Reflections on a Margarita # 7

I tried to access the TripAdvisor.com website while I was staying at the Intercontinental Buckhead Atlanta. I wasn't checking out the Intercontinental, because it is an awesome hotel. I was actually looking into an upcoming stay at different property. Anyway, I got the following message:

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access / on this server.

How can you not laugh at this? Wouldn't you think a great hotel would want to give guests the opportunity to put a review (or read one) on a travel website?

A peach of a stay!

Wow. What more can I say? The Intercontinental Buckhead in Atlanta, Georgia is very impressive.

My room had huge picture windows and a beautiful view of Stone Mountain, but in all honesty I have to say though that my room was actually smaller than other hotels I've been in. All in all though, it was a lovely room with wireless internet, a large HD flat screen TV, and a large bathroom with a soaking tub. I can live with that.

The Club Intercontinental was one of the best concierge lounges I've ever experienced. Nice food and attentive servers made for a very pleasant experience. The stay was wonderful from start to finish.

You know, I've stayed in this hotel several times before, and I really don't remember it being much above average. I wonder what the difference was this time. Maybe I was a bit prejudiced this time since I was upgraded to the top floor of the hotel. Maybe my business trip was successful and influenced my decision. Maybe I was just in a mood to be pampered. Hmm. I don't think so. It really was an exceptional experience.

They should all be like this.

Reflections on a Margarita # 6

Recently I flew to Virginia on my favorite airline - Southwest Airlines. For those of you that don't fly Southwest you need to know that there are no seat assignments. If you forget to check in - or don't know to check in - you will always end up in the middle seat.

This particular flight I ended up with a young woman in the middle seat next to me that obviously had never flown on a plane. She got on the plane with this huge polka dot blanket that she wrapped herself in from head to toe. It was so big that it spilled over onto my seat. It wasn't cold on the plane and I didn't need her blanket but she shared anyway.

Then she told me that she flew all the time, but when the plane took off she panicked. She grabbed the seat in front of her and moaned until we were in the air. Poor thing. She did the same thing when we landed.

No, I don't think she had ever flown before in spite of what she said. If she had, she never would have carried on a polka-dot blanket. She would have made it a nice respectable plaid.

A very tarnished Crowne

I've waited a while to write the blog on this hotel because I kept hoping I'd find the humor in my stay. I can almost always find something that makes be laugh even if it is after the fact.

But...

The Crowne Plaza Washington-Dulles Airport didn't make me laugh. In fact, if it hadn't been for the very nice bar and grill, Houlihan's, I would have little positive to report. OK, well I guess I have little positive say about the hotel at all. But, I liked Houlihan's. That's something positive.

Now about the hotel.

First off, the hotel is pricey. Now just to be fair, I'm told that everything near Washington DC is expensive. I'm one of those people that doesn't mind paying for quality, but I am also on record that it really ticks me off when I pay a lot for nothing.

The Crowne Plaza Washington-Dulles Airport was an older hotel, and in fact reminded me of the Holiday Inn Select Hotels from days gone by. I had assumed it would be up to Crowne Plaza standards, especially since it was $199 a night - and that was a discounted rate.

When I pay $199 a night for a hotel room, I expect it to be, well... $199 worth of hotel room. This room was worth about $21.50.

So, what happened? First of all I was really grateful for my GPS. Without it, I never would have found the hotel. It wasn't really at the airport, but I guess it was close enough to claim it.

I finally found the hotel and went to the desk to check in. I am usually given a room on the club floor no matter what room I book - a nice perk for Platinum Priority Club members. When I asked the nice kid at the desk, I was told I got an upgrade, but I didn't. I got exactly the room I booked. Since I wasn't given a club floor room I asked for club access anyway. Finally I convinced him to give me a key, but I could tell he was reluctant.

By the time I checked in I was starving, so I went up to the club lounge to see if they had anything to snack on before dinner. They had potato chips and sodas. Really. Why bother to call it a concierge?

But the real story here was the fact that I was given a room in a parking lot.

My room was next to a large parking lot on the back side of the hotel. I discovered this the first evening when I heard the really loud noise and looked outside to realize that just outside my room were 5 tour buses. My room windows were level with the top of a bus. The next morning around 5:30 AM, approximately 500 children loaded up for a day of sight-seeing in DC. The bus drivers get up earlier than that - sometime around 4:30 or so. They fired up the bus early, probably to cool it down. It didn't cool me down. In fact, I got a little fired up.

Usually, Platinum Priority Club members are given better rooms (and treatment!) than this. So, when I checked out the next morning I told the clerk I wasn't happy with my accommodations. I asked why I wasn't given a room on a higher floor, away from the noise. The clerk said those rooms were reserved for Priority Club members. I explained that I am a Priority Club member, a Platinum member in fact. Then the clerk asked me if I told him that when I checked in. I said I never tell anyone at the desk because the room is always reserved under my number, and the reservation screen displays my Priority Club status. But by then I was in no mood to argue and just checked out.

So now that I am writing this, I find myself thinking that the question was a little strange. Did I tell them I was a frequent traveler? Huh. I wonder where all that information entered in the reservation ended up?

Probably in the parking lot on the bus driver's clipboard.

Reflections on a Margarita #5: EZ does it.

I got stopped by one of Ft. Bend's finest on the way home from work. Speeding? Nope. Tail light out? Nope. Expired tags? Nope. I'm a suspected EZ Tag violator - a hardcore crime in these parts. I think the penalty is a lot harsher for not paying toll road fees than it is for killing an endangered species or burning down a building.

Not that I'd do any of those things, but then I didn't skip out on paying my toll either. It turns out we were supposed to update our account with the new license plate number. Sheez. You'd think that somewhere they would have posted this information? Or maybe we might have gotten an email reminder or something that our license plates were not current on the account?

But noooo. They would much rather stop me with flashing lights and sirens. I think it was a great use of the policeman's time. I am much more dangerous than the guys that were going 95 miles an hour in a 65 zone while talking on a cell phone.

So I went home and updated my license plate information.

Don't you feel a whole lot safer now?

Might have cried over spoiled milk, but we didn't.

This was a business trip ended by a reward stay, and my second stay at the Holiday Inn Express in Midland, Texas. Not much changed from the first stay, it was mostly very nice. But I did learn that next time I should request a room on the quiet side of the hotel, on the opposite side from the highway. Somehow I just never imagined that a hotel in Midland Texas would have more road noise than say, Chicago or Detroit - but this one did.

It also had spoiled milk. The first morning I told the hostess that the milk was bad, and somehow assumed the expiration dates would be checked and the offending milk tossed. Wrong. The next morning I opened a carton of milk and surprise!

I am glad they had orange juice.