Tag: Hotels

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Travel bug?  Find out how bad you have it.

The travel bug will take you to Kaieteur Falls in Guyana.

Ever wondered how seriously you are afflicted with the travel bug?  Although there is no grading,  this  test will make the answer very clear.

You met your spouse:

    1. In grade school.
    2. During Happy Hour at Applebee’s
    3. While being held hostage by the Taliban.

You lost your virginity at:

    1. Seventeen.
    2. A fraternity party.
    3. 30,000 feet.

You have considered converting all your assets to:

  1. Gold
  2. Bit coin.
  3. Frequent flyer miles.

The first words you learn in any language are:

  1. Hello
  2. Thank you.
  3. I’d like a  room farther from the gunfire.

You would be least willing to give up your:

  1. Money.
  2. Life.
  3. Passport.

The place you’ve lived longest is:

  1. The town where you were born.
  2. The town you settled in after college.
  3. Chicago O’Hare, Terminal 5.

You’d never rent a car:

  1. Without getting collision coverage.
  2. In Afghanistan.
  3. You couldn’t sleep in.

Trusting your gut is:

  1. Almost always the right decision.
  2. Usually safer than trusting your government’s Travel Advisories.
  3. A mistake you’ve made in restaurants that cater to backpackers.

Your favorite souvenirs are:

  1. T-shirts.
  2. Refrigerator magnets.
  3. Conversations with strangers.

You always carry:

  1. A spare tube of moisturizer.
  2. About 5 extra pounds, 10 if a buffet is offered.
  3. A list of countries that have no extradition treaty with your own.

The bills and coins tucked away in your underwear drawer add up to:

  1. A tidy nest egg.
  2. Evidence.
  3. A total of $2.34 in 17 currencies.

You would like your obituary to say you died:

  1. In your sleep.
  2. Surrounded by a loving family.
  3. Aboard a flight that went down between Tahiti and Bora Bora.

Your favorite travel companions:

  1. Always pay their fair share.
  2. Don’t mind taking the middle seat.
  3. Are imaginary.

Your most memorable experience at a tropical beach resort involved a:

  1. Romantic interlude.
  2. Luxury spa.
  3. Tsunami warning.

You immediately recognized the photo at the top of the blog, which Bobcarrieson.com editor in chief Bob Payne took in 2009, as:

  1. Niagara Falls, New York
  2. Sioux Falls, Iowa
  3. Kaieteur Falls, Guyana

 

 

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The Bob Carries On “Not List” of Negatively Notable Hotels

Negatively notable hotels

After another year of vigorously evaluating the world’s most negatively notable hotels, based on comments that guests have posted at other websites, Bob Carries On has come up with its annual “Not List”. And once again, for the twenty-seventh consecutive year, the top-ranked property is Barstow California’s Jilton Beach Resort.

There were some close contenders this time: Holiday’s End Orlando, whose new concierge wing was swallowed by a sinkhole. The Scottsdale Marry Knot, whose general manager was sentenced to 15 years in prison for attempting to keep his destination wedding numbers up by offering his Guest Relations Director as a prospective bride. The Shackles Resort Bermuda, where it is yet to be determined if the eerie moaning coming from some of the garden-view rooms really is the ghosts of previous guests who are still complaining about the resort fee.

As in the past, though, what tilted our “Not List” judges in the Jilton Beach’s favor is that there continues to be no ice machine, no cleaning staff, and no beach.

As for the negative Jilton Beach comments themselves, here are our “Not List” favorites:

Men and women in uniform are a common site, sometimes taking advantage of the first-responder rate, but more often making an arrest.

Any hotel can have a stale odor, especially if there is no cleaning staff. But is the $27 air freshener in the Mini Bar just a coincidence?

You can appreciate them trying to keep their overhead low, but not by re-wrapping half-consumed bars of soap.

The free Wi-Fi in the lobby seems like a nice amenity until you realize its primary purpose is to provide additional income for hotel staff, who routinely steal passwords from the unsecured network.

For active guests, a diving board is the focal point of the resort’s pool, especially because more than a dozen divers have launched themselves from the board over the past year, never to resurface.

The place prides itself on being able to offer any concierge service a guest might request. There is a charge for this, by the hour. Towel rentals are extra.

No hot breakfast is served, although one look at the kitchen will convince you that this is a good thing.

Yes, it is pet friendly, especially if your pets like to amuse themselves by torturing mice.

