Hyatt: Survivor Hotel Addition

[Hermione692]

It was a long four nights of Survivor Hotel Addition, and I outlasted, outwitted, and outplayed to Survive to tell our story.

It all started on a cold night when we first reached the Hyatt after a long day of traveling. With only peanuts and a turkey sandwich in our stomachs we trudged up the steps to the Hyatt to be astounded by the beautiful atrium and pretty elevators. However, it was not as it seemed--we had no idea what was ahead of us.

The first night was normal enough; the room was nice, but even smaller than the hotel room in Silicon Valley at the Clarion Inn. We were also expecting bathrobes like it said in the brochures, but there were no bathrobes (PacificSunChica was quite distraught). But the beds made up for this minor set back. The beds were definitely heavenly--very pillowy.

One night down three more to go. The second night we get back to realize that the Hyatt rooms do not have refrigerators or microwaves...I mean even the Clarion had them. This meant no burnt popcorn and no where to put our left-overs from the Spaghetti Wherehouse. This was a problem. We thought for hours on end to solve this major problem. Answer: we took our ice box, filled it with ice, and ta-da instant refrigerator--oh yeah, future engineers here :D

Two nights down two more to go. The third night was definitely a crisis. We get back to the hotel around 9:30 and to find we have a huge urge to go to the pool. I mean we all brought our swimsuits and even had one of those fun blow-up balls that team 364 (i think) gave us. However, we encounter another problem: the pool is not working!! I mean come on, it's almost summer and the pool isn't working--is California the only place where pools function year-round? LOL.....so we are back in our rooms playing a bit of crazy taxi and a really cool shooting game on our dreamcast, when I'm overcome with thirstiness. Now, the Hyatt does have water bottles on the table, but they are for sell... and guess how much? FOUR DOLLARS--yeah right, like I'm going to pay four dollars for a water bottle. Answer (or at least we thought): just drink tap water from the bathroom sink; however this posed an even bigger problem. Yes, the water was definitely not clear... it was more of a cloudy white... i mean if it was more white it could have past for milk. So I flop down in the chair about to die from thirst when (I'm getting pretty desperate here) I come up with the idea to pour the water from the water bottles into a cup then refill the water bottle with the tap water. At first this was a good idea but one of my fellow survivors said they'd probably notice the seal is broken...so that idea was scratched. Final Solution: boil the tap water. Yes, we actually boiled the tap water because we had one of those coffee makers...so, yeah, that kinda worked. Noticed later that we could have just melted ice Awertygraut!

Three days down one more to go. The fourth day was the most frightening day of our lives. I fall asleep to be awake by a fellow survivor, PacificSunChica, screaming, "There is a cockroach in the bathroom! Kill it! Kill it!" By this time, I couldn't believe all these happening.. I mean this is the Hyatt! So I sleepishly walk over to see a humungous cockroach this big l____________________l OMG! It was huge. Now, I'm not a bug type person so we wake up the other survivor (whom hates bugs about ten times more than me). I suggest just closing the bathroom door to lock it in but they are totally freaked so alphagrl2 picks up a coat hanger and PacificSunChica picks a water bottle (*side note: Where was this water bottle when I needed it? hmmmm...) So by this point the cockroach had disappeared and was hiding somewhere in the bathroom. So they went searching, when after a few minutes I hear a scream and the two of them come running out of the bathroom. So seeing at this rate we were never going to get this bug out of our room, we ran out into the hall to find our fellow 692 teammates. They got a shoe (what a concept ) and smashed it about ten time before it wasn't moving anymore...I mean this was one fast cockroach. Also on the fourth night, PacificSunChica's bed was taken over by someone who shall not be named, so she was forced to sleep at the end of the bed. Two hours later at 2:30 am we awoke to leave for our flight back home.

We survived: outlast, outplay, and outwit. Too bad we didn’t get all this on tape since CBS denied us of our wonderful version of Survivor. Well, until next year!
Hermione

(any other Survivor Hotel Additions?)

