jillgoes

jillgoes

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Thinking Way Too Much In My Hotel Room...

Happy 4th of July everyone!  By the time you read this, the gala event will be over and many of us back to work to finish out the work week.

For the holiday we travelled to Lititz, Pennsylvania to visit with daughter Lindsay, son-in-law Todd, and cutest-grandbaby-in-the-whole-wide-world Ellie.  Here is my adorable little firecracker in all her red, white, and blue cuteness:

We had a great visit filled with lots of love, laughter and good food.  All too soon we said our goodbyes, and then the husband/lover/best friend and I headed to our hotel room for the night.  We were staying at the Holiday Inn Express, in Lititz, and yes, prior to booking the reservation, I did check both the bedbug registry and bedbug report websites to make sure there were no reports on file for this hotel.  I'm a tiny bit paranoid about these things.

Here is where I just simply started getting weird on myself, looking around, and thinking too much about random stuff.  Like, for instance, does this piece of artwork do any good thing to this wall at all?  


Does it have any good purpose for being there?  Does it make the wall look better?
Could the hotel design committee have possibly picked a more blah piece of art to hang there?
And why do you never see interesting art on the walls of these hotels, like say, photos of the manager's cute grandchildren.  Or photos of the construction team, labelled like "Susan Jones - Interior Designer?"
Or mathematical equations that you could lay there and figure out if you are bored?
It's ALWAYS just dumb stuff to look at!

And it doesn't get any better on the other wall either.  Look.  Just plain boring.


Also, I gotta wonder about the sense of some of the informational signs posted around the room.  Here's one in the bathroom, for example:


So if I am only staying in the room for one night, and I hang my towel back on the towel rack, will they leave it there for my next visit?  I get a twisted sort of pleasure in throwing my towels on the floor, as I was raised to always clean up after myself in the bathroom and always neatly hang up my towel and washcloth.

Here's another one:

First I am thinking about the Hospitality Promise.  This morning when I went to take a shower, I pulled the shower curtain back and there in the bottom of the shower was a baby firefly crawling around.  Supposing that was not satisfactory, how would they make it right?  Must I call them to come up to my bathroom and remove the bug while I am standing nearby naked and waiting?  Or if I don't have to pay for the unsatisfactory part of my stay, exactly how much monetary deduction is taken off of my bill for the suffering I incurred due to that firefly?  Do they have a Deduction List which has all possible clientele gripes and their associated monetary subtractions?

And what if I FORGET SOMETHING, a "standard toiletry item?"  They have no idea what some of the standard items in MY toiletry kit are, believe me.  I do notice deodorant is not on their list.  Is that not typically in travel kits?  


Another thing was puzzling me in this hotel room.  This sign or one like it is typically on the back of any hotel room entrance door.  I know it must be there according to safety regulations, but there is always a "maximum room price" listed somewhere on it that baffles me.  I usually make a point of looking for this price now whenever I stay in a hotel room.  Our AAA room rate for a standard non-smoking king bed room in this hotel was $129.  Look closely at what the sign on the door says:


How is it possible that one night this room goes for $129 and another night the bill is $399?  Am I supposed to see $399 and think that I am getting a heck of a deal at $129?  Watch for this - you will see  it happen at every hotel you stay.  Baffling.

In spite of all the other things I was thinking about, here is one piece of design that I think is simply engineering brilliance: 


I would like one of these in every room of my house.  Then I wouldn't have to stand in Wal-Mart in front of the tissue display and debate over which silly tissue box designs to select.  My husband must also have been thinking in our hotel room too much, because he claims you should never use the first tissue.  I wonder why not...  No, I'm gonna stop thinking about that.

I know, I shouldn't let my mind get carried away like this in hotel rooms, but it just goes.  Maybe I should just get into bed and do what people do in hotel rooms.  Um, sleep, that is...

8 comments:

  1. oh my I do the same thing when in a hotel room...I figure if I don't throw my towels down they won't know they're dirty..I usually drop them all into the tub or on the floor....I have also read those rate cards on the door and wondered....Ellie is sure a cutie love her outfit

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  2. I have visions of child labor in sweatshops, of children turning out thousands of cheap pictures for hotel chains across the country. The ones that get to me the most are the ones screwed to the wall. Do they really think people would steal those mass produced objects for their homes?

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  3. Hey, at least all those silly little signs are in English. Mind you, BS is pretty much the same in just about any language. "Hospitality Promise"?
    Please.

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  4. Funny about the hotel room. I worked for a small hotel chain near Washington DC for some time and I could answer all your questions.

    The one that sticks out tho' is the room rate. Yep, you guessed it. It is a law they have to post their highest rate for the room [called a "rack rate"] and this is so in the event of a natural disaster or emergency - or even a convention in town where hotel rooms are at a premium - the consumer is not price gouged by the supply and demand. It is very, very rare that hotels ever receive their rack rate, but it is based on a standard for the area, type of hotel and their immediate competing hotels.

    As for the art work? I know, I know. But anything more interesting or worthy would be either stolen or defaced. It's sad what people do, but if you don't make it innocuous they will steal it.

    Your granddaughter is a cutie patootie. I love her little tennies. And her dress! Too sweet.

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  5. The deduction for standing around naked and waiting while they dispose of the firefly is 10% of the actual price paid for the room. (don't ask me how I know, I won't tell you...something else for you to ponder) So as you can see the actual discount is based on whether you paid $129 or $399 per night. Of course the discount may also be affected by the size of the towel :)

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  6. yeh sure most of the hotels mentioned these notices at every corner of their hotels.
    Interior fit out

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  7. I like the feel of your hotel room. It's just so clean and breezy. Oh, I’d like to have one of those tissue holders too. The design is definitely useful. Well, it's nice to hear that you had a splendid Fourth of July! :)

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  8. That was smart! To be honest, there were vacations that I forgot to check the bedbug reports of a certain hotel. Excitement and indolence is never a good combination, you know, as it never gets you anywhere. But if I were to tag along a sweetie as cute as Ellie, I might as well be responsible. :D All in all, I guess you’ve had a nice Fourth of July vacation, despite you overanalyzing things! But there’s one thing that I don’t pass over whenever staying in other places: SANITIZE. Disinfecting wipes can do most of the trick here though. ;]

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