The hotel rant
Nov. 1st, 2011 12:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marinessHotel rant!
Edited to add: This was the Town and Country hotel, San Diego.
So. The hotel.
Before I begin, a general note: I have travelled, a lot, staying in everything from horrific youth hostels (and good ones) and budget hotels and business class hotels to ultra luxury hotels. I also worked in the group wholesale travel business for five years. I know hotels.
So when I say that this was the second worst hotel experience of my entire life, surpassed only by the Kyoto experience (which was, strictly speaking, not even a hotel or hostel), and that this is the first time EVER that I have gone through FOUR hotel rooms in a single stay, I am not saying this lightly. When I add that Chase Bank has agreed that I should not be charged for this stay - yes, that what, us care? bank, this should give you an idea of just how bad it was.
1) Although I have some limited mobility, I use an ultralight wheelchair.
2) Worried that the hotel would not have enough disabled rooms, I booked my room months in advance.
3) The Monday before the con, Alisa Kranostein of Twelfth Planet Press warned me that the hotel was difficult to navigate. Worried, I called the hotel to confirm that I would be arriving on the next day, Tuesday, and I would be given one of the disabled rooms closest to the convention center.
4) When I arrived on the airport shuttle, I could not find or see any bellhops. The only entrance to the hotel lobby was up a narrow steep ramp. I tried to get up it and rolled back down crashing into a wall. At this point the other passenger in the shuttle went looking for a bellhop while the shuttle driver very kindly pushed me up into the lobby and fetched my luggage.
5) The front desk was all at standing height, with no lower wheelchair accessible heights available.
5) Although I had just confirmed the DAY BEFORE that I would be arriving that night, the desk clerk informed me that I had arrived a day early and that no disabled rooms were available. They could, however, put me in a standard room in the Palm Tower for the first night of my stay and then transfer me to a disabled room closer to the convention center on the second day. This was upsetting since I had planned to spend Wednesday resting, not packing and changing hotel rooms again, but I agreed.
6) This room was too far away for me to reach without assistance, even without my luggage. So the hotel clerk summoned a bellhop who took my luggage and followed me outside the lobby. Once there I asked how far we had to go. He pointed and I realized I couldn't make it.
7) I pushed myself across the driveway to the front entrance, following the bellhop to the golf carts. We then took a golf cart over to the Palm Towers.
8) While transferring from the golf cart to my wheelchair I fell.
9) As we went to the room I asked the bellhop where the nearest restaurant was and where the convention center was. He pointed and noted that I was several hundred feet from either.
10) I had problems getting through the door.
11) Once inside I called the front desk to let them know that I could not stay in the room. They put me on hold. While I was on hold I noted that the hotel's Internet was down. When they came back on they assured me that I would be able to change rooms at "some point" the following day although they couldn't give me an exact time; checkout was at 11 and the room would have to be prepared for me, but they would contact me "sometime between 11 and 4" and move me to another room. I also noted the problem with the Internet; the clerk said, "Well, that's because you have to pay for it." I noted that payment wasn't the issue; an inability to get a signal was the issue.
12) The next morning I was not feeling that well, so I decided to order room service. When I hit the room service button I got the bellhops; after that was sorted out room service told me that my uncooked breakfast (coffee and pastries) would take 45 minutes. They offered the Trellis Cafe instead, telling me that was not too far from my room.
13) Technically that was somewhat correct. Unfortunately, the only direct access to the Trellis Cafe was through a flight of stairs, past the pool and some lovely roses.
Wheelchair users had to go down the length of the entire building, then OUT TO A PARKING LOT, down an incline, then up an incline, then up a ramp to get breakfast. And back.
Wheelchair users also had no direct access to the swimming pool, the whirlpool, or the gift shop; access to any of these was through the parking lot and around a building.
14) Shortly after 11 PM, a maintenance guy knocked on my door to fix the phone. When he saw I was in the room, he offered to return later. I explained that I was set to transfer to another room at some point but wasn't sure when. He called the front desk to find out.
