Posted on 11/19/2012 1:11:27 PM PST by jazusamo
Few things can make you appreciate home like staying in a hotel. This includes not only low-budget, bare bones hotels but also sweepingly large and ornate luxury hotels. What many hotels seem to have in common are needless hassles.
Since most people who stay in hotels do so while traveling, and stay only a few days in a given hotel, you might think that those who run hotels would want to make it easy for someone who arrives a little tired (or a lot tired) from traveling to use the various devices they find in their hotel room. But you would be wrong. That thought never seems to have crossed their minds.
Recently, at a well-known luxury hotel in Los Angeles, I found that something as simple as turning on a television set can require a phone call to the front desk, and then waiting for the arrival of a technician. Then it took another phone call to get a list of which of the dozens of channels were for which networks.
Why the turning on of a television set should be anything other than obvious to a newly arrived hotel guest is apparently a question that never occurred to the people who ran this hotel. Nor did it apparently ever occur to them that someone just arriving from a journey might want to be able to relax, instead of having to cope with complications that the hotel could easily have avoided.
The next morning, in the shower, I found myself confronted with a dazzling array of knobs and levers, none of which provided any clue as to what they did. The lever rotated and four of the surrounding knobs both rotated and tilted forward and backward.
(Excerpt) Read more at creators.com ...
“Why should I travel? I’m already here!”
;^)
i agree with the part about internet access... a hassle!
Bump ;-)
All the sinks and showers in our house have those big X-shaped porcelain knobs with "Hot" and "Cold" written on them, just like I remember from the 1909-vintage bathrooms in my elementary school days.......
I made the mistake of travelling once. It was 1974 and I was on a "honeymoon" with my first ex-wife.
Never should have done it.
Thank you, Dr. Sowell, for making me appreciate being at home! Now if I could only get 9 other people to go stay in a hotel for a while ...
“Sowell does Andy Rooney, and beats Rooney on first try”
Ever wonder why we despised Rooney ?
Wow. As a 20 year “road warrior” I can really relate to this article. Sadly, the purgatory of navigating airports now surpasses the hassles of hotels. I once stayed in a NYC hotel that had a rental car operation based in their garage. It was $29/day to rent a car, $45/day to park it in the same garage where it was parked before my rental. (tip - just turn it in and rent it again, even if you need it twice in the same day)
Benefits of home: Actual WATER PRESSURE in the shower, enough to rinse shampoo out and soap off; knowledge of whether there is more kleenex; access to more towels and toilet paper without asking. Not that we stay at luxury places, but it seems that there is much less interest in the comfort of customers and much greater interest in austerity by management.
If it’s more complicated than “ON” and “OFF”, it’s too difficult for me to operate. - Our microwave is about 25 yrs. old; doesn’t have those plastic covered buttons that eventually crack and split, rather has a minute knob that turns. It’s small, and about all we use it for is maybe reheating a few things and sterilizing the dishcloth and scrubber. I dread when or if it retires itself on us. So far, it’s still humming along; and we have checked it for microwave leakages periodically. - Everything is simple here.
I thought of Rooney also:)
I had a flight home cancelled because of weather one time back in the days before I had a cell phone. My wife had one, so I called and got no answer four or five times, probably 10 seconds per call. Then I finally got her and spent a minute or so telling her what was up. My tab for six calls totaling probably 2 minutes of clock time and six minutes of charged phone time? $60!!! When I came to the following morning at checkout and accused them essentially of fraud for having such ludicrous non-standard rates without giving the guest ANY prior notice (at the time, most hotels were charging something like $2/minute or so, AND they had a card in the room stating the rate besides), they seemed less than impressed and refused to do anything about it. I should have filed a claim with the credit card company. AND they wanted $10 for internet access. The Grand Sierra in Reno, if anyone’s interested in avoiding the place.
On my first stay at L'Auberge du Lac Casino in Lake Charles I had on one those moments.
I won a very nice jackpot on a slot and they comp'ed me a big nice suite since it was Thursday and not very crowded.
The bathroom had HDTV, his/her vanities on each side, big shower on one side, toilet room on the other and a big, beautiful, big bear claw tub right in the middle, no knobs on it whatsoever.
There were two knobs on the wall next to the tub but the tub had no faucet?
I had to know, so I gently turned one knob and to my surprise, the water poured straight down from the ceiling above the tub. ...it actually startled me, then I thought how cool is that.
For me, “serene” digs is being in the hospital for two days after having a baby.
We get a rental house when we go on vacation, and I’m always finding that I like my own house better - even its non-seaside location ;-). Sometimes I encourage the rest of the family to go without me, so I could “staycation” with the baby and the pets ... but who would do their laundry?
I arrived at a Holiday Inn very late one night after a hassle of a trip. I was tired, not hungry, but very much in want of a beer. Alas, the night manager informed me that the bar had closed about an hour earlier. One I noted that this was the only to be expected considering how this trip had gone, the night manager asked me to wait just a minute. He disappeared and returned with two budweiser’s and told me they were ‘comp’. I’ve returned there everytime I’m in the area.
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