This is a follow up to my last post about how we got to Wengen. https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/switzerland/everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-how-we-got-to-wengen-but-were-afraid-to-ask
So after a very long and stressful day, Wifey and I turn in for the night, looking forward to a long and restful sleep. But at 3 am, the room phone rings. Since it is next to Wifey, she picks it up. “Hello.” There is no one on the other end. Hang up. “That was weird.”
The next night, I got into my cups in the hotel basement bar with some newfound British friends. Wifey had gone to bed, and it seems that the hotel would keep the bar open as long as guests pleased, so it got to be a late one. At one point, one of my new friends pulled out a supply of cigars and asked if I cared for one. But of course. So he lit my cigar and I said “Thanks, nothing like a good smoke!” Suddenly Wifey is at the door yelling at me to go to bed. I swear she pulled me out of the bar by my ear. My British friends were highly amused to say the least.
On the way up to the room, Wifey scolded. “It is 3 am! The phone rang again. This time there was a voice on the other end that I could not make it out. You were not in bed and I thought it was you and you were in trouble! Then I find you yucking it up in the bar.”
Next night we went to bed at a decent hour, and like clockwork, the phone rang at 3 am. This time there was a clear voice on the other end. “Ms F, this is Hotel Manager Urs. Why you call and wake me every night at 3 am?” Wifey, “I am not calling you, you are calling me!” Then a pause. “I think I know the problem. I will send some someone up to your room tomorrow and correct it. Good night Ms F.”
So here is what happened. Unbeknownst to us, the room phone could be programmed to make a wake-up call. The instructions were next to the phone, but in German, so we paid them no mind. The previous occupant of the room had to get the 5 am train out of Wengen, probably to make a flight out of Zurich airport. So they programmed a 3 am wake-up ring to then shower, pack, and make themselves look beautiful for the flight. They neglected to cancel the wake-up call, so the phone would ring at 3 am every night forever unless somebody reprogrammed it. And that is what the hotel did the next day and we were able to sleep soundly (or soundlessly) for the rest of the week.
Now, how did Hotel Manager Urs get involved with this? It turns out that in order to maintain a 4 star rating for the hotel; they had to have 24-7 front desk service. So to do that, Hotel Manager Urs slept on a cot in a room behind the front desk with the telephone exchange. For safety reasons I assume, when a guest picked up the phone in the room after hours, it automatically rang the front desk with an indicator as to which room was calling. So not only were we getting woken up at 3 am, so was the hotel manager.
As the week went on, Urs and Wifey developed quite a relationship. In fact she became his go to gal whenever any members of our group stepped out of line. “Ms F, your people are doing it again” (being naughty). One particular incident, we had a couple from California. They thought that the wine prices in the restaurant were excessive, so they bought bottles of wine at the Coop and brought them into the restaurant for dinner. Now people from California must think the laws of the State of California apply all over the world. You are allowed to do that in California, but you can’t do that in Wisconsin and you certainly can’t do that in Switzerland. So Urs was in a quandary how to handle the situation. Wifey says “Why don’t you charge them a 10 Franc corkage fee. They are used to that in California.” Urs says “Good idea. That is what I will do.” Then as he turned to leave, “Can I charge them 20?”
Anyway, it was a good week of skiing in the Berner Oberland.