Schmotel

How can the littlest amenities become wondrous luxuries? When a hotel fails to meet even the most basic of those needs and lets you walk across the street to another hotel! We held our meeting at a hotel in Romulus, near DTW (Detroit airport). I think its exact location was Runway B3. Anyway, this hotel worked out very well last April, and it has a great banquet room. Unfortunately, within 5 minutes of checking in I had deduced that about 80% of the TV channels were blank and their free internet service was down. We were assured it would be fixed, and went to the hotel restaurant for dinner -- a group of 6 of us. Apparently they were only expecting 4 patrons for the entire night, because they ran out of french fries and turkey - on just our table. And only 1 guy ordered turkey.

This hotel was operating on fumes.

Fortunately, the Courtyard by Marriott across the way had rooms, and that's where things got back to good. Functioning television, immediate internet connection, smiling front desk staff who provided chilled bottled water (fancy!), those great Speakman shower heads, a comfortable bed and pillows, on and on. Are these things necessities? No, but I'm a business traveller this week, and when all the fun and games are done, I need to check email and watch stuff. That's it. That's all.

To the other hotel's credit, our meeting room was accommodating, functioning, and lunch was actually quite good. They even had sliced turkey. Maybe it was because we gave them a dinner tab or had a banquet room booked, but we were alarmed at how casually they let us check out and move to another hotel last night -- no questions, no attempt at concession, no timetable for hiring a network controller. Oh well.

Off to Chi-town tomorrow. Better hotel and better food culture. I'm expecting improvement...at least until O'Hare gets involved. Good night then!