Thirsty, called into hotel for directions but refused water.

Was driving in North Wales, lost and looking for a campsite where I was visiting friends. Couldn't find it at all along this road, and got to the point where I thought of stopping somewhere and asking for any directions if a local had heard of it. I was also very thirsty, at first a side issue but getting a bit more serious as I hadn't found the place I was looking for as easily as I first thought and nowhere seemed open. So I swung into this hotel, it had a daunting winding uphill drive complete with the sort of speed bumps most local councils would salivate over.
I pulled up, it was a building that looked like a stately home, with mostly very obviously expensive cars parked around it. I called into the reception and it was like something out of a hollywood movie, a nice cosy fireplace and a very lavish decor. When I could find someone, I got put on to someone who turned out to be the hotels manager. I told him about the local campsite I was looking for and he gave me some admittedly rough directions with a couple of snide comments about missing something obvious, and then I asked for some water, which he just abjectly refused to give. Sensing I was hitting a brick wall and wasn't going to get my thirst resolved in a traditional way, I offered to buy something at the bar, no dice, he just wanted me out o his hotel sharpish, I was practically ushered back outside.

Luckily I did find where I needed to be, but only really after a local stopped and asked why I was stopped in the road and gave me some directions that were better again, I was actually resorting to stopping at every last place along the road and checking if it was a campsite or not, visibility was that bad by this time on a saturday night that I could hardly make out anything as I was driving past it.

The plus side, ended up pulling into a campsite with the intention of asking directions there only to see my friends walking towards me, that and the scenery around Tywyn and on the A493 was absolutely spectactular, well it was when I could see it!

I did later have an entertaining time reading some hilariously bad reviews on TripAdvisor of the same hotel before contributing one of my own based on the experience I had just had which I classed as "mans inhumanity to man".
Still annoyed about it, I just rang them tonight at 1.15am demanding an explanation. It was timed deliberately, they really didn't like it but we ended up almost getting on in a weird kind of way, this was after the threats of calling police etc, he, the Basil Fawlty character apparently mistrusted everybody who wasn't an official customer after having previous bad experiences of being "done over". I explained there was no way I could form an instant good impression and sometimes there has to be a little trust of strangers or else it all breaks down, I also tried to drive home the potentially dire consequences of turning down someones request for water if they were potentially diabetic, or were lost in the countryside having turned to somewhere with a light on, as a relatively public place to turn down such a request I thought was very callous and outrageous. His response was that I could have easily gone to a pub in the area, of course even being a fan of maps and the geography of North Wales as I am, I had no real knowledge of that particular area and as far I was concerned didn't know where the hell to go! so if I hadn't found somewhere, I think I could have been in for something a bit more serious to go wrong as a result of not drinking water for hours upon hours, everywhere seemed to be shut, even to find a 24 hour garage is usually a 30-40 mile ordeal as I quite vividly recall from the time I left with less petrol I realised and ended up into the yellow light by the time I could finally get to one of the THREE 24 hour garages in the whole of North West Wales!

I could post a link to the TripAdvisor page, but I will wait to see how the thread goes first. What I can say, is the bad reviews, all point to extreme moneygrabbing and mercenary tendencies which is sadly all too typical of this world." - http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2002464