Here's today's route.
Traffic through Massachusetts was horrid. Added an additional hour to my trip. One was understandable... There was a car on its roof on a on-ramp... 5 police cars, 2 ambulances, one fire engine and 8 humvees from the national guard. I've never known the NG to be mobilized for a single overturned vehicle, but I don't know everything.I call the central reservation line of the hotel (to be named later depending on how they handle the situation). I tell the agent I want to book a room in Portland Maine for the night. He takes my details, books the room and gives me a reservation number. I drive up the hotel, and they can't find my reservation. After some looking they tell me they can't believe how good a rate I got... Wait for it... but my room is in Portland Oregon. I ask that they cancel the room in OR and give me one here. The agent gets on the phone with customer service and comes back and says she can't do that because it's after the cancellation time, but she can let me have a room at the ME hotel at the going rate. Says I have to call and request a refund because I'm the card holder.
So, I book the room at twice the rate I was expecting and head up to chill and make the calls. I'm walking down the hall and I hear barking from the room two doors down. I drop off the luggage, on my way down to drop off the cart, the dogs are going off again. I asked the front desk girl what the hotel policy is on yappy dogs. She says they're a pet friendly hotel, but will ask the guest to quiet the dogs down. I get something to eat and on the way back to the room she says that if necessary, she'll give me another room. I ask her if the guests told her to "eff off". Her body language and expression say "Yea, but I can't tell you that". I move on, and get to the room. On the way there, the barking intensifies. I get to the room, call down and tell them I want another room. No problem she says and tells me to wait in my room.
A few minutes later she comes up with another key, we grab my stuff and head up a floor. Turns out they decided to upgrade me to a suite. Very nice. Size of two rooms with a microwave and fridge. The front desk folks are trying really hard to make amends. I'm very happy with their effort, but will still dispute the charge for the Oregon room if they don't resolve the issue. So overall, I'm happy with the local service, but the HQ and west coast peeps are a a problem... at the moment.
Random Thoughts
- Gas is expensive here... 50-70 cents more than I paid in Atlanta
- Did not notice any livestock today.
- Listening to Spade and Archer The Prequel to Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon and The cat Who Walks Though Walls - RAH.
- Maybe I need to start booking through Hotwire again... At least if I get screwed there, it won't be too much of a surprise
- No pics today... Still need the card reader
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment