Talk about getting Bonvoyed…
Singapore is known for having some of the strongest anti-drug laws in the world, so what happens when you combine that with a philosophy of “if you see something, say something?”
As reported by Mothership, someone shared their experience staying at the W Hotel Singapore Sentosa Cove from November 9-10, 2019, and it sounds like the stay didn’t go great, to put it mildly. She wrote a TripAdvisor review, and also documented the incident on Instagram.
The guest was staying at the hotel for her birthday, and apparently there was a problem with the bathroom door in her room, where it wouldn’t open at around 2AM when there were two friends stuck inside of it (which raises a lot of other questions, none of which should cause police involvement, though). She called the hotel for help, and they sent someone up.
I guess the person being sent up was being extra observant, because before they knew it the police showed up at their room, handcuffed them, and detained them at the police station for 14 hours.
What happened? The guest had brought a powdered deodorant called Tawas, and the hotel staff member who showed up in the room noticed it, thinking she was hosting a drug party.
Obviously it’s completely unacceptable that she was detained for 14 hours due to this. If the cause of this alarm was the powder, you’d think the police showing up and inspecting the powder would be enough.
At the same time, I also understand why the hotel wouldn’t confront her directly about it, because if they do suspect it’s a drug party then it’s over their head at that point, especially in a place like Singapore.
It would be stupid to confront someone directly about drugs, as if they’d likely never admit they were using drugs in Singapore.
Still, everything about the way this ended up seems completely ridiculous.
While it’s in no way this woman’s fault that this happened, perhaps another lesson here is that if you’re going to pack a white powder deodorant, maybe keep it in the original packaging?
What do you make of this situation — did the hotel staff do the wrong thing by reporting this, was the real problem that it took 14 hours to resolve this, or what?
(Tip of the hat to Jeff)
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