[Dirty Harry]

Melting the ice was my idea.....AWERTYGRAUK!

[Dave_222]

What floor were you guys on the 19 floor owned. My room was huge. yeah you had to buy the water yeah there were no robes but hey those elevators ruled.

[jpren]

Hmm, just a few things I'd like to add about Hyatt.

1. The elevators wait was insanely long on wednesday when we arrived. It was literally faster to run down the stairs (we were on the 8th floor so it wasn't THAT bad)
2. The breakfasts? hmm, do they really call those breakfasts? Ok, you get there are 6:15 am and all they have are a few weird muffins and boxed cereal (2 selections: corn flakes and something else... whatever happened to the rest). At 7:15, the hotel ppl start cleaning up the food and if you come at 7:25, there won't be anything left in that room. Compared to where we stayed last year (Disney New Orleans Resort), food at Hyatt was atrocious.
3. Rooms: the rooms weren't too bad. I was lucky enough to have a double room at th end of the hall which connected to another team room. However, our bathroom door lock was BROKEN! Now, nice rooms, walk in closet and broken bathroom door? That was pretty sad.
4. Room structure. Is it me, or did everyone go to bed at 9:30 pm. We get back to the hotel at 10pm and everyone's door is closed. I understand that some teams have early curfew, but this hotel just was not the right place if you wanted to meet people. Why? You can't see who is on each floor above you, nobody knows which team is staying where. What's worse is that there's no common space on any floor.
5. The "infamous" piano. I don't know how many of you actually tried out that piano at the lobby, but it's pretty random stuff. If you play on it, some hotel dude will randomly kick you off for the dumbest reasons. "oh, you can't play here." Why you ask? "you can play anytime before 10pm." So you walk away and a minute later they turn on the recording and the piano goes autonomous. Hypocrites! In the morning, some guys were trying out the piano and in the middle of a piece (it was played well too) the piano goes bezerk and starts playing by itself. What kind of respect do these hotellies give us? Geez!

It was fun. Could have been better, but it was Hyatt Regency Houston for all of you.

Did you guys notice some HS's prom in the hotel on saturday night?

[Dirty Harry]

A crazy piano that randomly goes insane? DANG i wish i was there........

[Breanne M]

see hotel horror stories... it was pretty bad...and ours came with instant cofee packets instead of $4 water bottles.

[xavior06]

yea elevators rocked and the spindle top kicked butt, we got out for some time caus we were drivers.. long story.. but yea the rooms suxed.

we had food and drinks caus we stole like 15 sodas and like 20 bags of pretzles and chips and stuff from the autodesk nite!! :p

the guy was totally awesome giving stuff out there.

uh what else.. not much to do, gift store was empty, as was the pool, if you saw it, there was no water in it.

people there were cool tho, specially everyone who engaged in the 200 handshake-a-thon! o and some ppl from another team that suckered my friend into buying a pizza :P

[Chris Nowak]

I think it was thursday morning or something, I went downstairs and sat down b/c we were gonna be leaving in a minute. The lady sitting behind me was talking to the people at the hotel. Apparently, her elevator had malfunctioned, and while I couldnt get the whole story, apparently she got on the elevator, pushed the button, and it moved to the target floor without the door every closing. Also, it stopped about 5 inches above the floor.

Other than that interesting story, I felt that the hyatt was an ok place to stay. We didnt get nearly as much fun in as we had planned b/c of team decisions to go out to eat and such, and team rules about leaving the hotel, but I think it was an alright hotel. Did anyone go up to the spindletop restaurant? Jeez, If our team didnt go out to eat, I probably would have eaten there. It was an insane view.

I was also pissed about the lack of bathrobes...or many other amenities that we had enjoyed at the embassy suites in chicago. Outside aesthetics were awesome, but the rooms were average. It wasnt really cool when we had to pack about 9 people in our room friday night to decide who to pick the next morning, only to have our VCR not work with our tape of the competition, but thats not really the hotels fault. I do wish the pool had been open, it would have been fun to swim, and the only other teams I really talked to at the hyatt were 75 and 128.

