A hotel rant…
Last week, I had to spend the week at the Doubletree in Boca Raton while on a business trip. I am a frequent traveler booking close to 50 nights of hotel stays each year and I am used to a certain basic standard when traveling.
The Doubletree in Boca didn’t even come close.
The room, as it was, was very basic. The air conditioning was a little loud and the batteries in the remote were dead, but in general, the room was clean and functional. Oh, and the phone had a strange problem where it accepted calls from the front desk but not room-to-room calls. All in all, I can’t complain about the room.
Well, OK, I can complain. The wireless access only worked in the living room area of the suite, and then only with two bars of power. In the bedroom, there was no signal.
As a business traveler, having high-speed internet in the room is a requirement and is one of the key decisioning points in choosing a hotel. I chose the Doubletree because it listed wireless internet access in every room. I was thrilled the first night when I found out that the internet access was free, saving my company the typical $14.95 nightly fee.
However, while in meetings the next day, they lost their internet access. That was Tuesday morning. It was out all the way until I left on Thursday. I know this might not have been the hotel’s fault, but being in the telecom industry, the problem with the internet would have been attributable in this case to two things: 1) the telco inactivated the DSL account (lack of payment, system error), or 2) the DSL modem was broken (easily remedied for $100 at any Circuit City). Either way, as a business customer of the DSL provider, it should have been fixed in a single day.
The other problem was the bar. The bartenders were excellent, but they had crap to work with. The only vodka and gin they had was the sort of rotgut store brand that kids at frat parties use. The beer was served in plastic cups (I don’t care if it is poolside – get some better serviceware). All in all, a very poor showing for a hotel trying to attract corporate guests.
Finally, the free breakfast was inedible. I mean, the eggs were absolutely disgusting. No amount of Tabasco could fix this. Oh, and the sausage tasted like plastic. Sorry, not plastic, styrofoam. The potato/onion/pepper melange was acceptable. I didn’t even venture an attempt on the coffee front.
In four days at this hotel, I saw at least six people complain at the front desk, and at the end of the trip, I asked to speak with a manager regarding a credit for the internet access. Not only was the supervisor rude and unsympathetic, he complained about my request for a $20 credit for the loss of productivity caused by the internet outage.
I will be in Boca regularly over the next year. Needless to say, I will never stay at this hotel, nor will I recommend this hotel to any of my colleagues.
Bad form, Doubletree. Bad form.
Ok – probably not the best sushi ever – but Kintaro was pretty amazing. Our number one in Europe, and definitely in the top 5 sushi experiences of my life. Kintaro is a small restaurant – with sushi bar seating, a small tatami area and normal western seating. At 9pm on a Friday, Kintaro was packed, and aside from maybe 4 other people in the place, they were all Japanese. The bar has three service areas – a sushi area, a tempura area and a yakitori grill area. One chef only focuses on the sushi (and will do custom orders), the other works the tempura and grill.
.
