The beautiful Post Oak Hotel in Houston has perfectly executed every detail from lobby to rooms, despite the incessant noise from the 610 freeway. Can’t imagine the sound level if I were lower than the 18th floor.
The shower is perfect. Lovely products, excellent hardware, beautiful marble mosaic floor. And note the city-view window!
But what is that little shelf way down at ankle level?
The lately so-prevalent hotel coffee pot that could be a cesspool of germs. And these days I say… so what?
Continue reading
Love this new shower temperature gauge in the Marriott Courtyard Central Park Hotel in New York City. It reflects the actual temperature of the water, not what you hope it to be.
The handheld sprayhead is quite nice, too. The bathroom was quite orange, including a whole wall you can see reflected in the sprayhead; but I like orange.
Speaking of reflecting… I had some challenges taking the photo. The first few were definitely NSFW. Too much nudity in the mirror-like finish of the hardware.
What kind of perv built this place?
This is the Central Train Station in Oslo, Norway. The first time I passed through the station I was wearing a dress. The moment you come up the escalator or stairs, you’re confronted with glass windows in the floor. No warning.
Now, glass windows on the floor are a little weird to step on in any case. If you’re a woman in a dress, it’s just creepy.
When the station is busy, you can be swept across those pervert peepshows whether you like it or not.
Downstairs, under the peephole windows, are walkways, plaza like spaces, a cafe, and possibly an encampment of trolls. Yep, there’s a clear view up through the floor windows. The most expensive cup of coffee in the world comes with crotch shots. Not that Norwegian women are big on dresses—a central train station feature like this would put me off dresses, too, I can relate!—but we’re talking about the main transportation hub in a capitol city. Who designed this “feature”?
The station gets a plus for the public piano anyone can play, and another plus for the upside-down tree out front (when I was there). But these glass peepholes in the floor? Fail!
I was so distracted I searched for perverts instead of pickpockets.
At what point do you say Stop the taxi and let me out! ? If the driver’s really crazy, how might he react to that? Do you dare antagonize him?
This I wonder—trapped in a taxi going 60 miles an hour. Bob and I are sharing a taxi van with a couple of acquaintances and a lot of luggage. Getting in, Bob and I buckle our seatbelt, as we always do. I turn back to our friends and say Hey, seatbelts. They both shrug. They don’t bother.
The taxi merges onto a highway and we’re going full speed. We four passengers are talking shop, past times, future plans, as friends do. Something one of us says catches the driver’s attention. What, exactly, we don’t know. Maybe it was something he imagined. He starts talking to us in an everyday, rational tone. Slowly, we realize that he’s talking about aliens:
I saw them from my parents’ roof in 1969 and they waved to me. They were saying We’ve scanned you and we know you’re okay. Yeah, we’re being watched by aliens so we don’t destroy the planet. The aliens are watching us. They’ve changed the codes on the missile launchers to avert disaster, and they’ve changed all the weather patterns, too. I saw a tornado going sideways. The funnel wasn’t up and down, it was sideways.
We’d like to think our driver is just kidding around, but his face in the mirror is flat. He never looks to us for a reaction. Without taking a breath, he segues to devil-worshippers:
I see them at the airport. There was this guy at the airport who spins his head all the way around. He followed me and I turned around suddenly and saw him. That depressed him. He was thinking, Why did you do that? You weren’t supposed to turn around and see me. But really he was god, who wanted me to see him, and he’s ugly—the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.
I had to ask the driver: “You mean god hangs out at the airport?”
“Yeah.”
“Why the Vancouver airport?”
“Because of the energy. They pick up the students. The students have so much energy, it shoots out in a spear 30 feet high and they can see it. That’s what they want, energy. It’s like food for them.”
I guess he’s talking about the devil-worshippers again.
“Anyway, then I started losing my hearing and when it got really bad I went to the doctor who said it was a fungus in my ear. See?”
