Like many of the denizens of younger corporate America, I am a road warrior. Last year, I spent 123 days on the road.... just for business (I know this information for state tax purposes). Unlike many of my office mates, however, I don't really mind. I enjoy the change of scenery, the chance to go to places that don't perhaps make the usual tourist circuit and, of course, the free airline tickets and car rentals that I accrue that help me to afford real vacations on my entry level salary.
Many of my travel experiences have been good. For instance, I thoroughly enjoy staying at the Four Points Sheraton Airport in Huntsville, AL. I know it's a hotel in an airport... in Huntsville, but the rooms are always clean, the selection of amenities is nice, the mattresses are comfortable, and you have the unrivaled convenience of being able to roll out of bed and check in for your flight before heading back upstairs to shower and make yourself travel ready. For the convenience alone, I would enjoy it. But what the Sheraton does superlatively well is customer service. I have never failed to find a pleasant, helpful staff member at the desk, even when cheking in at 2am from a very delayed flight. I have frequently witnessed "above and beyond" service, as when I arrived at 10 am (instead of 7:30 pm the previous day, thanks American Airlines) for a 12:30 meeting and desperately needed to change into work clothes and freshen up. The staff found me a room, even though it was hours before the standard check-in time, helped me extract my suitcase from AA and get to where I needed to go. Even the little things (a complementary bottle of water when it's 98 degrees and 98% humidity, say) are taken care of. A great hotel (I'd recommend it, but I go there frequently for business and I'd hate to not be able to get a room). And, for the record, Huntsville really isn't a bad place... they have a missile and rocket museum. No place that has a Darth Vader suit and a Saturn V rocket can be all bad.
Sadly, other places decide that since I look young, my business isn't particularly important to them. For instance, another place I have to go to frequently is El Paso, TX. Here, I am at the mercy of the corporate travel booker who decides which hotels are officially approved. This year, I was vastly upset to learn, I am no longer allowed to stay at the Embassy Suites. I find this depressing because, while the Embassy is perhaps not the newest hotel in Texas, it is well maintained and has a helpful, professional and more than competant staff (since I can't stay there any more, I'll freely recommend this one). Oh, and they offer a shuttle bus so that I don't always have to drive my micro-brewery enthusiast colleagues to Jaxons (I am a woman, but I'm a woman who likes beer and ice hockey and video games... my boyfriend appreciates this, though I can't promise my mother does).
Now, though, I am relegated to the Radisson Airport hotel. Unlike the Sheraton, this property is merely near the airport not actually in it (the El Paso airport is generally fairly lame, so this is not actually surprising), which isn't great, but isn't a tragedy either. I've stayed in plenty of not-at-the-airport hotels that were quite nice (the Hyatt Regency in Crystal City, VA and the Holiday Inn Express in Belen, NM spring to mind). This place, though, has to have the worst booking record in hotel history. I have stayed here no less than 11 times and at least half of those, my reservation has been messed up. Today, for instance, I am staying in a first floor room with double beds with inner spring mattresses near the pool when the reservation was for an upper floor room with a king Sleep Number mattress away from the pool.
The staff's attitude is also horrendous. Last time I was here, I checked in and got my room key (first floor again). After tramping down the hall, out the door onto the patio (where I was promptly accosted by 2 wet children and one very large bug, to say nothing of 90 degree heat), I got to my patio room (I hate the patio rooms because they are unsecure, hard to get to and noisy) only to discover that my room key didn't work. So, back inside and down the hall to the desk I went. I waited on line and then asked, I thought quite reasonably, for two keys, just in case there was a problem with one of them. The delightful little girl behind the desk snapped at me "there's only one guest in that room, so I can only give you one key". Now, I totally understand asking for ID before duplicating a room key, or not giving out 50 copies to one person, but asking for a duplicate key when one key was already messed up so that I wouldn't have to do another lap to and from the front desk is hardly an outlandish request. Alas, that's the El Paso Radisson for you.
This trip wasn't a total loss, though. The past 10 days I stayed in a Marriott property in Las Cruces (the Springhill Suites) that was quite nice. Not, perhaps, as lively as the Springhill in Arlington, TX, but very nice all the same. For their frequent visitors (and I am becoming one), they provide water and cookies. Who can go to a desert and not appreciate the water? Any who anywere doesn't like to be given free cookies?
