June 24, 2005

Traveling...

....most likely no blogging today... traveling... the Extended Stay America hotel near the Wolfchase Galleria Mall in the Memphis area is the worst hotel I've ever stayed at. They screwed up our reservation in every possible way, gave our suite away, then offered us a smaller room not large enough for a family of four, with one "double" bed that was about an inch wider than a twin, and a "fold-out sleeper sofa" that was about as wide as a chair-and-a-half. And the room was dirty. And the front desk clerk said if there weren't any linens on the sofa bed, to to come back down to the desk and get some. (There were linens - which means they hadn't been changed since the last guests there).

And the service was rude. (Memo to Extended Stay America corporate office: Tell your staff that when guests are trying to exit the elevator, the polite thing to do is to NOT bull your way on.)

It was so bad we checked out at midnight to go someplace else - a hotel 50 yards away where the room was clean, the staff is nice, and the price was right.

DO NOT EVER STAY AT the Extended Stay America hotel near the Wolfchase Galleria Mall in the Memphis area!

There. I feel better now.

UPDATE: My wife reminded me that it was the Extended Stay America Deluxe. I'd hate to see the non-deluxe version.

By the way, we were in Memphis as part of a large group of families with about 80 children of varying ages participating in an AAU track meet. The group pre-booked dozens of rooms in the Extended Stay America Deluxe. Several others had a variety of problems - wrong rooms, faulty plumbing and the like. Turns out the hotel gave most or all of the pre-booked the rooms to some big family reunion group, and then had to shoe-horn the track group into rooms that were too small.

Too bad somebody forgot to tell the night staff to be nice and apologetic to the people they grossly inconvenienced.

The Extended Stay Deluxe had wi-fi, but it was $3.95 a day. Meanwhile, the AmeriSuites where we moved to at midnight had an unfailingly polite staff and free high-speed Internet inthe room, free wi-fi in the lobby (which also worked in my room even though they said it was only in the lobby). They also had a free breakfast, and a free USA Today.

The night manager told me Hyatt recently bought AmeriSuites and is planning to renovate them with a "boutique" hotel feel - complete with a Starbucks-like coffee cafe in the lobby, and flat-panel TVs in the rooms.

I have stayed at many Hyatt properties over the years. I have never - ever - had a bad experience at a Hyatt.