The lunatic taxi driver turns his head to the side so we get a view of his ear, taking his eyes off the road. Behind me, I hear two seatbelts. Click! Click! Otherwise, stunned silence from all of us passengers. We dared not even look at one another.
“And just last week I was in a Starbucks, upstairs, and I was looking down. I saw a man with black eyes, no whites. Then he went out and came back with sunglasses on. He didn’t want me to see his eyes.”
We made it to the airport. I thought I should call the taxi company and report this incident. I didn’t, but I’m sure I should have. What could this lunatic taxi driver be capable of? Has he done something terrible since that ride? Who might I have saved by reporting him?
Or would I have appeared to be the crazy one?
Do you believe me?
I wrote about this ages ago, way back in Hotel Oddity #6, but back then the idiotic installation was in the Miami Radisson Mart Plaza Hotel. I thought it was a unique display of incompetence, a one-off, a singular example of the Peter Principle, combined with management negligence. And look! Here it is again!
This time at the historic Millennium Biltmore Los Angeles, the art deco beauty whose lobby is a show set and whose rooms are pretty ordinary. Our room wasn’t ordinary though. At least I hope not. Could all the rooms have “security” like this?
Need I point out the upside-down installation of the chain receptacle? It doesn’t matter if the door has other security measures, a deadbolt for example, because a guest may choose to use the chain and not the deadbolt, believing himself secure. (No comments on the insufficiency of that particular guest…)
The Millennium Biltmore security lapse does not take away from the beauty and drama of its downstairs lobby and rooms. It’s definitely worth a visit. But management? Would you please fix this?
At the Carmos Hotel in Madeira, you are heartily encouraged to enjoy your life! Good idea! Okay, let’s start now!
This is the message chosen for the plastic shower cap package. Printed in black, though. No colors. Does that take the sincerity out of the message?
And what about that picture? A lotus? Yes, a muddily-printed black lotus.
I’d expect to see something like this in Asia. Strikes me as odd in Portugal. Even on the semi-tropical island of Madeira.
Shower caps packaged in China? Probably.
It’s my birthday, and we’re on the road, as usual. This time it’s an okay low-budget hotel in Anchorage. Our plan for a nice dinner was dashed due to the limited nearby options.
(At the diner with the best potential: “What’s best here?” “Well, we serve breakfast all day.” I can take a hint.)
After “breakfast,” I’m about to watch a film in bed, laptop on my lap. Bob says he’ll watch it with me, move over.
“Get on the other side,” I suggest lazily.
“No, move over,” he insists.
So I do. And under the covers, I feel something soft and loose. Something that doesn’t belong in a freshly pulled-back hotel bed.
Squeamish, I leap out of the bed, disgusted. “Ew, they didn’t change the linens! Someone’s left clothes in the bed! I have to call…”
I reach for the phone and Bob bursts out laughing.
“Look again,” he says. “It’s your birthday present!”
Yes, a dress. Beautiful. Funny. And so much more fun than tearing open wrapping paper.
Can you read this?
I love bedside controls, but this one was tricky. The buttons were small, the text tiny, icons obscure. Who designed this remote?
Did they think about the fact that my contacts might be out? My glasses off? Reading glasses out of reach?
Otherwise, we love the Shangri-la in Singapore. We even appreciate the idea of this remote.
Great convenience in theory!
In practice… needs work!
Shangri-La is better at delightful room surprises.
This intriguing basket was waiting in our room when we checked into the Shangri-La hotel in Singapore. It had been a long journey for us and our heads were spinning. We didn’t know quite what we wanted. Sleep? Food? Drink? A walk?
The Shangri-La knew exactly what we wanted. Jasmine tea! The insulated basket contained a large pot of hot tea, which turned out to be just what we needed.
Shangri-La tea, famous world-round, is a delightful hidden surprise in guests’ rooms upon arrival. I like that the beautiful presentation requires exploration. The reward is in the discovery.
And in case we should consider a run, there was a handy jogger’s map, too.
