All wired up and no place to go.

When I first started traveling, I hauled around a widescreen laptop that weighed around 152 pounds. I even bought a wheeled briefcase for it because I got so tired from hauling the darn thing through airports. Then I discovered the wonderful little HP notebook computer. What a brilliant invention. It weighs less than my purse.

Once I got this petite little laptop, I almost didn’t mind pulling it out to go through security. In fact, I remain a little proud of how smart I was to have made this purchase. I know I’m not alone. I think a lot of savvy travelers have purchased these handy little travel notebooks.

Handy unless you stay in the Intercontinental Hotel, in Dallas, Texas. But what a beautiful hotel! It exuded perfection. Décor, customer service - everything was wonderful. Well, the bed was a little hard, but I can live with that. It just makes me appreciate home a little more.

Just don’t try to use your little notebook say...across the room from the desk. Or while sitting in the comfortable easy chair. Or while in bed. Nope. You have to stay tethered to the desk with an Ethernet cord and a modem, which the hotel cheerfully provided. I thought it seemed a little cheerfully old-fashioned.

So there I was, all wireless in a wired world. What a dilemma I found myself in. The way I saw it, I had four choices:

1. Force myself to sit at the desk long enough to do some work and forget playing computer games for my evening entertainment.
   
2. Go cold turkey and just shut myself off from it for two days.
3. Use the wireless option the city of Addison offered, a weak connection but maybe adequate.
4. Make myself comfortable and/or tipsy in the lobby bar.
5. Sit in the hotel Starbucks and enjoy an grande iced caramel coconut amaretto chocolate macchiato with whipped cream.
   

My decision was all that, and had a cherry on top.

Three strikes and I'm out.

I just removed a hotel from "most favored" status. I can't believe this was the same hotel I stayed in before. Everything seemed to go wrong from the minute I checked into the Crowne Plaza Market Center in Dallas, Texas.

One: Room for improvement

I checked into the hotel, and went up to the 20th floor and used my key to open the door. When I opened it I heard the television blaring. Then I saw a disheveled bed in the room and I quickly backed out not really knowing what was happening in the room. I'm not sure I really wanted to know. It was extremely disconcerting. I took the elevator back down to the lobby and told the desk clerk what had happened. She was polite, said she was sorry and gave me a key to another room.

Back up the elevator I went - this time to the 21st floor. I went into the room and it was a room with two double beds. I always reserve a king sized bed because the room seems to have more space and for some reason I feel claustrophobic in rooms with two beds. Down the elevator I go for the second time.

Now I'm wondering if it's a full moon or something.

The clerk is now not quite as friendly, but still polite and tells me she has a king room on the 7th floor. I don't mind which floor it is as long as it is quiet. I take the key and go back to the elevator. This time the room is a king and is definitely unoccupied. Finally.

Two: I only have ice for you

By now it is fairly late in the evening, and I want a glass of ice water since I didn't get my traditional bottle of cold water at check in. The guest services book in the room said there was an ice machine located on each floor across from room something or other. I take the ice bucket and head down the hall. The ice machine was broken. I got on the now familiar elevator and went to the eighth floor. The ice machine was not working. Ninth floor. Not working. On the elevator I met a guy holding an ice bucket. Don't bother trying ten or eleven because those ice machines don't work either. I went back to my room and called the desk. The desk clerk said I had to go to the third floor.

Three: It's a no drainer

I usually stay in IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group) properties. All of the Holiday Inns and HI Expresses have been undergoing renovations as a part of the re-branding of the chain. Many of the more upscale hotels in the chain have also been updated, and I think I heard that the Crowne Plaza Dallas had also undergone upgrades. One of the nifty things they did was add these classy looking sink stoppers to the sink in the vanity. But I discovered a problem when I washed my hands. There was no way to raise the sink stopper so the sink would drain. I looked everywhere. I thought maybe I needed to twist it or something to get it to stay up. Nope. I imagine the intent was for it to always be open, but this one was always closed. Each time I used it I had to put my hand through whatever I had just washed off in order to empty the sink. See the problem here? A person with OCD would have never left the bathroom.

