Hotel Karma

Apparently, I was a rock star who trashed hotel rooms in a former life. I have terrible hotel karma. If I'm staying someplace for a vacation or something, no problem, but when traveling for work (which I do a lot lately), I have terrible luck. It sucks, because work travel often requires long hours and not much rest, so when you do get to rest, you don't want to have to deal with issues in your room. The following is my recent journal of bad hotel karma...

June 2004: Minneapolis
The room was way at the end, and in a weird shape, and strangely dark. The giant king-sized bed had a big rut in the middle, causing me to roll into it when I got into bed, and it was extemely uncomfortable. The first night, I woke up to the feeling of someone or something sitting on the end of the bed, like someone sat down or an animal jumped up there. I was convinced the room was haunted, and called the hotel to ask to be moved due to the uncomfortable bed. I was moved - to the room right next to the elevator, and the room was much smaller, but much brighter and a comfortable bed. And it wasn't haunted.

April 2006: Radisson City Centre - Indianapolis
Because we were doing a training event, we had several free suite upgrades. I got one of the suite rooms because we were going to do a "movie night" in my room one evening for participants. When I first got in the room, the closet bar fell when I put clothes on it. I ignored it and just didn't hang anything in the closet. One evening, I came into the room and sat on the couch in living room area. I guess the motion of me sitting down disturbed the picture on the wall, because it fell on me. I heard it sliding and instinctively put my arm up to catch it, so I wasn't injured. Which was good, because when I called the hotel, they never apologized or asked if I was OK, they just said, "Do you want someone to come re-hang it for you?"

June 2006: Hyatt Hotel - Indianapolis
Somehow, I got a handicapped room, I guess because it was one of the only rooms available at the time I arrived. When I got into the room, it looked like no one has been in the room in months, it was dusty and there was dirt in the sink. When I flushed the toilet, it wouldn't go down, and I could hear air in the line. After flushing about 4 times, it finally started to flush normally. When I washed my hands, the sink tap was spouting intermittently as air was obviously in the lines. But the part that put it over the edge was that the sink would not drain. A maintenance person came and said he would need to take the sink apart to find the blockage, so they move me to a new room. The maintenance guy was super nice and brought me a bunch of waters and pop (he offered wine or beer, but I was there for a work event, so I didn't want to go there...)

October 2006: Radisson City Centre - Indianapolis
They didn't have my reservation for my first night, but managed to squeeze me in although they were sold out, betting on a cancellation. They also had the wrong check-out date for me. The highspeed internet cord was so short, I had to have the computer at the back of the desk to reach the outlet. Sitting at the computer, I heard the toilet flush upstairs, and then I heard dripping water - in my bathroom. I looked in to see a steady drip coming from a crack in the ceiling right over the counter, drenching my toiletries. Engineering came, and eventually I was moved to another room. Instead of the luxurious king-sized Sleep Number bed, I had 2 low full-sized beds (NON Sleep Number). I was also RIGHT next to the elevator, which I could hear constantly whooshing like a jet taking off. Even when the A/C was off, there was an annoying tapping/clunking noise coming from the vent by the door. Luckily, I had some earplugs (Thanks LilCherie!!!) and was able to sleep quite soundly all night.

The next night, I was talking on the phone when a loud grinding noise started coming from the A/C vent by the door. It was so loud that the front desk could hear it on the phone when I called. They sent up a key for another room. I was in my pajamas, so I pulled on some pants and quickly packed up my stuff. The room I was moved to was on the end, a large room with a king-sized bed. As soon as the bell-person opened the door, I could smell a strong odor of smoke. I said, "Is this a smoking room?" and he said, "No, but some people don't pay attention to that..." OK, I thought, I'll just turn on the A/C and live with it. So, the bell person left. I took off my shoes and walked to the other side of the bed - and the carpet was soaked. From the window to half the room, the carpet was drenched. I called the front desk, pretty much hyperventilating and near tears - it was almost 11:00pm and I was SO tired after the first full day of our event.

They moved me right down the hall to a suite room, which was actually quite nice. The bell-person walked around the room and turned on the lights to make sure they worked, and tried the TV and everything. He was hesitant to leave, saying, "Are you SURE everything is OK?" as if I were the most high-maintenance person they'd ever had in the hotel. I was teary and upset, so I just said, "It's fine, it's fine..." The room ended up being fine for the next 2 nights, thankfully.

I've had plenty of other bad experiences in hotels, I just never thought that much about them until now. It's one thing when you stay in a Super 8 or something, your expectations are lower, but quite frankly, I don't think I've ever had a bad experience in one of those motels. Heck, even in China I didn't have water dripping from the ceiling or anything. Sure, you HAD to wear shoes or slippers all the time (one time I went down the hall and back to my room barefoot and the bottoms of my feet were literally black with dirt) and flip-flops in the shower, but we were prepared for that and it truly wasn't as bad as my experiences in Indianapolis! I'm actually starting to think it's less the hotel and more the city of Indianapolis! I don't have to go back there until next Spring, which will be too soon for me.