[David66]

I am truly terrified. Your stay must have been terrible. perhaps next year your team should look into staying at the Holiday Inn off of Kirby. My room included a kitchen, living room, a and small dining room. Attached at either end of this space were two rooms. We also had 3 beds and 2 bathrooms. It was bigger than the average Boston Apartment I think. But alas, we had no time to use our pool. The food was edible, and the elevator waits were generally not too long...just so long as there wasn't anyone screaming AYYYY in my ear. *I'm not a hypocrite, I just don't think its appropriate in hotels* Anyway, I hope your future visits are much more enjoyable. (At least your maids didn't "liberate" things from your rooms)

[Chris Nowak]

Originally posted by David66
I am truly terrified. Your stay must have been terrible. perhaps next year your team should look into staying at the Holiday Inn off of Kirby. My room included a kitchen, living room, a and small dining room. Attached at either end of this space were two rooms. We also had 3 beds and 2 bathrooms. It was bigger than the average Boston Apartment I think. But alas, we had no time to use our pool. The food was edible, and the elevator waits were generally not too long...just so long as there wasn't anyone screaming AYYYY in my ear. *I'm not a hypocrite, I just don't think its appropriate in hotels* Anyway, I hope your future visits are much more enjoyable. (At least your maids didn't "liberate" things from your rooms)

Holy crap....I sooooo wished we stayed there....thats insane.

[cbudrecki]

I whish I know where all you guys were!!! I roomed with Dave up on the 19th floor and , again, we had a HUGE room! It was one of the corner rooms, what can I say, I tend to get lucky on these trips? Yeah, the lack of bathrobes and the lack of water in the pool really sucked, but other than that, I was quite pleased. The tap water was a little odd, but if you let it sit for a minute or two, it cleared right up. As for the bottled water, we had one bottle that was $4 and one that was $5!!! The same water, the same bottle, I'm sorry but what the H*** is up with that?!?!?!

Oh, and here's a good one for ya...
BadBrad and I thought the beds were a little stiff...so...we figure 'ahh, let's jump on 'em and soften 'em up a bit.' Well, mind you I wheigh about 275, I took about two jumps on the thing and *CRACK* the boxspring breaks and wedges itself off the frame. OK, ez fix, just lift it back on to the frame, the dip in the matress is gone, nothing more said.

The eleveators were definately cool, as long as you got on the express up to the SpindleTop. No, I never really ate there, but the ride was awesome!!! Trying to get from my floor to the lobby really sucked though. Since I'm up on the 19th floor, everybody was below me and the elevators would stop every floor:ahh: !!! They were really cool elevators, but they weren't very efficient, especially since there were 7 of them!!!

[Hermione692]

I am truly terrified. Your stay must have been terrible. perhaps next year your team should look into staying at the Holiday Inn off of Kirby.... Anyway, I hope your future visits are much more enjoyable. (At least your maids didn't "liberate" things from your rooms)

wow, that sounds like a really nice hotel. The Hyatt was actually okay because I found all the happenings to be more humorous than anything else. I mean who would expect a cockroach on the 14th floor..lol. And i dont think the maids took anything that i'm aware of:yikes: but u never know, i did notice that most of the purples had disappeared in the huge bag of skittles that i brought, but then again it could have just been alphagrl2:D later,
Hermione

[Gadget470]

there were quite a few teams who did not express any amount of professionalism at the hotel. i.e. Someone throwing a waterbottle off the balcony into the lobby.. another throwing paper down there.. a student asking me and my teamates "are you 21, I need to get some alcohal into my system"... a couple running around with toy machine guns 'shooting' them (basically being loud).

