Greetings from where ever the hell I am.
I know it's somewhere in Pennsylvania and I know it's somewhere near Hershey Park, but the particular hotel that I'm staying in is in the middle of fucking no where.
But it's on the way to somewhere because there is an awful lot of people staying here.
Out of the 9 or 10 that I've been to in 2008 this one comes in at #2 as being one of the worst.
I don't think of myself as a hotel snob, but there are a few criteria that I have for ranking the places I stay in.
#1 - Smell - the room should not smell of any of the following things: urine, cigarettes, smelly feet, body odor, mildew and any other unidentified foul smelling things. This is the FIRST thing I notice when I walk into a hotel room and unfortunately it usually sets my mood for the rest of my stay.
#2 - Carpet - it's hard to have a stain free carpet in a hotel room, but I prefer to be able to tell the difference between the pattern on the carpet and some unidentifiable stain.
#3 - Linens - Clean, fresh ones would be nice. I don't think that is too hard to ask for. I do not want to see someone else hair on a pillow that I am about to sleep on.
#4 - Bathroom - Here is another place that I would prefer not to see someone else's hair or a used q-tip in the trash can. Extra points if they fold the T.P. ends into a little point. That just shows class.
#5 - Outside Noise - I am staying in a room away from home in the same building as a few hundred other people. Do I have to hear each time someone opens their door and it slams shut with a bang even if I am on a different floor than they are?
#6 - Amenities - I like little shampoos, give them to me!
#7 - Room Service - This is a nice luxury especially after you have just driven 3 hours, got lost, and cried because you were so tired your eyeballs hurt, but it's not a deal breaker.
#8 - Furnishings - I don't spend a lot of time in the room normally when I travel, but if I have to I would like a chair to sit on that is semi-comfortable, isn't stained with ______ (fill in the blank if you must) and if it's a desk chair doesn't keep slowly sliding down to the floor. (right now my head is just about level with the top of the desk)
#9 - Hotel Staff - We the travelers who have come to your establishment are tired, we're hungry, we're grumpy, we're far away from home...could you at least Smile and tell me to have a nice day? Is that so hard to ask for?
#10 - Location - I know it's convenient to be next to a major highway, but I don't really like hearing trucks roaring past my window all night. Oh...and not near a train track either.
Most of the time I'm just looking for a bed, a shower and something to eat when I travel. It doesn't have to be posh, but clean is good. Some hotels do this better than others. I have been in expensive hotels that were dirty and cheap hotels that were spotless.
This room is relatively clean. There's a bit of mold around the tiles in the bathroom, not a big deal, stains on the carpet, stains on the ceiling (I don't want to know how that got there, but it's impressive), the chair sliding thing is a bit annoying but now I'm so tired I'm giggling to myself every time I make it all the way down to the bottom and have to pull the lever to make it go back up again!
What makes this room #2 is the smell - urine, with a slight poopy diaper under tone and soft essence of mildew.
:::gag:::
I keep telling myself it's only for 1 night...you can do this. Thank goodness for Ambien and ear plugs!!!
Since I'm petrified of some weird trucker person attacking me in the middle of night, I won't tell you the name of the hotel that I'm at or it's exact location. I will just say this...the chain is named in this song:
If you know the song...you'll know the hotel...otherwise you'll just have to listen carefully!
Good night all! Enjoy your bed!
Thursday, September 11, 2008
On the road again...
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7 comments:
Oh you poor thing! I feel for ya'. I did way too much traveling for education when I was with Fedex. I usually stayed in nice hotels and still do with my current job. The worst hotel ever was one in Portland. I got in really late, didn't have a reservation anywhere, I was tired, irritable(you know the drill) and past hungry. I get the key, walk down the hall past someone's used condom, open the door, the smell - OH MY GOD!, the bathroom had a metal, rusted shower insert, the sheets were stained. I rolled up my jacket for a pillow and slept between the blanket and the bedspread. Left the next morning without a shower. Nasty, nasty!!!
Damn! I can't play You Tube at work, Shazza.
What you really need to do is move to a country that's so tiny that hotels aren't needed.
And EW! That goes for you, too, Vic.
I can travel clear across England and half of Wales to attend a meeting in Cardiff and still get home in time for tea.
We do apparently have hotels but they're only for tourists or people having affairs.
Just...ew.
Narsty Ick.
I can empathize. I got the creeps one night at this hotel in SF. There must have been a curry cooking factory in there five minutes before we checked in and all the marks on the walls were tell-tale signs of a high volume of occupants. I think it was used as some sort of torture chamber in an illicit video. The fact that some prostitute-drug addict banged on the door at 5 a.m. didn't help my night's 'rest' at all. One piece of advice: do not bring a black light with you when you travel. I need to take a shower now after thinking about it.
Worst motel story ever. Days Inn (recommended by Walt). We booked a room in a Days Inn in Richmond, VA. There were safes in the room because of the frequent robberies. We were across from the Arthur Ashe stadium and were told there were a lot of drive by shootings. I slept in one bed with one child and doug in the other to protect them from random bullets. The website indicated they had breakfast. Doug went down to ask for coffee and the dude in the office heated up the stuff leftover in the pot - at least one day old.
My parents once found a crack needle and a pizza crust in the hotel room they were staying in. They had a choice of being moved to another hotel for free or a free night. They chose the free night. Why would you STAY?!?
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