It has long been known for its Rooms With a View. The views, however, are looking inward, at the rooms’ beds, which, because of a lack of curtains, are visible to all passing by on their way to the (non-existent) ice machine.

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5 sure signs you are stealing hotel soap

Soap and rose in dish

Let’s be honest. Stealing at hotels is widespread. Egregious examples include $60 resort fees, $100 breakfasts, and $1,500-plus junior suites. But putting aside the shortcomings of management, let’s look at a question many hotel guests struggle with: Can taking hotel soap be considered stealing?

Yes it can.

You are stealing hotel soap if:

While a housekeeper’s cart is left unattended in the hallway, you load the cart’s entire supply into an empty suitcase you have brought along just for that purpose.

Noticing that the housekeeper has left another guest’s door ajar while servicing the room, you claim to be that guest, say you just need to duck into the bathroom for a minute, and make off with any toiletries you find. You increase the severity of your crime if, confronted by the room’s bona fide occupants, you claim to be a reviewer for TripAdvisor.

You actually are a hotel reviewer, and while an assistant manager waits patiently on the balcony, hoping you won’t notice the ants crawling up the wall, you strip the bathroom of everything you can fit into your camera bag.

Discovering the same soap in the hotel gift shop, you slip it into your tote bag and walk out without paying because you can’t get over how much they are selling it for.

You are a professional burglar, and are ransacking the room anyway, and take the soap because it comes in an expensive looking wrapper that makes it ideal for re-gifting.

If you do plan to steal hotel soap, the world’s best hotels to steal it from are:

The Hotel Principe di Savoia Milano

Lowest room rate: $353
Soap brand: Acqua di Parma
Soap cost: $35/3.5 oz.
Number of bars needed to recoup room rate: 10
Also worth considering: Recently re-designed by Thierry Despont, the Principe Bar is opulent, and its liquor stock not particularly well guarded.

Burj Al Arab Jumeirah Hotel, Dubai

Lowest room rate: $1,767
Soap brand: Hermes
Soap cost: $16.99/3.5 oz.
Number of bars needed to recoup room rate: 104
Also worth considering: One of the hotel’s chauffer-driven guest Rolls Royces will blend into local traffic for a clean getaway.

Four Seasons Hotel Gresham Palace Budapest

Lowest room rate: $333
Soap brand: L’Occitane
Soap cost: $7/2.6 oz.
Number of bars needed to recoup room rate: 48
Also worth considering: Nespresso coffee machine will fit inconspicuously into all but smallest bags.

Oberoi Udaivilas, Udaipur, India

Lowest room rate: $321
Soap brand: Kama Ayurveda
Soap cost: $10/2.65 oz.
Number of bars needed to recoup room rate: 32
Also worth considering: Chandelier in the lobby is not vintage, but of high quality.

The Langham, Chicago

Lowest room rate: $490
Soap brand: Chua Spa Private Label
Soap cost: $10/3.5 oz.
Number of bars needed to recoup room rate: 49
Also worth considering: Upgrade to the infinity suite and you’ll have the option of making off with the custom-painted grand piano.

The Peninsula Shanghai

Lowest room rate: $403
Soap brand: Oscar de la Renta
Soap cost: $12.90/3.5oz.
Number of bars needed to recoup room rate: 31
Also worth considering: Artwork on walls at Salon de Ming lounge should prove easy enough to remove.

                                                                                                                                                                                                             Big Stock Photo

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Hotel desperate to have guests complain about ghosts

ghostly hands inside glass

Recognizing that a reputation for being haunted can be good for a hotel’s business, the manager of an aging resort in the Great Smoky Mountains is making every effort to get guests to complain about ghosts.

Bob Payne, who has been running the Shady Indian Resort, just outside of Gatlinburg, Tennessee, for more than 20 years, said that knowing the financial bonanza hotels such as The Crescent, in the Ozarks, and The Stanley, in Colorado, have made from their resident spirits he thought it could be worthwhile to scare up a ghost or two for his own property.

But getting people to believe in ghosts, and, more to the point, complain about them loudly enough to garner national, or even regional, press, has turned out to be much harder than Payne anticipated.

“Doors that seem to open and close on their own, unexplained cold blasts of air in the hallways, skeletons in the closet – I’ve tried to blame it all on paranormal activity,” Payne said. “But guests just assume it’s the result of poor maintenance.”

Payne said it was particularly hard because in all his years at the Shady Indian the only violent death he could recall was when he accidentally checked a family with a small cat into a room already occupied by a circus performer who was traveling with his pet boa constrictor.

