Trapped on Holiday

Dream: We were staying in a vast hotel. It was a strange convention of sorts, media celebrities were there, but no one I recognised. The Monday came and we entered the lift with another couple  and we expected to go to our rooms to remove our stuff for the end of the holiday, but the whole area had changed, the rooms looked different and our passkeys didn't work.

I called down to reception. 

"Our rooms have gone, we were staying in the 'Nest' wing and the whole area's changed. It's got a different name now and it's even painted a different colour!" 

Reception was automated, and we were stuck. Our belongings were gone and we were stranded. Seems it was all a rouse by an old school friend. We waited in the large hotel common room, wondering what to do next. I found my boots, but I was interrupted before I could put them on.

"Look out! I put something in there to stop the spiders!"

A beetle crawled out. It seemed small, but grew to the size of my fist and started trundling around, attacking what seemed to be a jellyfish floating around the common room.

Stranded in this new location, my wife and I ended up working, selling crap to tourists. I was supposed to be on my lunch break when a grumpy, elderly woman and her demanding daughter stopped me.

"I don't see anything with dots on? You don't seem to have anything I was looking for!"

Confused I looked at a pile of cheap crap I supposed to be shelving, the same over processed packaging for some branded toy-line called "Dot".

"This what you mean?" I handed her some of the stuff and wandered off, leaving her to it. One of the toys was a bubbling fish, another seemed to be a sorting game where you had lots of different coloured glitter and you made pictures by arranging it with a pair of tweezers. 

"Who's going to actually do that?" I asked myself, and wandered into the back of the shop, taking off my tie. Behind the scenes of the shop was my old childhood house, huge and multiple floors. 

"Are you excited about your holiday?" S asked, "You're going to the coast with your wife!"

"But I am at the coast, I just can't get home," I thought. I handed my tie to the overly keen work experience kid who was heading up to the top floor of the house, to my old bedroom, and veered off towards to the bathrooms but they were both occupied. There's always someone in there when you need it.

Adventure: Being trapped or unable to get home is a common theme of dreams, but what of this huge, changing hotel? And what was going on with the beetle in the boots? The glitter game sounds like some ancient fairytale of keeping witches busy or confusing evil spirits, was the old woman a witch?