I have no clue how many times security came and talked to us over other teams being rude and unruly. (The Hyatt crew would look up, and see our team hanging around the balcony after an incident, and assume our involvment)

[Kane_da_slayer]

Yes i remember hearing all of this, even though my team was on the 18th floor. I remember those terriorists, with their fake machine guns, we chased them into an elevator because they were annoying our 1am conversation. All of that was ok and all, but the breakfats's were no good, crappy juice, muffins, and dry cereal, i mean come on. One of our mentors and myself ended up saying this place sucks, so we walked one block, at 6:30am, to the doubletree, to be surprized by a real breakfast set up for FIRST teams. I mean there was real food, sliced fruit, eggs, bacon, potatoes, and really good muffins, not to mention Tropicana OJ, you guys missed out.

[gliebowitz]

Oh please.. was the hotel really "that" bad? Bathrobes or a pool are trivial, and overall, the room was pretty comfortable.

My only complaint is the overcrowding in our team's rooms (5 people per room?!). That's our advisor's fault though.

Oh yeah.. I had over $40 in phone charges. $14 for a long distance call is excessive.

[Gadget470]

5 people in a room isn't bad, we had 6 people in ours one night because we were playing Monopoly and everyone just crashed after the game. (Which I won:))

The breakfast wasn't that bad, it was more than I usually eat in the mornings so I was happy. Fruit, Cereal, Milk, Bread, Juice... Tony the Tiger says it's a balanced breakfast, you should too.

[hacksaw692]

Originally posted by Kane_da_slayer
I remember those terriorists, with their fake machine guns, we chased them into an elevator because they were annoying our 1am conversation.

OMG! I remember them too. We were attacked Saturday night. Since we had an early flight, we figured that we would avoid sleeping and just sleep on the plane. Well, a group of us wanted some place to talk, since one of the girls in the room was sleeping. We ended up staying in the corridor that leads out to the pool on the sixth floor.

It was sometime after midnight when these guys came up from behind us and started shooting. That pretty much ruined the conversation, and I was the one talking too. *grumbles* So a couple of us chased them around, one was taken hostage but managed to break a gun, another tried to retrieve the hostage and managed the steal the gun while gaining a battle wound in the process, and myself and another girl stayed where we were and acted as pacifists. It was really funny at first... but when they came around for another shot, it got annoying.

[ARC341]

anybody stay at the Radisson Astrodome? Powdered eggs, crumbly biscuits, and bacon for 4 days. But on the 4th day, they actually served fluffy pancakes! Our rooms were ok I guess, we got a balcony, no kitchen or fridge though.

[gumby]

Originally posted by hacksaw692
OMG! I remember them too. We were attacked Saturday night. Since we had an early flight, we figured that we would avoid sleeping and just sleep on the plane. Well, a group of us wanted some place to talk, since one of the girls in the room was sleeping. We ended up staying in the corridor that leads out to the pool on the sixth floor.

It was sometime after midnight when these guys came up from behind us and started shooting. That pretty much ruined the conversation, and I was the one talking too. *grumbles* So a couple of us chased them around, one was taken hostage but managed to break a gun, another tried to retrieve the hostage and managed the steal the gun while gaining a battle wound in the process, and myself and another girl stayed where we were and acted as pacifists. It was really funny at first... but when they came around for another shot, it got annoying. Those guys with the guns were really annoying... What was worse was the stupid security guard who enforced the hotel curfew ONLY on my team... Sure he mentioned it several times to us, but it's not like we were being loud, when he went and got our teachers, the reason he did was because we were standing in the hall. That was it, we were quietly talking, and he's blabbering on about the curfew... When questioned as to why he wasn't rounding everyone up, he came back with a response along the lines of I can't get everyone.

Now I understand the curfew, but I would have figured talking while leaning on the wall beside the room would not be cause for concern...

The only other complaint I have about the hotel was that we didn't get ESPN2... but I really only wanted it on Friday night... (As any of the Canadian teams will tell you, there was a hockey game, and ESPN decided not to put it on a channel we got, which meant there were a lot of us who weren't happy...)

