an elderly lady was walking along our Deck 4 cabin corridor (and we subsequently confirmed that she is Mask Crusader's mother) and was knocking at the door of another guest's cabin.
The guest did not know who was knocking and was afraid to open the door and naturally called our security.
When our crew arrived outside the cabin, the old lady said that didn't know where her cabin was.
After a quick check, our crew found a nearby cabin door slightly ajar, and after confirming that that was her cabin, we wanted to guide her back to her cabin but found that she had walked towards our external staircase and was about to step out. Fearing for her safety considering her frail-looking condition, we immediately guided her back to her cabin and knocked on the door.
Her elderly husband was asleep and didn't know she had walked out of the cabin and was thankful that our crew had brought her safely back.
When our director was informed, he was concerned that the lady may go out of her cabin again, so we decided to check with Mask Crusader (we knew they were related as they checked in together we heard him refer to the elderly gentleman as "dad").
We then went to Mask Crusader's cabin and knocked on the door. From inside his cabin and without opening the door, he told us to go away as he and his child wanted to sleep.
From outside the door, we asked if the lady was his relative because we were concerned that she might walk out again in the middle of the night.
He then shouted and got extremely aggravated and refused to tell us if he was related to the lady. We tried to explain and repeatedly asked if she was his mother or in some way related to her. Instead, he chose not to answer that question and said that he had put a "do not disturb" sign on the door and accused us of being stupid because we did not understand the meaning of "do not disturb".
We tried to explain that we were concerned for the elderly lady's safety as she had almost walked to the external staircase and may be at risk of falling, et cetera. (If he had replied and for example said that he was not related to the elderly lady, we would have apologised and moved on).
He then opened the door, came out of his cabin and shouted that we do not understand the meaning of "do not disturb". He pointed his forefinger menacingly close to our director, used vulgarities and said he will wake all our guests up. Our director then asked him to please not point his finger, especially so close to the face. He disregarded the request and continued to point his finger and shout, using the F-word many times.
Another guest who was disturbed by his shouting opened their cabin door and told him to please stop shouting as they too had children who wanted to sleep. He disregarded that guest and continued shouting, again saying that he will wake every guest in our hotel (presumably by his shouting).
He also asked us where the elderly lady was, and we replied that we had brought her back to her cabin. He then again shouted that if she was back in her cabin, why were we disturbing him?
We tried to explain that when she first left her cabin, her husband was asleep and did not know that she had walked out. Thus, we wanted to keep him informed so that he could perhaps speak with the elderly couple or something. But despite repeatedly asking him if he was related to the elderly lady, for some inexplicable reason he chose not to answer this question.
Our reason for asking this is that if he were to say he is not related to her, we would apologise and not pursue the matter further with him. We just needed to hear from him even though we knew from earlier contact, et cetera, that he was related to her.
His father in the meantime had also come out and told him to not continue shouting as everything was settled. He disregarded his father's instruction and continued shouting.
Our concern was for the safety of the old lady, but he continued to make unfounded accusations about us and demanded to check out immediately and a refund. We told him that we were not in a position to give him a refund and he continued to make disparaging remarks about how stupid we were, et cetera.
Note: When our engineer found the elderly lady, she was about to walk out of the cabin corridor onto the external staircase. Naturally, we were concerned that if she left her cabin again and wandered out to the external staircase at Deck 4 in the darkness of the night and in unfamiliar surroundings, she may be in danger of falling, et cetera.
But instead, Mask Crusader said if she walked out of our hotel, shouldn't our security stop her from leaving? But we tried to explain that we were not referring to her leaving the hotel premises but the danger of her (in her state) walking out onto the external staircase.
When we tried to establish if he was related to the lady, he refused to answer. In the morning at our hotel lobby, he said to us that whether she is a relative of his or not is none of our business.
At the lobby, a shouting argument developed and he took out his mobile phone to video us. What was quite unacceptable was when he put his phone just inches away from our director's face when videoing - that was when our director brushed his hand away. It is rude and very intimidating to video an altercation at such close quarters. It also is provocative and an invasion of privacy.
@maskcrusader6 The rude and arrogant Singaporean owner of Doulos Phos Hotel in Bintan who insisted a power outage was not their responsibility and then woke their guests up at 3am for a non emergency "out of concern" despite being asked not to disturb.
♬ 兴旺发 - 福建版大合唱
He continued to shout questions at us but refused to give us a chance to answer his questions with his non-stop bantering.
We have not addressed other issues, for example, regarding a short electrical power failure that affected a wide cross-section of hotels and properties with Bintan Resorts. That is another matter altogether which again he had made unfounded and serious allegations. Incidentally, power was restored within a few short minutes.
And when power was restored, we went from cabin to cabin to enquire if the guests were alright. Our explanation was unfortunately construed by him as shifting blame, et cetera. In fact, when we had checked with him regarding the power outage, he did not display any anger and we were assured by all guests that everything was alright.
Mask Crusader had also made several derogatory statements to our crew when he was at our hotel lobby that morning. What was very upsetting was when always with a loud voice, he said to our crew who was arranging his check-out as requested that their boss had no balls to face him. It certainly is a derogatory, rude, and uncalled-for statement.
We shall spare you the rather ugly details and his choice of crude and disrespectful words in front of our crew in our hotel lobby.
All we were trying to achieve was to ensure that his mother was safe and would not wander out again in the dark wee hours of the morning.
Never did we ever expect that our concern would have drawn such an unwarranted response from him.
Initially, we were just surprised that he appeared not to be concerned about his mother's well-being, but when he continued to be abusive and rude, we too became understandably annoyed.
We have decided not to harbour any ill will and would prefer to just put this whole incident behind us. But to protect our hotel's interests, I have asked my team to check if he continues to post unsavoury messages and photos, et cetera. I hope all concerned will exercise due discretion.
This article was first published in Stomp. Permission required for reproduction.