I'm A Simple Girl

I don't need fancy hotels, valet parking, bellmen, turndown service or room service. In fact, I hate all of those things!!!

What I do want is a bathroom with a door, a shower with a curtain and a digital alarm clock. I would like a hairdryer that works and an outlet to plug it into. A TV that gets basic cable channels and free wirless internet. My idea of the perfect hotel? The Hampton Inn.

What is my point? I stayed at the "W Hotel" in Dallas this weekend - a VERY expensive trendy new hotel in the West End district of Dallas. It was AWFUL. Walking into the hotel is like walking into a nightclub - flashing multicolored lights and loud music. So loud you can't hear the check-in lady when she tells you that you need to use your room key to activate the elevators!

You the take the "secure" elevator up to your floor and walk into a room that looks like it was decorated by the Jetsons. The toilet is in a room with a door. But there is no door between the hotel room and the shower. In fact, there is no door on the shower at all. Just a piece of glass, half the size of the shower stall. This means that if you don't want to freeze your ass off you have to stand DIRECTLY under the water and over the drain. Not comfortable for your feet at all. Actually, not comfortable for any part of you.

The room comes with an iPod dock, which is nice of them. But I'd prefer a digital alarm clock. Instead, they give you a rotary one. How on earth you set the alarm on a rotary clock I will never know.

The room also comes with a hairdryer that is so weak it is the equivalent of K standing next to me and blowing on my air like it was hot soup.

There are only 2 accessible outlets in the room. So, you can sit at the desk but you can't plug your laptop in to anything but an ethernet cord. Or you can sit on the bed and plug into the outlet. Either way you will pay $9.95 a day for the slowest internet access I have had in a long time.

Oh yeah, and then there is the TV which has about 15 channels. Inclduing HBO but not including USA - which on a friday night is the ONLY channel I care about. But whatever.

On Friday night I got room service. Sixty bucks for a salad, mushroom penne and a piece of cheesecake. I know, my firm pays for it, but still that is ridiculous! Eating at the melting pot on Wednesday night was cheaper!

Oh yeah, and did I mention the sign on the elevator that says "16th Floor WET BLISS SWEAT"??
Interesting...eventually I found out that this means "16th Floor Pool, Spa and Fitness Center."

Today, on my last day there, I got trapped in the "secure" elevator. That was a good time. I would have screamed for help but I couldn't hear my screams over the club music.

Yeah, so that was my latest expensive hotel experience. I swear, I will NEVER understand why people pay so much to stay at these hotels that are completely impractical. What is the extra price for when NOTHING is included?? No free breakfast, no free parking, no free internet and no more comfortable than any average hotel. Call me crazy, but I think it's absurd. And honestly, I'm a little pissed at my firm for wasting good money like this.