[Aaron Lussier]

151 stayed at the Radisson, All in all it was good, nothing really went wrong with my room, becides the fact that the closet didnt shut, but we never used it anyways. Food = Bad, I ate at that place around the corner the last two days. We were on the first floor so we never had to deal with the elevators, The one time I was on the second floor was when I climbed up the side of the hotel to someones balcony and then jumped off:D, yea I know it was stupid, but it was also fun, I got a good leg work out from all the walking I did, but that was good to.

[MissAbi]

What was worse was the stupid security guard who enforced the hotel curfew ONLY on my team

We had it enforced on our team too ... including mentors. It was rather upsetting coinsidering the fact that no one told us about it and that a curfew at as hotel is absurd. We were on our way to the lobby to play monopoly (didn't want to wake the people on our floor). TYhe whole group was stopped (students and mentors) and our mentors were chastized for not enforcing the curfew.

[Arefin Bari]

By the way does anybody know who were the terrorists... i mean which team they were from.. they attacked me and my friend in the elevator saturday night... and was asking to give them everything we had... all i had to say is if you want to get out of the elevator safely you better shut your mouth.... oh well i think they were just too scare to say anything.... and ya i went down got a bottle of water came back.. but i remember one thing which is i only got 9 hours of sleep throughout 4 days.....................and when i was on the way back home.... i was sleeping in the plane...................but the season was great.... but i would prefer disney....... Thanks to each and everyone of you for a great season..............................

[Matt Brinza]

Compared to the Ramada Plaza, these hotel stories sound like paradise. I'm not going to go into much detail about our problems, but we had a few major complaints. The first thing we noticed was the 30 minute wait in the lobby while our lovely counter assistant attempted to find the reservations. During the wait, several members from other teams warned us about using our heaters, as they were "known to catch fire." That was uplifting.

We then commenced cramming our team (and luggage) into the world's tiniest elevators... These things honestly could only comfortably fit up to 3 people - without luggage. The smell, which obviously came from the decaying animal on top of the elevator, was not all too enticing, either. Then there was the shaking... I have seriously had one nightmare about those elevators since our trip. Anyways, upon arrival at our rooms, we were quite dismayed when we found no microwave (which were advertised), and our mini-fridges must have been old mini bars the hotel found 20 years ago.

As the day progressed, we heard several complaints from other teammates about the lack of hot water in their rooms, but they certainly got enough yellow-orange water. We tested ours... Our water was relatively clear (about the same as the white water described in the first post), and we certainly DID get hot water. In fact, hot water was the only water we got (NO cold, there's a first). Well, that news spread around the team rather quickly, and our room became host to several early-morning showers from other teammates.

The under-staffed hotel also provided the "luxury" of new rooms every night to patrons whose rooms were not able to be cleaned (due to the lack of cleaning personnel, of course). This happened several times, but mainly to adults/parents on the team.

Well, I said I wasn't going to go into much detail... too late. The rest of the problems were relatively trivial, like the televisions with no working volume-down buttons, the glowing green splotch of Freon leaking through our ceiling, the cockroach-infested elevators, and disturbing continental breakfast. I don't believe the 3 towels provided were ever taken out of our room, just simply re-folded and placed back on the rack.

- - And you complain about your bath robes?

Least to say, I would have loved to camp out in our bus, if only our team sponsors would have allowed us.

[Elyse Holguin]

i agree with matt, i WISH i would have been at the hyatt, or doubletree, or really anywhere except radisson and now ramada..... radisson astrodome has it's own thread too. read that and then see if you complain. our rooms were hazardous to health, not just some minor inconvenience because we didn't have bathrobes, nothing worked, everything smelled, and 98% of the rooms had roach colonies in them. i know for a fact that radisson's corporate headquarters were contacted at least twice- once by 47, once by us, and we sent in a bunch of pictures, and some "examples" of the bugs we found.. again, all of it's in more detail in either the radisson inn astrodome, the hotel horror stories, or so......