15) Although the front desk had assured me, twice, that I would be transferred that day, they had no record of this request.
16) I got on the phone again with the front desk and explained that I was a wheelchair user who needed to be in a room with full disabled access and a bathtub as close to the convention center as possible, noting that I had made this request months before and had been assured as recently as that Monday that I would be placed in a first floor room almost directly from the convention center. (I later saw these rooms; access to the convention center was across a parking lot and a large courtyard.) She informed me that those rooms were unavailable but she could move me closer.
17) A bellhop arrived to help, moving me to the next room. We both agreed that this room was still too far; plus, I had difficulties getting into it. I called the front desk again. Hotel room number three.
18) I arrived there at about 12:45 and, hoping to rest up before the con, promptly fell asleep.
19) Shortly afterwards I was woken up by a power saw two doors down. This was followed by hammering and drills and more power tools. The front desk didn't know how long this would go on.
20) I finally decided to give up the idea of staying in the room, and instead go down to wait for Shweta and her husband Nathaniel at the Sunshine Deli - the only place that was open and serving coffee in the hotel.
21) The Sunshine Deli can be accessed through three flights of stairs. Or, wheelchair users can go around the building and use one of two ramps and then go through a restaurant, open for breakfast and lunch only to reach the Deli The restaurant closes down and locks its doors at 2 pm, leaving wheelchair users with no way to access the deli. At all. To add to the problem furniture was piled up against one of the doors. Also, this meant that wheelchair users had no access to the bathroom closest to the pool, since that bathroom was by the cafe.
22) I broke down and cried.
23) (er, someplace in my notes I lost point 23)
24) At this point, I decided someone other than the front desk needed to be made aware of the situation. I knew WFC had been having a book bag stuffing party nearby, so headed in that direction and explained, as calmly as I could, that I had no way to reach the Sunshine Deli. A very kind woman ran interference with the front desk for me. They initially told her about the (inconvenient) wheelchair entrance; she checked, and confirmed that this entrance was locked and blocked with furniture. She called them back, to be told that this would be taken care of "later" and in the meantime I could wait "below" and try to get someone to bring my order out to me. (Not that anyone in the deli could see me below.) She went and got me my chai.
25) By the time Shweta and Nathaniel arrived I was fuming, which is why I made an unplanned appearance at Mysterious Galaxy -- I didn't want to be at the hotel.
26) After the bookstore signing we returned to the convention center to register. I realized I couldn't make it back to my room, so Shauna Roberts and Rosalind M. Green-Holmes very kindly offered to assist me.
We needed both of them to open the door.
Note for future con organizers: I really do not like asking people that I have just met at dinner to help me open the door to my hotel room.
27) I returned to my hotel room after a lingering breakfast. More banging. Once again, I gave up, headed out, and joined various people for lunch. That was exhausting, so I headed back to my room. More banging and power saws.
28) I called the front desk again. They had no idea how long this would last, and put me through to maintenance, who didn't know off hand either. Maintanance contacted the guys two doors down who said they were doing a complete renovation of the room and would be working until Friday.
29) Back to the front desk again. She told me they only did maintainance from 9 to 4 when guests were "expected to be out of their rooms." I asked why they had even put me in this room in the first place, given that they were doing major renovations two doors down, and she repeated that guests were expected to be out of their rooms and offered to move me back to room two - the one that was too far away and inaccessible. By this time I had seen disabled rooms closer to the convention center (if not exactly close) and I exploded.
30) Exhausted and miserable, I headed to the con committee and tried not to cry. We moved me to room number four - finally on the side of the tower rooms more or less facing the convention center, where I should have been placed in the first place. I fell over on the bed and did not move for two hours.
31) The next morning I found that the shower was not working properly. No, I said to myself. I am not changing rooms again. But I did leave the hotel Sunday morning - two days ahead of schedule.
