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Everything King: What I did on my summer vacation

Maybe you are a more experienced traveller but I noticed things I had not before. I want to be a high class hotel guest but more often I’m just happy if they left the light on for me
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Ahhh—the annual return to routine.

Students and teachers back to school. Most vacations wrapping up and people getting back to the weekly grind.

I don’t know if this is something that is even done in school anymore, but we used to have to write an essay of what we had done on our summer vacation.

With that premise, I thought I’d make note of some things I noticed while vacationing in the U.S. deep south, last month.

First thing I realized is I’m not a great traveller. I haven’t advanced much from when I was a kid and needed a lot of things to keep me entertained. I still freak out if I don’t have coffee, snacks and a good stack of music to match every mood.

I know you are supposed to enjoy the journey but I gotta admit, I’m interested in the destination. Oh, I start out okay. It is fun packing all the gear into the vehicle and heading out all excited for what adventure will come. However, about 10 hours into a 17 hour drive… I am no longer waving at every cow, honking at various billboards nor admiring any scenery, “seen one tree you’ve seen them all.”

Maybe you are a more experienced traveller but I noticed things I had not before. I want to be a high class hotel guest but more often I’m just happy if they left the light on for me.

Here’s a couple things I noticed:

Since when is every motel bed like five feet off the floor? I literally needed a pole vault to go from the bathroom and hope to land somewhere near the middle of the bed. I would have asked for a footstool but I assumed that would be extra. If you are short—this is a real issue… I struggled to get in and get out. One night I awoke in the night with charley horses in my calves. I was a prisoner of a too -tall mattress. I couldn’t get out of bed because my calves had locked up in pain but I couldn’t stay in bed because I was in agony. I tried hurling myself off the end without bending my knees all while trying not to make too much commotion for the other ladies in the room. I opted to sleep standing up like a horse until the cramp subsided.

What’s with the lack of baggage carts and big hotels? We spent so much time trying to wrangle what I called a “trolley” for our luggage. With three women, there’s lots of it. When we finally found a nice young man to help us—he went searching to0-saying guests take the carts and keep them in their rooms so they are handy for THEM the next morning. Nice! I asked how many carts they have in this eight-story hotel. “We have four,” he said, “Four?—shouldn’t you have 40?” I suggest.

Here’s another new wrinkle. If you are staying for an extended number of days—they offer you a discount if you don’t need housekeeping daily. We figured we didn’t need the beds made daily so if they could just throw in fresh towels every day, we’d be happy. However, we never saw the housecleaning team for days. Finally, we called and said we would need daily service but we never did get it and I don’t remember a discount. Are they saving water or soap or just labour??? Not sure.

I am quite sure it’s a thankless job and I can imagine guests can be demanding. Honestly, even though in this particular case there was only one working elevator for eight days—the staff was super friendly and we tried to just roll with it. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want the hotel to treat me like I am home where I have to make my own bed and breakfast. I just wish I didn’t get nose bleeds from the height of the bed.

To add insult to injury, they said we ate 45 dollars in snacks from the stocked bar. Bar? I SAW NO BAR? I neither ate nor drank anything—heck if I had known there was alcohol, I could’ve hopped right up on that bed without breaking a sweat.


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About the Author: Wendy King

Wendy King writes about all kinds of things from nutrition to the job search from cats to clowns — anything and everything — from the ridiculous to the sublime. Watch for Wendy's column weekly.
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