[Alaina]

The pool at the Doubletree in Houston was NOT filled...Maybe CA really is the only place with year-round pools...We had to spend all 4 nights in the hotel room playing cards. I really wanted to swim too. I got a new swim suit just for Houston...And it's still unused...

[Gadget470]

I think a few places (Hyatt also) intentionally shut down their pools for the weekend. I would consider it preventive maintence so that nobody gets hurt when 70 robotics kids want to get into a 50 max. occupency pool without a lifeguard on duty.

Many teams were bummed that the Hyatt pool was closed, I would say I heard about 40 people complain, can't imagine how many else there are that were upset.

[Raven_Writer]

Team 5, Frog Force, and Chuck had the best hotel from what I've read and heard about other hotels. Everything was grand (except the bus-pickup at finals). Pool was opened, no cockroaches, bugs, etc... Only thing I could complain about is that it wasn't indoors where our room was (and others to).

[scuba_sm]

We didn't get to go to Nationals, but we had at least one interesting thing at Grand Rapids.... We had two rollaway beds, and when we got them in, it said on the back of one "Not for Lovemaking"

Hmmm....

[Raven_Writer]

Originally posted by scuba_sm
We didn't get to go to Nationals, but we had at least one interesting thing at Grand Rapids.... We had two rollaway beds, and when we got them in, it said on the back of one "Not for Lovemaking"

Hmmm....
ROFL....hah. I wish I had a bed w/ that on it :grin:

[Carlo]

At the hotel we stayed at (which shall not be named), us being Team 365, we had the most amazing elevators ever. So amazing, they would simply stop and give themselves a break when they got over worked. This resulted in many occurences in which team members would be stranded inside these rising machines for quite a few minutes. However, no stranding was as exciting or eventful as when one night a few of our mentors got stuck in an elevator. With a bottle of 'grapejuice' they were armed for rough times. The entire team gathered around the elevator shouting random comments concerning the team, such as, "Uh-oh looks like Brandon (team 365's driver) was driving the elevator." It was a most fun and eventful night, and we all enjoyed the amusement we got from it. At our annual picnic an award was given to all those who were stuck in the elevator.

Did anyone else have 4 people in a 2 bed room? That was a lot of fun, especially with 4 guys who really dont fit too well.

Pools being broke? I wouldnt know anything about that. Just because BOTH of the pools had broken heaters and the spa/whirlpool was broken didnt stop me and a few of my team mates, some who came in with resistance. I found that getting from one end of the hotel to the other was made much easier if you jumped in the pool and swam accross, fully clothed or not. However, the people at the Prom didnt think it was as cute. I mean I was wearing my best clothing items, including the infamous SpongeBob Boxers.

Alright, enough of my unneccessary rant, I'm exempt from a final, sitting here bored in library.

[shyra1353]

we, team 771, stayed at the hyatt. most of our team was on the 11th floor, but like two rooms were on the 10th.

Originally posted by tb222


same thing with us!!!!! we couldnt figure it out. it was crazy. and those elevators took forever, and i really didnt like the fact that one of them only went up to the revolving restaurant. what a waste of an elevator.

the beds were really pillowy, and i know some people liked them, but personally i couldnt stand them. the pillowy thing was sooo lumpy and uncomforatble that the first night i pulled it off and threw it on the ground and me and the person i was sharing the bed with slept without it. that was a horrible night in terms of how much sleep i got because she breathes really deeply, which i dont have a problem with, but i kept waking up from that and the fact that she kept taking the blankets away from me so i ended up using half of the pillowy thing as my blanket too. and then the second night, i pulled the thing out again and kicked her out of the bed. it was hilarious because she took the pillowy thing and laid it down on the bathroom floor and slept on it (there was an extra pillow and blanket in our room for her to use). she slept like that again the next day. the maids were really funny in the sense that instead of putting that pillowy thing back like the night before, they laid it nicely on the bathroom floor for her. we thought that that was hilarious.