Other issues:
1) The door to the "disabled" stall on the second floor of the convention center swings inward, and because it's narrow, I could either have my wheelchair in the stall (not easily) or the door to the stall shut, not both. I needed assistance.
2) The hotel was spread out, with nothing - restaurants, rooms, convention center or bar at all close to anything else; worse, most of the pathways were connected by stairs. Some of the rooms could ONLY be reached by stairs.
3) Getting into the con suites meant getting over a bump; getting into the outside patios was difficult to impossible without assistance.
4) Because of points 2 and 3, I was forced to rely on people to push me everywhere. Which in turn left me relying on their whims.
5) And these were just the main points.
Edited to add: This was the Town and Country hotel, San Diego.
So. The hotel.
Before I begin, a general note: I have travelled, a lot, staying in everything from horrific youth hostels (and good ones) and budget hotels and business class hotels to ultra luxury hotels. I also worked in the group wholesale travel business for five years. I know hotels.
So when I say that this was the second worst hotel experience of my entire life, surpassed only by the Kyoto experience (which was, strictly speaking, not even a hotel or hostel), and that this is the first time EVER that I have gone through FOUR hotel rooms in a single stay, I am not saying this lightly. When I add that Chase Bank has agreed that I should not be charged for this stay - yes, that what, us care? bank, this should give you an idea of just how bad it was.
1) Although I have some limited mobility, I use an ultralight wheelchair.
2) Worried that the hotel would not have enough disabled rooms, I booked my room months in advance.
3) The Monday before the con, Alisa Kranostein of Twelfth Planet Press warned me that the hotel was difficult to navigate. Worried, I called the hotel to confirm that I would be arriving on the next day, Tuesday, and I would be given one of the disabled rooms closest to the convention center.
4) When I arrived on the airport shuttle, I could not find or see any bellhops. The only entrance to the hotel lobby was up a narrow steep ramp. I tried to get up it and rolled back down crashing into a wall. At this point the other passenger in the shuttle went looking for a bellhop while the shuttle driver very kindly pushed me up into the lobby and fetched my luggage.
5) The front desk was all at standing height, with no lower wheelchair accessible heights available.
5) Although I had just confirmed the DAY BEFORE that I would be arriving that night, the desk clerk informed me that I had arrived a day early and that no disabled rooms were available. They could, however, put me in a standard room in the Palm Tower for the first night of my stay and then transfer me to a disabled room closer to the convention center on the second day. This was upsetting since I had planned to spend Wednesday resting, not packing and changing hotel rooms again, but I agreed.
6) This room was too far away for me to reach without assistance, even without my luggage. So the hotel clerk summoned a bellhop who took my luggage and followed me outside the lobby. Once there I asked how far we had to go. He pointed and I realized I couldn't make it.
7) I pushed myself across the driveway to the front entrance, following the bellhop to the golf carts. We then took a golf cart over to the Palm Towers.
8) While transferring from the golf cart to my wheelchair I fell.
9) As we went to the room I asked the bellhop where the nearest restaurant was and where the convention center was. He pointed and noted that I was several hundred feet from either.
10) I had problems getting through the door.
11) Once inside I called the front desk to let them know that I could not stay in the room. They put me on hold. While I was on hold I noted that the hotel's Internet was down. When they came back on they assured me that I would be able to change rooms at "some point" the following day although they couldn't give me an exact time; checkout was at 11 and the room would have to be prepared for me, but they would contact me "sometime between 11 and 4" and move me to another room. I also noted the problem with the Internet; the clerk said, "Well, that's because you have to pay for it." I noted that payment wasn't the issue; an inability to get a signal was the issue.
12) The next morning I was not feeling that well, so I decided to order room service. When I hit the room service button I got the bellhops; after that was sorted out room service told me that my uncooked breakfast (coffee and pastries) would take 45 minutes. They offered the Trellis Cafe instead, telling me that was not too far from my room.
