So I've told the tale of the horrendous hotel experience. If that was all that was wrong with the trip, I could block it out and still think I didn't throw my money away, but alas, that is not to be. There was much too much wrong with the trip to completely block it from my mind and pretend all was well. But before I go off into another soliloquy on the horror that was my Florida trip, a.k.a. Vacay #1, let me first tell you what was good about it, in no particular order:
1. I didn't have to go into the office for five whole days. (which is not to say I didn't have to work -- as I mentioned once before, briefly, I had to bring work with me).
2. The pool at the hotel was heated and on the western side of the hotel so it had sun until, well, until there was no more sun. . . unlike most other hotel pools which are on the ocean side and therefore have no sun after about 3:30PM.
3. Our flight to Florida was on time.
4. Our flight home was delayed which meant I didn't have to go to work for the fifth day (see #1).
5. Our friends took us out to dinner one night to a restaurant on the beach. (of course my dinner, broiled mahi & steamed shrimp, was totally over cooked and nasty, and we didn't get a table -- but I'll get to that later)
6. We did not run into this totally crazy bitch we met last time we were there.
7. I got to wear both of my new bikinis (which I bought online and still fit amazingly) and even managed to get a little color -- without burning.
8. The weather was really, really nice. Friday and Saturday were sunny with temps hovering around 82. Sunday and Monday were sunny with temps hovering around 72 - not quite beach weather but still nice. Granted, it rained like a mother fucker on Sunday night and was crappy Sunday morning, but we were in bed for most of it so who gives a shit.
9. We missed the torrential downpour that was occurring back home.
10. I may have found my new summer drink -- a white russian, except using vanilla vodka instead of plain, and low fat milk instead of half & half. Yummy. Prolly would have been even better blended.
11. I got to go four whole days without shoes - OK, there was an occasional flip flop, but I hardly consider them "shoes."
12. Got to spend a bunch of time just hubby & me.
13. We got to see the new massive Destination Daytona -- a sort of amusement park for the Harley riding bunch. Or, better yet, a Harley dealer on speed. There weren't any "rides" (if you weren't buying one to take home that is), but there was shopping and a hotel and a food court, and it was just toooo cool.
14. Did I mention I didn't have to go into the office?
OK. So I suppose that's about it. I'm really really trying to come up with some other good stuff, but I'm not coming up with anything and I don't want to blow a gasket over it. After all -- I've got to head out for Vacay #2 in a mere 5 days!! So -- oh, duh...
15. After Vacay #1, Vacay #2 is going to rock the fuckin' hiz-house!!!
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Friday, April 20, 2007
Results of Vacay #1 - Part 1
Florida was fan-freaking-tastic. Well. Not exactly. More like, un-fucking-believable. And not necessarily in a good way. Even if everything else had been amazing, the trip can't qualify as bestest ever because our hotel fucking sucked. Not totally, like I-can't-stay-here-another-minute-without-retching-sucked, but enough that I won't be staying there again. Ever.
OK. It was very clean (which is not the case in some other Daytona hotels I've seen).
It was reasonably priced. It was in a decent location. And we had an amazing view of the ocean.
It had a great pool, a cool-ass tiki bar and fun bartenders. (Cindy was my favorite. She got all excited to hear our "jersey accents.")
But. And this is a big huge BUT. . . on our first night, in our first room (yes, that's right, I said our FIRST room) the toilet wouldn't stop running (in the middle of the night no less). It flushed fine but just kept filling up and filling up and filling up without any end in sight. So. . . hubby (who luckily is quite handy) checks to see if he can fix it and he finds that some moron tried to half-ass fix it with, get this, a WASHCLOTH. This fucking moron tried to use a fucking washcloth to tie together the broken pieces of the parts inside the tank that, uh...duh...make the toilet work. And then they rented us the room as if the toilet wasn't held together by some cheap ass cotton cloth. Muthafuckas. Hubby was able to get the toilet to stop running by sticking another towel in there, so there was no flood, but the fucker was broke. Unusable. Can't exactly stay in a room with no toilet. Needless to say, I bitched, hard, and they moved us to another room. Of course I insisted that we get to keep our stuff in the first room (since the risk of flooding was over) until the afternoon of the next day. It was about 5:30 AM at this point and I wasn't about to move my shit in the middle of the night OR get up early and do it. Screw that. We grab a couple of basics and our valuables, and off we go to Room #2.