and then the last night, we figured why sleep?? we have to be in the lobby for four anyways. so we stayed up decorating our room with the leis (sp??) being ripped apart and used as confetti and a whole bunch of other stuff thats not appropriate for threads.

about the breakfast, i have to say i was greatly disappointed. it was horrible. first off, the times were messed. who stops serving breakfast at 715??? that was just wrong. and then the selection. wait, there wasnt one. the milk was mainly only one kind (i cant remember what it was, but it wasnt what i drink) so i didnt have milk for my whole time there. all i ate there was the banana bread. but i couldnt eat that by saturday morning so i didnt eat breakfast on saturday until i got to the stadium where i ate one the really dry pretzels that had no flavour and tasted like nothing.

Originally posted by Holla
[B]The Hyatt personal didn't seem to like anyone very much and were snobby and rude to us, definatly not appreciated.

the hotel personnel were rude to us too. i cant remember exactly what happened, but i know we were just standing somewhere, doing absolutely nothing and one of the people came up to us and was just like you cant be here. we werent even talking. he came up to us at one of those points in the conversation where you have finished talking about one thing and are ready to start a new topic.

Originally posted by jpren
Did you guys notice some HS's prom in the hotel on saturday night?

me and someone else on my team saw them when we went downstairs to get something to drink.

Originally posted by jpren
The "infamous" piano. I don't know how many of you actually tried out that piano at the lobby, but it's pretty random stuff. If you play on it, some hotel dude will randomly kick you off for the dumbest reasons. "oh, you can't play here." Why you ask? "you can play anytime before 10pm." So you walk away and a minute later they turn on the recording and the piano goes autonomous. Hypocrites! In the morning, some guys were trying out the piano and in the middle of a piece (it was played well too) the piano goes bezerk and starts playing by itself. What kind of respect do these hotellies give us? Geez!

that would have been so wicked to see. too bad that i didnt.

what about the "gift shop??" i dont even think you could call it that. i mean, there was nothing there, and things were so expensive that i wouldnt even pay that much canadian for them, let alone american. and the service there was kind of slow. i mean, one time i went to get a drink and as soon as i went up to the counter to pay, the guy just randomly left. there was no, "ill be right back" or "one moment please" or anything. and then like five minutes later someone else came back and took forever to get something sorted out behind the register.

did anyone go to the restaurant there? the one that was by the "gift shop", but past the piano? well we did. and the food wasnt that great. i got a chicked cesar and chicken noodle soup. the soup was really watered down and had some random stuff in it that no one could figure out what it was. but the chicked cesar was okay, and my friend got a quesadilla and that was pretty good.

wow, that was a long post and rant. but its over now. all in all, despite these problems, i thought that it was okay. i didnt really go to stay in the best hotel, i went to watch robots, and had a blast doing that. but whatever.

[SaxMan701]

Well, I didn't bother to read everything, but I am pretty sure no one has mentioned the Howard Johnson.
For one thing, there were no halls (all the rooms lead outside). And of course, no elevator. But then again, it was only 2 stories.
Yes, there was a pool. It was an okay pool, despite the fact that it was COLD. Hehe, on day 2 a bunch of people jumped in fully clothed (Chucks aren't good swimming shoes, Sean and Grant!).
The water pressure...hmm...really no way to describe that...it sucked! A shower took like 15 minutes!
Breakfast was your normal continental breakfast...which means NOTHING (practically).
Grant's (evulish's) toilet broke, too. To make it look less obvious, he filled the trash bin with water, but that wouldn't fit in the sink. So, coffee pot to trash bin to toilet was the solution.
The beds also were really bad.
And lastly, the neighborhood. I'd imagine everyone on our team encountered at least one homeless person. The CVS/pharmac and CVS/ harmacy (one on one side, one on the other) was across the 8-lane highway which most people just j-walked across. And we mustn' forget Satan's barn...