meet me in st. louise, louiee (part 2--why hilton sucks!)

and no, i'm not referring to paris' lackluster *yawn* homemade porn.

we had reservations at a suites place that was a subsidiary of hilton hotels. we made these reservations over a month ago, when we had a fair idea of when we should be arriving in st. louise.

so we get there, road-weary, strung out on sugar and caffiene, beat to hell by the 100-plus heat and the 85-and-upwards% humidity, and they inform us that due to the fact that some people decided to extend their stay, we've been booked for a room in a nearby doubletree inn (also a subsidiary of hilton), free of charge, and that our reservations will be back on for tomorrow.

now, i have stayed at hotels for a night, and then gotten a wild hair, and decided to stay another night or two before, and nearly always, i have been informed that my room has been reserved by someone else, and i will have to move. yeah, no prob. that's the fucking point of reservations. well, everywhere except missouri, i guess.

so we go to the doubletree. we get to our room. all we want is a shower, a dip in the pool, followed by roomservice. yeah, not gonna happen, pal.

because the room they booked us in was a single king bed, and a smoking room. now, i know i am a smoker, so is the wife, but we do not smoke inside, nor do we smoke where our children can view us, and we certainly don't like residing in a place that smells like a four-day-old ashtray. furthermore, we are three adults and two children, so where are we supposed to sleep?

"we can bring up a roll-away bed" how bout a baseball bat to smack me in the back of the head with?

"well, you will have to call the manager at the place that booked you here. we don't have anything else available." what? are you pissing in my fucking ear, or what? you can't do anything else for a disgruntled customer? then fuck you.

so we call the manager of the other shitty place that fucked us over in the first place, and he informs us that there is nothing else he can do. we inform him that yes, there is: he can give us the number to Corporate, and his name, and he can cancel our reservation because there is no fucking way in hell that we are going to give any more of our money or time to his hotel or fucking hilton, for that matter.

then we drive around looking for another place to stay. it is tourist season in st. louise (the whole reason we had reservations in the first place, right?), so we had a hell of a time.

but we stopped in at a marriott, and they were full, but said that they could certainly call around to try and help us out. it ended up that they were unable to find a place for us, but the fact that they were so helpful caused us to call them back when we did get settled, and they told us that they were booked, but would give us a room anyway, and that there was no way that we would get bumped for any reason.

and they took suck wonderful care of us the entire time that we were there. so i pass this along to all of you in nonexistant readerville: bypass anything owned by hilton, and go instead to anything owned by marriott.

paris doesn't need any more money anyways.

darth sardonic

ps. more tomorrow about the rest of the trip.