An Australian couple have wreaked havoc in China after overfilling their private spa and flooding their luxury hotel.
Graham Bernard and his wife Jodie were on their dream holiday when they booked a room at the five-star Iseya Panoramic Hotel in Chongqing.
Video shared on social media captures the moment the duo hurriedly assist hotel staff in removing buckets of water from an enormous bathtub, which was overflowing and causing a “flood on the floors below.”
“We might have flooded downstairs with our big pool because we filled it up too much,” the couple said.
The “50 floors in the sky room” offers sweeping views and its own massive tub, featuring a small sign reminding guests to switch off the taps once it is full.
“We’d seen the hotel on TikTok and thought it looked incredible, so we made sure to get a room with a pool,” Graham, 49, told What’s The Jam.
The Sydney gym owner and his wife had left the room for the day, asking the hotel to fill the tub for them in the meantime.
“We came back, put our swimwear on, opened a bottle of champagne, and unwound. Suddenly, we started receiving messages about water and flooding,” he recounted.
Screenshots show a hotel staff member reaching out to Graham at around 7pm saying: “Excuse me, is there any bathtub water in your room?”
“Could you please turn off the water in the bathtub? There will be water leakage downstairs after it is full,” they added.
“We didn’t think we’d need to turn the water off in a wet-edge pool – we weren’t doing dive bombs or doing [anything] deliberately,” Graham said.
“Dramatically, the doorbell rang, and all of a sudden it felt like a CSI TV scene.”
The situation necessitated intervention from a manager and three cleaners, who quickly pointed out a sign written in the local dialect instructing guests to shut off the taps.
The clip, which has amassed over 16 million views, has left social media divided.
“Why would you think this is funny? I hope they charged you,” one viewer wrote.
“Ok this isn’t funny. Usually I’m all for antics but this is just inconveniencing so many people,” another said.
“So you guys started splashing around and making everyone else’s lives hell,” wrote a third.
Others were able to see the amusing side of the situation.
“This hotel room looks incredible! (Minus the faulty overflow drain, obviously)”, joked one viewer.
“That seems like a design flaw, there’s no way you could have known,” another said.
Graham revealed that staff later discovered the issue was due to a drain blockage and apologized for the trouble.
“They were great with us and apologized every time we saw them. And yes – we did use the bath again!”
