November 19, 2003
I've done a fair share of traveling in the last few years and have stayed at a lot of different hotels. That's why I had to chuckle when I saw this article from the NY Times. This may not ring a familiar bell with some of you, but it sure did with me. I'm a fan of gadgets and "cool" things, but here's a few times I've been befuddled.Mountain View Sunnyvale, Ca. I don't remember the name of the hotel, but I do remember I went in my room and was quite pleased to see a Jacuzzi. The first night, I went jogging, came back, filled up the tub, and looked for the button to start the jacuzzi, and for the life of me could not find it. I finally gave up. I looked again the next morning, to no avail. It was the next morning, after I got out of the shower and went to open the curtains, that I saw the missing dial on the wall, behind the curtains, and invisible from the jacuzzi (because it was on the opposite side of the wall from the jacuzzi). I think I laughed, but was also a little annoyed how un-user-friendly the setup was.Seoul, Korea. I had a similar thing happen in a hotel in Korea, but with the hot tubs by the swimming pool. I was the only person around, and I looked everywhere for a button to turn on the jets in the hot tub. They had a service desk that I actually went behind searching for some kind of knob or button. Nothing. I finally gave up and went to the sauna instead.Taipei, Taiwan. Also in Asia, and I think this happened in more than one hotel, I hit situations where I couldn't figure out how to turn off the lights. When you walk into the room, you put your card into a slot just inside the room, to enable the lights. You flip a couple switches and about 7-8 lights around the room (lamps, ceiling lights, the whole bit) come on. That's fine until you want to go to bed. I found a few switches by the bed that turned off some of the lamps, but not the ones next to the bed. I could have gone and removed my card from the wall to turn off the lights, but that was a ways away, and it'd be pitch black trying to find my way back to the bed. To complicate things, some of the lights had dimmers, but no power switches. I think I just ended up unplugging some of the lamps, leaving the lights controlled by the bedside switches on, until I got in bed and could turn off the other lamps. I remember lying in bed, amazed at the needless complexity of the whole thing.
Posted by charr at 10:41 AM
Reader Comments
I've been trying to find hotel rooms that have a jacuzzi so if you remember the name of the hotel you went to in Mountain View please let me know. I'll search until I drop for the switch to turn on the bubbles.
Well, I've done a lot of Googling, and I think it's either the Days Inn or Best Western in Sunnyvale (not Mountain View) on Mathilda Ave. However, neither of the details pages mention a jacuzzi, so I don't know if they have it still or not.
Dang. I've been to several Days Inns and Best Westerns and they didn't have jacuzzis, so maybe it was a special room or something.
Holiday Inn Express in Mountain View is very good.
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I've been trying to find hotel rooms that have a jacuzzi so if you remember the name of the hotel you went to in Mountain View please let me know. I'll search until I drop for the switch to turn on the bubbles.
Posted by dan at November 19, 2003 6:22 PM