July 31, 2006

Blogher-The Hotel

The van driver from the airport to the hotel was very nice and helpful with the baggage. Check-in went fast despite the line. Our room was a huge hike from the lobby but very close to the "med center." The hallways were sweltering. The elevator had an expired certificate and tended not to be even with the floor at stops. The room was nice and large, the bathroom was nice but the tub was behind the door which was awkward upon occassion. Two bedside tables! Seriously rare in these days. No ac on when we got there, but they do that in FL too.

Smoke detector issues when the shower ran.

Food at the hotel: BLEARGH! as my neopets would say. Buffet breakfast was 12.95 and definitely not worth it. Food catered to the event: boring to bad. (What was up with the roll my Boca burger came on?) Set up for meal times: ACK! confusing, awkward, and insufficient for processing large numbers. As I mentioned to Scoble the first afternoon (Robert, not the real superstar Maryam) Did they not expect women to eat?

Staff at the hotel was unfailingly courteous, even when I got carded. Where I stammered, pointed out wrinkles, motherhood of 6, and yet patted my pockets to say no id like a 17 year old.
I suppose those nice old women with me vouching for me helped. ;-)

Lobby, my goodness, could it be any LOUDER. Ack. I spent some time there yesterday and wanted to pull out my hair.

Conference rooms: excessively crowded. (Just because you CAN squeeze that many tables in a room doesn't mean you should advertise it as such.) Tatty in places. I noticed today they were pulling out buckets of paint and hammers and nails, so maybe they were waiting for the Bloghers to do their worst before sprucing up the place.

Connection issues: I hated the wired only connection in the room. We have two laptops, we needed two connections. I imagine folks who were sharing a room with non-family had even more awkward "whose turn is it? I will hurry" issues. Despite my antsyness being without a connection at times during the conference, it really wasn't the end of the world. (of course, you can all imagine that I would have taken amazing notes and live blogged my heart out had I had a connection.)

On the other hand, it was 75.00 a night.

3 comments:

sassymonkey said...

If I had been there we could have been carded together. After all, I get ID'ed by the LCBO sample lady...

TW said...

What on earth is the LCBO sample lady? And no, Jess who is far younger than I, (at least I think so) didn't get carded. Just me.

sassymonkey said...

Oh umm oops. LCBO = liquor store here.

I get ID'ed everywhere here. I'm assuming I'd be carded even more in the US because of the different legal age thing. I got carded when we went to the Ferrick show in Florida.