Door Locks

Years ago, during one of our trips to Orlando, we had troubles with the door locks on our last night in the Condo.  We decided to make the best of our last night and catch the fireworks display at the WDW Magic Kingdom.  All done, we headed back to the hotel.

We had already packed up most things since we had an early morning flight home.  We arrive at our door after midnight.  Guess what, none of the four keys would work on the door.  We sent Matthew to the front desk to get the keys recoded.  What are the odds that none of our keys would work?  Matthew arrives back with the new keys, and no luck! WTH????

We called the front desk, and they said a maintenance man would be right over.  Turns out the magnetic lock have an internal battery that had run dry.  No key was going to open that door.  The maintenance man called another maintenance man who arrived with a "Sheppard's hook".  He slid that sucker under the door, grabbed the handicap door handle, and opened the door.  Yes!  we are in!  Thirty minutes later, the door lock was operational with a new set of batteries installed.  By now it was past 2:00 a.m.  Four hours we were headed to the airport.  Don't remember much about that trip, but I will never forget about that damned door lock experience.

Fast forward to August 2015.  We just checked into our condo in Panama City Beach.  26 floors of Condo heaven, right on the beach!  Keys in hand, we head to the room.  Twelfth floor, bet the view is gonna be great.  Well crap.  Keys don't work on the lock!  Flashback to Orlando trip!  Three keys and all we get is a red flashing light.  Well, at least the lock battery works!  A maintenance guy just happens to walk by, and he tries his super secret magic button.  It doesn't work!  I then remember that I gave the fourth key to our friends that will be staying with us.  Where in the heck are they??

Something inside tells me to knock on the door.  To my delight, their daughter open the door!  She hard turned the deadbolt on the door when they came in 10 minutes earlier.  Apparently the deadbolt lock turns off the magnetic code within the door.

What is it about me and door locks on vacation!  Now I have two sets of memories about vacations and magnetic locks to clutter my brain!  Where there I two, number three can't be far behind!