Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Sleepless in Lubbock

I went to Lubbock last weekend for an indoor track meet at Texas Tech University. Lubbock is in Texas by the way. It took me 4.5 hours to drive there from Dallas. Texas is big.
I have gone to the track meet in the past and I have never been able to solve the hotel/motel mystery that is Lubbock.
I remain perplexed. Its true that Lubbock is on the high plains of Texas (ugly terrain) and is a bit isolated, but Texas Tech boasts an excellent medical school, law school, architecture school....well you get it......it is not necessarily filled with total bumpkins........but every time I have stayed there the hotel/motel scene has been a disaster for me.

I learned this lesson too. When you book through hotels.com they suck the money up at the moment you make the reservation and you will not see it again without hiring a lawyer.
This presented problems at the Ramada Inn that I booked through hotels.com. It turns out the hotel cannot refund your money. You have to get it from hotels.com many months later and if you read the fine print, well that is where hiring a lawyer comes in. Based on recent experience however I intend to spend my money on lawyers as an absolute and complete last resort. They will never see my money again so long as I live unless I am desperate beyond what I can articulate in this post. I’m talking life or death. Sorry lawyers. No, I take it back, I’m not sorry.

I was also sorry about staying at this Ramada Inn and sorry for believing the hotels.com description, where it was described as being quite a palace on the high plains of Texas.

Here is the list:

The return air grille was covered in approximately 1 inch of dusty filth collected, obviously, by dirty returning air. It looked like it had not been cleaned in this decade.

The bed had a padding mat that was unsecured causing it to roll across the bed and ‘bunch- up’ in waves as I moved. A sordid mass of bunched up padding by morning.

An indoor swimming pool adjacent to the atrium rooms (mine) which was filled both nights with what appeared to be gigantic birthday parties for children 3-10 years of age. When they were finished a similar party of incredibly loud teenage celebrators took over until 11pm.

The shower head was located at a height suitable for a midget. I am not one. This must be how it is if you booked a room designed by tiny pygmy folks in Africa. Of course, first you had to get on your knees in a discolored tub to use the 4' high shower. (I don’t even want to know why it was discolored)

When doors were open and shut in our corridor the sound echoed all down the corridor walls ringing around inside your head just at the moment you felt you might actually fall asleep on the bunched up padding even though teenagers were screaming outside your window.

Ramada Inn is warned, I always travel armed. I began to understand how mass murder actually occurs. It appears Ramada Inn and hotels.com are behind this phenomenon.

This is the third year in a row that I have totally blown the Lubbock hotel/motel scene.
So, if you have suggestions about where to stay in Lubbock and maintain some semblance of dignity I am all ears.

Meanwhile, I suggest the following sign for Ramada Inn - Lubbock.

Sleepless in Lubbock!

2 comments:

Stacy The Peanut Queen said...

Wow, that sucks!

That's EXACTLY why I hardly ever reserve rooms on-line...I'm scared to death I'll get screwed out of my money!

And The PK and I hardly EVER have good luck with hotels/motels either. We went back to Illinois for The PK's family reunion and ended up staying at a little hole-in-the-wall hotel (because in the tiny town he's from, hotels just don't exist like they do in Orlando). When all the locals found out where we were staying, they're all like "Oh, so you're staying at the roach motel, huh???"

I was SOOOOO ready to come back home! :)

Seven said...

Stacy
I thought that the reviews that are shown on some of the web travel services would be helpful. I have learned they are nearly always inaccurate. Arghh...*&#^$(@#))@***!!!!!