I hate (hotels in) New York

Well, those are quite strong words, but Max and my trip to New York did not turn out so well at the tail end. We had 3 days in Fire Island (Max's friend's house) and 4 days in Times Square (Days Hotel) planned. When we arrived, things were great, Ken (Max's friend) was arriving just as we were at JFK and led us from the airport via car to the water taxi to the Island to the house. He had done this before, and we were lucky to have such a great guide. I was having my doubts about this being a
perennial destination spot for us however, given all the modes of transportation we had to take. I think we did everything except alpaca. Foot, MUNI, BART, airport shuttle, plane, car, water taxi. Craziness. Anyway we had a great 3 days there, a lot of resting, a lot of beach time, a lot of walking around. The island is tiny, maybe 1/2 mile wide by ballpark 3 miles long. I may be making up that last figure. But it's too small for cars, so the only way to get around is on foot by these elevated planked walkways through the pretty dense forest. It's really quite amazing, feels a little like being in an Ewok village or something. So that was fun- margaritas and beach volleyball at noon made for typical vacation activity. And 3 days was perfect timing for not getting too bored. Our second half of the trip was Times Square, we had booked a hotel about a block away from the square, on 7th Ave and 49th, which made it pretty expensive, but I really did not us to have to subway or cab everywhere. My reasoning was that the cost of our time and transportation would be more than just paying extra for the convenient hotel room. I think I was right, except we picked the wrong hotel. When we checked into the room, we noticed that the refrigerator was taped shut. That was weird, I thought they were trying to monitor whether we accessed the minibar or something. But then Max opened it and not only was it empty (except for the user manual), but not plugged in. Ok, that was weird, so we plugged it in. Now how about some reading light, whoops one of the lights doesn't work next to the bed. How about room service- nope, nothing. Bathroom clean? There were a few long hairs on the floor, mildew on the ceiling and a big hole punched out of the wall near the sink. Goddamit, ok well we wouldn't be spending much time here anyway, but it still sucks. So our 4 days consisted of tons of walking, visiting with friends, seeing some sights, but we had both already seen the major ones like Empire State Bldg and Statue of Liberty, so we focused more on little ones. Like the Apple Store Soho :). A little stressful figuring out the subway, which seemed a lot more manageable than I had feared. The last time I was in NY, I was by myself and working most of the time, so never had the chance to figure it out completely. We had a good time, Max and I have different work schedules, so it was great to finally spend some uninterrupted time together without TiVo, without computers, and without work!

Come to find out that the hotel was under an ownership change, from Days Hotel to the Hilton, or the other way around. The phones in the room said Hilton, but everything else said Days. The ice machine in the hallway was in the process of being set up, and the elevators. Oh my god the elevators. We took to taking the stairs primarily because 3 out of 4 elevators were constantly occupied by work crew. Constantly. It sucked. And we were on the 6th floor.