13) Technically that was somewhat correct. Unfortunately, the only direct access to the Trellis Cafe was through a flight of stairs, past the pool and some lovely roses.
Wheelchair users had to go down the length of the entire building, then OUT TO A PARKING LOT, down an incline, then up an incline, then up a ramp to get breakfast. And back.
Wheelchair users also had no direct access to the swimming pool, the whirlpool, or the gift shop; access to any of these was through the parking lot and around a building.
14) Shortly after 11 PM, a maintenance guy knocked on my door to fix the phone. When he saw I was in the room, he offered to return later. I explained that I was set to transfer to another room at some point but wasn't sure when. He called the front desk to find out.
15) Although the front desk had assured me, twice, that I would be transferred that day, they had no record of this request.
16) I got on the phone again with the front desk and explained that I was a wheelchair user who needed to be in a room with full disabled access and a bathtub as close to the convention center as possible, noting that I had made this request months before and had been assured as recently as that Monday that I would be placed in a first floor room almost directly from the convention center. (I later saw these rooms; access to the convention center was across a parking lot and a large courtyard.) She informed me that those rooms were unavailable but she could move me closer.
17) A bellhop arrived to help, moving me to the next room. We both agreed that this room was still too far; plus, I had difficulties getting into it. I called the front desk again. Hotel room number three.
18) I arrived there at about 12:45 and, hoping to rest up before the con, promptly fell asleep.
19) Shortly afterwards I was woken up by a power saw two doors down. This was followed by hammering and drills and more power tools. The front desk didn't know how long this would go on.
20) I finally decided to give up the idea of staying in the room, and instead go down to wait for Shweta and her husband Nathaniel at the Sunshine Deli - the only place that was open and serving coffee in the hotel.
21) The Sunshine Deli can be accessed through three flights of stairs. Or, wheelchair users can go around the building and use one of two ramps and then go through a restaurant, open for breakfast and lunch only to reach the Deli The restaurant closes down and locks its doors at 2 pm, leaving wheelchair users with no way to access the deli. At all. To add to the problem furniture was piled up against one of the doors. Also, this meant that wheelchair users had no access to the bathroom closest to the pool, since that bathroom was by the cafe.
22) I broke down and cried.
23) (er, someplace in my notes I lost point 23)
24) At this point, I decided someone other than the front desk needed to be made aware of the situation. I knew WFC had been having a book bag stuffing party nearby, so headed in that direction and explained, as calmly as I could, that I had no way to reach the Sunshine Deli. A very kind woman ran interference with the front desk for me. They initially told her about the (inconvenient) wheelchair entrance; she checked, and confirmed that this entrance was locked and blocked with furniture. She called them back, to be told that this would be taken care of "later" and in the meantime I could wait "below" and try to get someone to bring my order out to me. (Not that anyone in the deli could see me below.) She went and got me my chai.
25) By the time Shweta and Nathaniel arrived I was fuming, which is why I made an unplanned appearance at Mysterious Galaxy -- I didn't want to be at the hotel.
26) After the bookstore signing we returned to the convention center to register. I realized I couldn't make it back to my room, so Shauna Roberts and Rosalind M. Green-Holmes very kindly offered to assist me.
We needed both of them to open the door.
Note for future con organizers: I really do not like asking people that I have just met at dinner to help me open the door to my hotel room.
27) I returned to my hotel room after a lingering breakfast. More banging. Once again, I gave up, headed out, and joined various people for lunch. That was exhausting, so I headed back to my room. More banging and power saws.
28) I called the front desk again. They had no idea how long this would last, and put me through to maintenance, who didn't know off hand either. Maintanance contacted the guys two doors down who said they were doing a complete renovation of the room and would be working until Friday.
29) Back to the front desk again. She told me they only did maintainance from 9 to 4 when guests were "expected to be out of their rooms." I asked why they had even put me in this room in the first place, given that they were doing major renovations two doors down, and she repeated that guests were expected to be out of their rooms and offered to move me back to room two - the one that was too far away and inaccessible. By this time I had seen disabled rooms closer to the convention center (if not exactly close) and I exploded.
