Sunday, August 2, 2009

Shamu, margaritas, and Christmas lights

SeaWorld at San Antonio on a Saturday in August is not for the fainthearted. We learned this the hard way when we went on a mini-vacation recently. Trust me on this one, go any other time than this. But if you don't believe me and go anyway, you might want to consider staying at the Holiday Inn Express Seaworld in San Antonio, Texas.

We used a couple of Holiday Inn reward nights for this trip, and were pleasantly surprised. It was nothing fancy, had no priority perks, and had standard but well-prepared HI Express breakfasts. But it had wonderful customer service - well, that is if you don't count the welcome letter I was given at check in. The letter welcomed me as a valued Platinum guest, and addressed me by name. They got my name wrong, and used a masculine form of my name at that. But they meant well I'm sure.

We were very impressed with the young man that checked us in. When we asked him for a recommendation for a good non-chain Mexican restaurant, he sent us to a Cha-Chas, a local restaurant just down the street from the hotel. It had incredible service, wonderful margaritas, excellent food, and Christmas lights at the bar. It doesn't get much better than that.

When we got back to the hotel after a very long day at Seaworld we were looking for a cup of coffee. Usually HI Expresses have coffee in the lobby, but the hotel was full and they had run out. We already knew we didn't have any in our room, so we were standing there lamenting the empty urns when a man came up and told us if we'd wait a few minutes he'd brew up a pot for us. It turns out he was the night security guard. We decided he deserved a raise.

All in all, it was a whale of a good stay.

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