Sweet Home Alabama

My stay at Homewood Suites by Hilton in Daphne, Alabama was as close to perfect as you can get when staying in a hotel. In fact, I would recommend to anyone in the hotel business to use this hotel as an example.

My retired husband tagged along on this trip, so I needed to find a place to "stash" him while I was working. We've done this before, and he has vast experience in staying out of the way. So far, he has napped in the car, been dropped off at McDonald's, gotten overly caffeinated at Starbucks, and once even schlepped his way through Walmart. Hey, it works.

Anyway, this time I went into the lovely Homewood Suites and explained that we weren't due to check in until later that same day. I asked if I could park my husband there while I went to work. The very nice young lady at the front desk not only pointed us to the breakfast area but also explained about the TV, mentioned the fresh pot of coffee, and showed him to the sofa so he could be comfortable. She said she would let him know when the room was ready and give him the key.

Wow. That is customer service. I immediately wished we could just move in for a while.

I finished work for the day, went back to the hotel and found my husband comfortably ensconced in the room. It was a spacious studio suite - tastefully decorated and nicely lit. He informed me that there was the (expected) breakfast buffet the next morning - and - there was complimentary dinner reception as well. Then he said the dinner reception had complimentary beer and wine, too!

I don't think a hotel can get any better than this.

Wilson never had it so good.

The Holiday Inn Express Pascagoula-Moss Point in Moss Point, Mississippi was ready and waiting for our arrival, and upgraded us to the "Wilson Suite."

When I saw the name on the suite door, for some reason I found myself thinking of Tom Hanks screaming WilsonNNNNN as his soccer ball floated off to sea. Did you know that one of the three volleyballs used in the film Cast Away was sold in an auction for $18,400? That's a bunch of money. There's a lot of interesting trivia associated with that movie. Sometime you ought to look it up on IMDB.

But this hotel stay was not to to be a castaway. In fact, the suite turned out to be very nice. It was a generous sized suite with a cute little corner wet-bar - with a tissue holder on the front side right in the middle. I thought the tissue holder in the bar was rather clever. After all, how many times do you find yourself standing at the microwave or refrigerator saying to yourself "Gee. I sure wish I had a tissue while I am popping my popcorn." Well, they solved that problem.

The hotel was also right across the street from a very nice little Mexican Restaurant called Hacienda San Miguel. Viewing the restaurant from the hotel it appears that the restaurant is located at a truck stop. I asked at the front desk and was told that the trucks just park next to the restaurant, and that the restaurant was actually very good. We decided to try it, and were pleased that just like we were told, it was actually very good and reasonably priced. We had a pitcher of margaritas, then walked back across the street and re-joined Wilson.