30) Exhausted and miserable, I headed to the con committee and tried not to cry. We moved me to room number four - finally on the side of the tower rooms more or less facing the convention center, where I should have been placed in the first place. I fell over on the bed and did not move for two hours.
31) The next morning I found that the shower was not working properly. No, I said to myself. I am not changing rooms again. But I did leave the hotel Sunday morning - two days ahead of schedule.
Other issues:
1) The door to the "disabled" stall on the second floor of the convention center swings inward, and because it's narrow, I could either have my wheelchair in the stall (not easily) or the door to the stall shut, not both. I needed assistance.
2) The hotel was spread out, with nothing - restaurants, rooms, convention center or bar at all close to anything else; worse, most of the pathways were connected by stairs. Some of the rooms could ONLY be reached by stairs.
3) Getting into the con suites meant getting over a bump; getting into the outside patios was difficult to impossible without assistance.
4) Because of points 2 and 3, I was forced to rely on people to push me everywhere. Which in turn left me relying on their whims.
5) And these were just the main points.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-01 04:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-01 06:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-01 05:06 pm (UTC)Dude.
That really sucks.
(Do you not name the hotel on purpose or was that an oversight? And if you are minded to file complaints with authority-type organizations and have not yet done so, and I can do any prep work for you, please let me know.)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-01 06:12 pm (UTC)Formal letters are heading out once I return and recover and can type them properly.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-01 11:58 pm (UTC)It often goes like that for me when I travel but especially cons and especially ones at convention centers with "nearby hotels" and I get so steaming death ray lasers exploding out of my head angry, and exhausted, and end up crying in despair and hating humanity -- not the best time to try to connect socially with people.
The stuff people don't think to mention -- hills! giant ramps i can't push myself up! Ramps that end in doors! Bricks! Cobblestones! Endless unmarked underground labyrinths (carpeted) to the mysterious freight elevators filled with garbage anyway! lifts that are locked, blocked, just don't work.... But mostly, endless distances to places that people claim are "right there, very close".
I send you a hug, and a hovercraft (with lasers)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-02 03:54 pm (UTC)This convention center is technically part of the hotel -- but it's more just on the hotel complex (very large complex -- two separate tower hotel buildings plus several two story motel areas plus four restaurants plus a spa plus a few swimming pools plus the convention center building.)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-02 01:26 am (UTC)HERE'S YOUR TWENTY BUCKS. IN PENNIES. GOODBYE.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-02 04:05 pm (UTC)Allow me to rant a bit more:
1) By the time I was moved to that third room, I was already unhappy. Standard hotel policy is to ensure that an unhappy guest is moved to a superior or at least trouble free room. Instead, the hotel deliberately moved me to a room two doors down from major construction.
You just do not do that. Period. That has nothing to do with disability/non disability; that's standard hotel policy.
2) Despite what this hotel and the person running con interference for the hotel said, no, it is NOT standard policy to put guests ANYWHERE NEAR rooms under renovation. I certainly agree that it's better for everyone involved for these renovations to occur in standard daylight working hours, but what most hotels do is close down full blocks of rooms (sometimes the entire wing) for renovations and remove nearby rooms from booking, even if those nearby rooms will not be renovated for weeks/months. The loss of room revenue is calculated into the costs of doing renovations. At my travel job, more than once we had to rebook group hotel space blocks because renovations had gone slower than anticipated and the hotel refused to put guests anywhere near rooms expected to be renovated or in the process of being renovated -- even when the guests were arriving in the evening and leaving the next morning. It's just NOT DONE, no matter how much this forces everyone to scramble around looking for replacement rooms of the same quality. Again, not a disabled/non disabled issue.
3) And yeah, it's not unreasonable to expect that guests on vacation or at a conference will want a nap.