That night before going to sleep, I made a reservation at another hotel. The phone worked.

The next morning I went to the front desk ready to check out. The friendly clerk asked about my stay, and I said unfortunately I was checking out instead of staying three nights as originally intended. She seemed genuinely concerned and called the manager. It turns out the manager was one of the wonderful employees I had encountered on my previous two experiences in the hotel. He was so nice and seemed genuinely sorry about my less than satisfactory experience. I told him I was really sorry too, and very disappointed. He comped my room. He also said he hoped I'd give them another chance sometime.

I might go back to the hotel some day. Everyone deserves a second chance, even after failing three chances on the same night.

Tissue on request

After spending the night at the Michael Phelps Suite at the last hotel, I checked into the Holiday Inn Birmingham Airport, in Birmingham, Alabama. This was an older hotel, where the staff answers the phone with "Thank you for calling Birmingham's award-winning Holiday Inn."

When I stay in hotels I tend to look for things that will encourage me to book with them again, and if all else fails I look for the entertainment value of the overnight stay. This was a combination of the two. Like I said before, this is an older hotel which has obviously undergone recent renovations - and some of the improvements were definitely interesting.

For instance, the bathroom. This bathroom had two sinks. Not two sinks in the same vanity, but one sink outside the "water closet" and one inside the "water closet." (That means the room with the toilet for those of you needing a translation.) The first sink wasn't a wet bar, just a vanity. I found it rather strange, but I guess it would be kind of nice if you are the type of person that likes to spread out your stuff all over the place. The little bathroom had a very small vanity, the tub, and the toilet. It also had a really odd layout. There was only about an inch clearance between the door to the toilet. When it was time to "take care of business" I had to step in, move to the side, and then close the door. Leaving the door open was not an option without being skilled as a contortionist. It made me wonder how many people alone in a hotel room actually close the door when they gotta go?

I think there was a toilet tissue shortage in the hotel. My room didn't have any when I checked in, but they bought it to me immediately when I called the front desk. On my way to dinner I passed by a housekeeper delivering it to another room. Maybe it was service on request or something. I think it was a good thing that I noticed the lack of tissue before I closed the bathroom door. That could have been awkward.

I stayed on the second floor, which also happened to be the "housekeeping" floor. When I got off the elevator, it looked as if I'd accidentally pushed the button for the basement. The tile floor looked like a work space and in the mornings the the hallway was lined with housekeeping carts. It was kind of handy if you are the type that takes the little bottles of shampoo, but it created a traffic jam in the mornings as all the housekeepers and their assigned carts made their way toward the newly vacated rooms.

Probably my only "real" complaint was the location. While the hotel was convenient to the airport, it was a less than desirable location for everything else. I'm not sure I would have even ventured out after dark. The first night I had dinner in the hotel restaurant. It was quite average to say the least, and was way over-priced. The next night I found a restaurant before I went back to the hotel.

While I had a few issues with the hotel, I had nothing but kudos for the staff I encountered. They were wonderful. But I do think it would be nice if the hotel automatically offered Priority Club members complimentary toilet tissue along with a cocktail at check in.

Anyone for a swim?

The Holiday Inn Birmingham-Homewood, in Birmingham, Alabama is a beautiful new property on the south side of Birmingham. I was supposed to stay two nights but I checked out after one night and went to another Holiday Inn property.

I encountered something in this hotel that I've never encountered before. It was more humid inside the room than it was outside. If you've ever been to Alabama in the summer then you know this is an amazing statement. But it is not an exaggeration. The room was downright wet. It was bizarre.

My paperwork got limp. The sheets felt damp. When I took a shower the bathroom mirror didn't fog up because there was already so much moisture in the room. I didn't like it but I thought I could deal with it.

The final straw was when my my Cheez-Its got soggy. Nobody messes with my Cheez-Its.

Reflections on a Margarita #3

Living in a big city offers many interesting activities. One of the most interesting is getting stuck in a traffic jam.

