Hotel

When we stayed at the Airport Hilton a couple of weeks ago (when we had no A/C our builder paid for two nights there since it was his fault), we had a few minor issues. The handicap accessible room was nice, but Ron couldn't navigate into the bathroom from the little access hallway. More and more people are using electric scooters instead of traditional wheelchairs so I'm sure this is something that will come up again in the future. In order for him to get to the toilet he had to park his scooter and hobble into the bathroom. He's got so many other problems he can't really hop so that was a bit of an issue. Something about ½ of his left foot missing may have something to do with it. Hmmm – sounds like it could be.

In addition, the shower doesn't have a lip on it, so water from my morning shower got all over the floor. In addition to the floor mat, I used nearly every towel there to clean up the floor. The sign said if you can re-use the towel, hang it up; if not, leave it on the floor and housekeeping will pick it up. These were soaked so I left them on the floor by the shower. We were gone for most of the day and when we got back in the mid-afternoon, the room had not been serviced. I figured that maybe since we were staying two nights that it was normal procedure to not have it serviced. No big deal, except I didn't have any other towels for another shower.

I also didn't have any coffee for the in-room pot for the next morning. Oh well… I'd have to purchase coffee after I checked out.

I decided to check out the Jacuzzi since I knew the hotel had one and I was looking forward to relaxing my sore, tired muscles. (Loading and unloading that heavy scooter is very. Even though we have the wheelchair trailer, I still have to raise or lower the hitch [that thing is heavy, too], raise or lower the ramp [depending on if it's loading or unloading time], roll the chair up or down, and then tie it down [or untie]. If he's got more than one doctor's appointment that day, it could mean as many as 12 times of up/down.) The Jacuzzi was broken. That was totally disappointing but I did get into the pool for a bit. (I know, big surprise – me in a swimsuit but with a 35 pound weight loss I was game to do it.)

When we sat down to watch the television we noticed that CBS made a noise. The louder we turned up the volume to hear the show, the louder the noise got. Bummer… We watched it anyway – or, at least I did. Ron went to sleep pretty early.

The bed was pretty comfortable and since we didn't have air conditioning at home, we greatly appreciated being able to cool the room down.

On the check-out statement there was a note from the hotel general manager, with his email address. He said he'd like to know about our stay – good, bad, and the ugly. So, I told him. I gave his front office staff a 10 because they were very pleasant checking in and checking out. The room rated an 8 since it was very clean, the linens very nice, and overall very comfortable – just not truly totally accessible. The TV choices got a 5. HGTV and TLC were not even channels I could find that were offered so that was a bit of a disappointment (those are what I watch the most on the weekends).

I didn't actually expect to hear back from him, especially since I got an email survey a couple of days later. Imagine my surprise when I got a return email that not only apologized for the inconveniences, but wanted to give us a complimentary one night stay. He indicated that he'd like for me to come out one day and take a tour of rooms that he thought would accommodate the scooter and then set a date for us to stay. Since our 24^th anniversary is the 20^th I asked if that night would be good. He said it would.

We went to the hotel today to take the tour. Oh My Goodness! The rooms the office manager showed us were AWESOME! In my wildest dreams we could never afford a room like that. The first one had a big office area when you first went in. Next to it was a small kitchen and through the kitchen was the bathroom. Ron could get into the bathroom but there wasn't any room for him to turn around. That would be OK as he could back out again.  The tub was a HUGE (at least a two person) Jacuzzi tub. Man, would that be nice. The bedroom area had a very nice king-sized four poster bed and a TV armoire at the foot. It was a bit tight on either side of the bed but could be maneuvered. The living room area had a nice sofa, love seat, tables, and big TV but it was only separated from the bedroom area by a half wall. Just for grins Ron asked what that room rented for. $400 per night!

Unbelievably, the second room was even nicer than the first. The living room was big and had a sectional sofa and a flat panel TV! There was also an office area and a small kitchen. The bedroom was totally separate from the living room (with its own door) and you could access the bathroom from both rooms. The Jacuzzi wasn't as big but there was also a separate shower. The toilet was in such a place that Ron could drive through from the bedroom and out the second door into the living room. It was awesome! That's the room we're going to get – except it will be concierge level and we'll get a free breakfast delivered to our room the next morning. I was afraid to ask how much that room rented for.

We never had a honeymoon so that will almost be like having a mini-honeymoon. It's not quite like being able to go to Vegas to see some shows (which we wanted to do this year before all the turmoil started) but it's better than sitting at home and watching TV.