So fast-forward to our checkout. We weren't sure how to get to the airport, I had always taken a cab without worrying about the cost because of work reimbursement, but now we were on our own. There was a table at the hotel offering shuttle rides, so we were happy. $25 dollars, ok a cab would have costed about 40. Oh, each. Ok 50 bucks for a shared ride, uggh ok we had already booked before I could say no. 10 bucks extra, whatever it was the end of our vacation. Shuttle booked for 3.15 for a 6:00 flight. Seemed a reasonable time allotment, I knew JFK was about 1-1/2 hour trip, that would get us there about an hour before our flight. We checked our bags with the hotel, so we could spend the last couple of hours walking around Times Square. It was about 10am, and our shuttle was at 3.15, so we weren't totally sure how to fill up this time. Ate breakfast, walked around, and then hung out in the lobby of the hotel. Times Square was getting really boring.. We noticed tons of construction going on, replacing the radiator in the front lobby, replacing the front door windows, scaffolding outside with people climbing up and down, people grinding down metallic pieces in the front doorway. We were asked to move because we were in the way at one point. This was not what I thought I paid for. 3:00 rolled around, and we were going to get up to get our bags and all of a sudden this gentleman comes running in the door. "Shuttle, shuttle!" Uh, ok 15 minutes early. Crap we have to get our bags. All of a sudden everyone was in slow motion. Went to the front desk to get our bags, oh we had to wait for the bell hop, who was nowhere to be seen. Our bags weren't behind the bellhop station anymore, so we had to wait for him to appear. There was another woman also waiting, and with each passing minute she was getting more and more red in the face waiting for this guy. I thought she was waiting for the shuttle as well, but no. Finally the bell hop arrived after about 10 minutes, as I was reassuring the shuttle driver that I was doing as much as I could. Gave him our bag tags and watched him shuffle over to the elevators. Oh crap! Ok, now he is taking the stairs. Whew. Waited 10 more minutes, now the driver was getting REALLY anxious. Even with the fact he was 15 minutes early, we were now late, and making the 1 woman in the shuttle late as well. We had no idea where the heck the guy was in a 12 story building, what was I supposed to do?? Can we go to the storage room ourselves? No, the front desk person said, we had to wait for the bellhop. Finally he appeared after an eternity with 1 bag, and it was the woman's in front of us. She was about to explode, but just grabbed it and ran. Where were our bags!! He shuffled away up the stairs again, I thought he might have brought them down and they were around the corner. Nope, 10 more minutes go by, it's now been 30 minutes to get our bags. Max took off up the stairs, and found him on the second floor just talking to someone, with our bags on the floor, waiting for the wretched single elevator that was being used by the hundreds of others in the hotel. Dragged the bags down the stairs and ran outside, and then Max told me they were just sitting there and talking on the 2nd floor. Oh man, I almost never feel like yelling at someone, but my blood pressure started to rise. I started sputtering like you wouldn't believe, but there was no time. We piled into the shuttle, and I felt bad for the woman's delay in the seat in front of us. Her husband had appeared out of nowhere next to her. "It's about time we're moving..", she seemed to say to no one in particular. Ok I could sort of understand she was a little mad. "I'm sorry..the hotel..bags..second floor..", trying to mention to her. "I don't want to hear it", she spat. Oh man, I've also never felt like hitting someone, but all of my anger at the hotel was suddenly directed in one place, at the woman in front of me. I said sternly and loudly, "I'm sorry, but we are really PISSED OFF too!" Max grabbed my knee, and I'm sure her husband grabbed hers as well. Max said, "it's just cultural honey", which we later thought she might have thought was directed at her. Oh well. So we had to spend 90 minutes with this horrible aggressive energy swirling around the shuttle, not saying anything. And then we stopped to pick up some one else, and then we stopped to get gas, and then we picked up a group of 3 others, and then another group. The shuttle was finally packed, as we made our way to the airport. Keep in mind it's rush hour, and we are still in Times Square somehow..

Ok this is a long story, but suffice it to say that we were the last people let out of the shuttle at the airport, we missed our flight, it was the last flight to SF for the day, and the only thing they could give us was a standby flight at 8.30a the next day, no promises. We had to call a few hotels to see what was up, check prices and locations. Days wouldn't call us back. We stayed at the Ramada near JFK because I didn't want to be anywhere near the city because we had to be back at the airport at about 6.15a the next day to get a good chance for a spot on the flight. We didn't have guaranteed seats, but it turns out we could only be standby for both legs of our trip, from JFK to Dallas and then from Dallas to SFO. We could very well be stuck in Dallas if there were no seats available on our connecting flight. So, good news, there were about 60 seats available on the JFK to Dallas (Max kept calling his mom to have her check online- very helpful for our sanity!) And there was like a refugee camp flying standby as well, and they were there before us. No kidding, there were 9 people from Somalia from a refugee camp that spoke no English. I have no idea why they were flying to Dallas. But even with that, we got on the flight. We were not sitting next to each other, but no big deal, at least we were on. Arriving in Dallas, we were only 45 minutes before our connecting flight's departure time, so we were pretty worried for our chances. Running to the Dallas gate, we checked in and asked what our chances were. The disinterested gate-guy said, "Oh, it looks like we have 1 seat left". Oh crap. So we had the discussion about whether or not one should go without the other, and Max had to work at 3pm, which this flight would enable. We didn't really make a decision, but before long, we heard our names called. But no one else's. We got the last 2 seats on the plane. Couldn't believe it. I'm going to frame that boarding pass, if I can find it.. The seats were horrible, very very last row, between the engine and the bathroom. Max could reach over and take drinks right from the stewardess station, that's how close we were to the back. But we were on. Luckily I had ear plugs, because it was really loud, I can't believe they even sell those seats, that's how bad they were.

But we made it. Here are some pics of the trip: http://homepage.mac.com/chad.armstrong/PhotoAlbum3.html