Fortunately, I was given two very important pieces of advice when I moved to the big city:
1. Never leave home or work without a full tank of gas.
2. Never leave home or work without an empty bladder.

Advice well taken on more than one occasion.

Traffic jams offer an abundance of entertainment if instead of getting mad you use the opportunity to take it all in. For instance, last week I was in a whopper of a traffic jam when traveling to work via Alt 90 E. I used my extra hour and a half travel time to work to enjoy the other drivers equally late to work.

There is an automobile dealership in our area named Weidner. Of course a prankster is going to remove the "d." At 6:30 AM how can you fail to see the humor in following an SUV proudly labeled Wei ner?

One of my all time favorite stuck-in-traffic moments was the opportunity to see a maroon PT Cruiser. Now, PT Cruisers make me laugh anyway because they remind me of Keystone Cops. And it seems to me that most of the unsold new Cruisers were sent to car rental companies because some CEO somewhere had a few too many and decided it would be funny to put a visitor in a strange city in a strange car offering the most restricted view possible.

I followed this particular PT Cruiser for some time. It was painted with a sign on the back that advertised Mobile Tattoo Artist and Notary Public. I wrote down the phone number. You just never know when you might need to prove that you weren't drunk when you got that new artwork on your leg.

A rose by any other name...

I learned a lot when I went to Tyler, Texas. I already knew the city was considered the "Rose Capital of the Nation." Tyler Roses are magnificent - no doubt about it. But did you know that they have an even bigger claim to fame? Oh yes. They do. You see, Tyler was the very first city in the world to adopt a section of the highway in the Adopt a Highway Program. Now that is a claim to fame.

I also learned that less than satisfactory hotel experiences almost always ride on the heels of a really great hotel experience. I wonder why that is? I gave this serious thought over a margarita, and have decided that it isn't just a matter of perception. It really happens.

My latest adventure into this really weird phenomenon occurred when I checked into the Holiday Inn South Broadway in Tyler, Texas. I stopped by between meetings to see if maybe I could check in a little early. I was told my room wasn't ready. OK, no problem - I'll be back later. I went back several hours later to check in and was told my room wasn't ready. Hmmm. No apology, no thank you for your patience, no thank you for your patronage, in fact, no thank you for anything.

So anyway, now the desk clerk gets on her walkie-talkie and loudly announces the room number to the person on the other end to ask if the room is clean. It was and had been since the morning, but now the whole hotel knows my room number which is generally a no-no for a single female traveling alone, but since the lobby wasn't a beehive of activity I figured it would probably be a non-issue. I hoped.

This hotel's website advertises two executive floors with a club floor lounge. I was not put on either of the executive floors. No upgrade here, at least not when I checked in. I asked if I could have access to the club level, since I was allowed access as a Platinum member even if I was not upgraded. Then I asked if the hotel was full, or if it was policy not to upgrade Platinum members. The desk clerk told me she didn't know what was going on because she just got there. Hmmm again. The clerk said the hotel wasn't full, and asked if I wanted an upgrade. I said that I almost always get an upgrade without asking and didn't really care if I was staying on the club floor if I could have access to the lounge. You can't have access to the lounge without a key and you can't have a key to that floor if you aren't staying on that floor. So I got an upgrade.

My upgraded room was actually just a regular room on a key-access floor. But wow did they make me feel important when I saw that I had a power strip in the room since there was only one open outlet at the desk.

When on the road I don't ask for much. I want my hotel room to be clean, quiet, and secure. Oh, and I like to have a telephone in my room that doesn't have a perpetual flashing light. The message light was blinking every time I went into the room. Room service told me they had a new system. They manually turned it off each time I called. And I didn't even need the blinking phone to provide a wake-up call, because each morning at about 6:00 AM a loud crash - so loud it shook the balcony rails - woke me up. On my way out I stopped by the front desk to ask what it was. The desk clerk told me she didn't know what was going on because she just got there.

Finally, the internet was down almost the entire stay. I didn't even bother to ask the desk clerk about it. I figured she wouldn't know anyway. She just got there.

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.