I have stayed at youth hostels with lockout policies, and that's fine as long as everyone knows it in advance-- and of course at the hostels the policy is prominently posted at check in.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-03 12:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-03 03:23 am (UTC)I thought my bad con hotel experience (with a Swamp Thing swimming pool and ants in each of my three rooms) was awful. I'm so so sorry that you had to deal with this. Thank you for writing it up so that people will know.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-04 06:58 am (UTC)1.5 stars out of 20 reviews on Google: http://g.co/maps/6teza
2 stars out of 93 reviews on Yelp: http://www.yelp.com/biz/town-and-country-resort-and-convention-center-san-diego
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-02 02:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-02 04:05 pm (UTC)I'm just completely tired of this crap.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-02 02:23 am (UTC)Would you mind if I posted a link to this in
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-02 04:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-02 04:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-02 04:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-02 10:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-02 11:57 pm (UTC)I'm doing Access for FOGcon again this year. This is useful stuff for access people and hotel liaisons to watch out for. NOBODY should have to go through that.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-03 03:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-04 03:05 pm (UTC)(Mariness, surfing in from access_fandom. This *sucks*, and I'm so sorry.)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-04 03:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-03 03:19 am (UTC)I don't think you should have to pay for such shoddy services - there is way too much fail here for them to deserve a single penny for what you had to put up with.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-04 02:33 pm (UTC)Honestly, I wouldn't assume that disabled people would be particularly fatigued or suffering from medication side effects (although now that I think about it, that's my own assumptions entering the equation here - most wheelchair users I know were injured in car accidents or in a war, so, er, yes! Good point!) But I WOULD assume that travellers of any kind, disabled or not, staying for more than one night might very well need to nap. Or, at a convention, get some work done.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-04 06:53 am (UTC)The Town & Country San Diego is a cheap con hotel because it is such a monster. Narrow hallways, poor access, a layout done by Escher and Torquemada, indifferent staff and management, obscene prices, skanky business practices (I shall never forget that they CUT OUT THE PIZZA SECTION IN THE PHONE BOOK to protect the overpriced in-house pizza shop from competition) . . . I could go on and on. Also an awful place to park and an even more awful place to run a medical -- as even San Diego FD gets lost in here.
Against all of this is a moderately excellent location on Hotel Circle, a nearby shopping mall and did I mention dirt cheap conference space?
I'm very sorry that anyone represented this as an accessible hotel EVER. With enough gophers, signage and a reserved block of rooms for wheeled patrons, it could perhaps be made nominally accessible for a brief time. Bring your own crate of spoons.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-04 02:55 pm (UTC)Whoa.
I didn't try out the hotel pizza, although I did have one meal at the California Pizza Kitchen in the mall across the way.
The shopping mall was fine, if exactly like every other Simon's Mall in existence, right down to the identical stores, so, boring, even if I did end up having several meals there, all of which were better than what I ate at the hotel. The location -- ok, admittedly I don't know San Diego that well, but while Hotel Circle is fine as far as it goes especially for groups needing to save money, it's not downtown or on the ocean or Mission Bay, and although it's close to some major attractions it's not next to any of them. So I'd call the location acceptable, not excellent/prime. (We made this distinction a lot on the wholesale travel business.) On a related note, the Town and Country ALSO did not offer free shuttle service to San Diego's downtown or the San Diego Zoo - not a major deal since public transportation was available (I ended up not using it, but it was there), but, still. Since conventions usually like to advertise things for spouses/children to do nearby, that's another issue.
So, yeah.
But the main reasons for smaller cons to avoid it is the spread out nature and the disability access. It's one thing to have to go all over for a con the size of Gen Con (although, ironically? Since I didn't have to head to the end of a mall at the other side of a road, a footbridge and a large parking lot, the distances were shorter at the MUCH larger Gen Con for me, although to be fair people pushed me to the mall.) It's another thing when it's a considerably smaller convention.