“And without a death worthy of a headline it’s really hard to conjure up any kind of story about an apparition,” Payne said.

He said he did think he had a winner one night when guests began complaining about shrieks and moans coming from what appeared to be an empty room. “But it just turned out to be a honeymoon couple who had somehow managed to get themselves under the bed.”

With Halloween upon him, Payne said he would give the haunted approach one more try, perhaps by having the maids draw images in soap on the bathroom mirrors of the contents of guests’ luggage. If that didn’t work, he said, he would go back to claiming “Washington Slept Here.”

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Court rules no deception in hotel case where “Room with a view” is of freeway

The California courts handed down a landmark ruling today that will have far-reaching effects for travelers who purchase accommodation based entirely on information provided by hotel websites.

The court ruled that any hotel room with a window has, by definition, a view, even if it is of a brick wall, and that unless the hotel falsely describes what the view is of it cannot be held accountable for whatever guests may choose to imagine.

“This is a great day for justice and a great day for the 87% of hotels with rooms that do in fact look out on brick walls,” said Bob Payne, a spokesman for the National Association of Maximum Yield for Less Desirable Hotel Accommodations.

The case was the result of a 2011 incident in which a honeymooning couple paid extra for what a California hotel described as a room with a view that turned out to be so close up to Interstate 5 that for the length of their stay the couple had to endure rude remarks about the bride from passing motorists.

“It was totally humiliating,” said the bride, who claimed the couple did not simply close the shades because of the principle involved, and because without turning the light on it would have been difficult to get in and out of the costumes they were wearing.

In a related matter, the court also ruled that photos circulate for so long on the Internet that a hotel can’t be held responsible if images that don’t accurately represent the current condition of the hotel can be found online.  That case involved a Miami hotel which visually represented itself as being on the water when in fact documented evidence showed the only time that could have been possible was during Hurricane Andrew, in 1992, when everything in South Florida was on the water.

“This is a great day for justice and a great day for the 87 percent of hotels who claim to be on the water but are not,” said Bob Payne, a spokesman for the National Association of Maximum Yield for Less Desirable Real Estate.

When not working for various hotel associations, Bob Payne is the editor in chief of  BobCarriesOn.com, an online site that has been sharing accurate, reliable travel news and advice since before Columbus landed at Plymouth Rock.

 

 

 

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Hotel guest finds paper-thin walls ideal for making confession to priest in next room

“Where’s a priest when you need one?” is a question frequent traveler Bob Payne has never had to ask.

Payne is one of a growing number of travelers who choose their accommodation by scanning hotel review sites in search of  hotels with partitions thin enough to hear conversation and activity without having to resort to the traditional method of holding a glass to the wall.

“With the priests, it’s the convenience factor, mostly,” says Payne, who admits that having lived and traveled long, his tally of experiences is not without moral blemish.

“There was that time in Bangkok with the two elephants, and I can tell you that while finding a priest at a place of worship at 3 a.m., especially one that admits elephants, is just about impossible, there was a priest in both of the rooms on either side of me.”

The added benefit of making a confession through a hotel’s paper-thin walls, Payne said, is that once you give even the politest of knocks from your side you know you will have the priest’s complete attention. “It’s not like in a regular confessional, which is traditionally seen as an opportunity for priests to finish the crossword or work on a Sudoku puzzle,” Payne said.

“Of course it is not all about religion,” said Payne, who currently travels the world selling Old Testament apps for the iPhone. “There is also a good deal of natural selection taking place.”

In that regard, Payne said most of his experiences have been positive. “I seldom call down to the desk to complain until the selection process has been completed.”

Like many travelers who look for hotels with paper thin walls, Payne confesses that listening to procreative activities of guests in the adjoining room can be “interesting.”

“The only exception is if the room is occupied by your parents, especially if you know your father is down in the hotel snack bar,” Payne said.

Plenty of other factors make paper-thin walls desirable, Payne said. “Let’s say you want to charter a fishing boat for the day, but don’t have your credit card number handy, and a guy in the next room reads off his while ordering a pizza. Voila! The fish are as good as in the boat.”

Still, the most satisfying aspect of thin-walled hotel rooms, Payne said, is not the practical but the spiritual, as anyone knows who has listened to a night of: “Oh God, ohhh God!, ohhhhhh God!!”

When travel humor writer Bob Payne is not selling Biblical apps for the iPhone he is the  Religion Editor for BobCarriesOn.com, your online source for travel news and advice since before Columbus landed at Plymouth Rock.

BigStock photo.

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