Which they claimed was an upgrade. Hardly. It was the exact same room but with a worse furniture layout. The upgrade, they said, was the full size fridge and stove in it (as if I was about to cook anything on vacay - duh, I barely fucking cook at home). Whatever. It was clean. And the toilet worked. We checked. After being in the room about 10 minutes, however, we learned the AC didn't work. Well, technically it worked - it did pump out cold air after all - but we couldn't have the AC on and sleep at the same time because the fucking thing was so fucking loud I thought my head would explode. So no AC. Great. But it was late (early actually by this point) and sleep could not be held off another minute. So we cranked the AC and froze the room as best we could. Turned the damn thing off and hit the sheets.
The next morning, seriously lacking of sleep, I bitch again. This time to the manager. Galley. (that's his name, really). Galley is very nice. He apologizes. Profusely. He knocks our rate way down for the rest of our stay and gives me the pick of any available room I want. So Galley & I go off checking rooms. Don't want the first floor, I tell him -- view sucks. Don't need a kitchen suite, I tell him. I don't fucking cook. We end up in what appeared to be a very nice room on the top floor with a simply amazing view of the ocean. I'm so tired, and happy to finally have a place, I don't notice that the phone is broken -- ok, like the AC the phone technically works -- there is a dial tone after all -- but all the little buttons, like "Front Desk" and "Wake-Up Call", they're missing. I guess you could dial "0" for the hotel operator, but whatever. I also didn't notice that the patio had no screen on it and there was no way to turn off the patio light so at night the patio was useless -- you couldn't open the door to hear the ocean. You couldn't sit outside. This is Florida. And it may only be April, but the bugs have already come to play down there. (although to be fair, I think this electrical and architectural disaster was the same for the whole hotel). Oh yeah, and I didn't notice that one faucet on the kitchen sink didn't work (not like I needed it, but still).
Whatever. At this point we're fucking exhausted. The day is half-over by the time we've moved all our shit from our first and second rooms and noticed all the problems in our third room so we decide to just say fuck it. At least the room is clean. And the toilet works. And the AC won't keep us up all night. Besides, all we plan to do here is sleep and fuck. The rest of the time we hope to be out and about. We hoped.
But that is a whole other story best left for another time.
For now, if you ever find yourself traveling to Daytona Beach, do not, I repeat, do not stay the The Bermuda House. Granted they've recently come under new management so hopefully things will improve, and the pool bar really is awesome, but unless you are a risk taker, you'd prolly better stay some place else.
OK. It was very clean (which is not the case in some other Daytona hotels I've seen).
It was reasonably priced. It was in a decent location. And we had an amazing view of the ocean.
It had a great pool, a cool-ass tiki bar and fun bartenders. (Cindy was my favorite. She got all excited to hear our "jersey accents.")
But. And this is a big huge BUT. . . on our first night, in our first room (yes, that's right, I said our FIRST room) the toilet wouldn't stop running (in the middle of the night no less). It flushed fine but just kept filling up and filling up and filling up without any end in sight. So. . . hubby (who luckily is quite handy) checks to see if he can fix it and he finds that some moron tried to half-ass fix it with, get this, a WASHCLOTH. This fucking moron tried to use a fucking washcloth to tie together the broken pieces of the parts inside the tank that, uh...duh...make the toilet work. And then they rented us the room as if the toilet wasn't held together by some cheap ass cotton cloth. Muthafuckas. Hubby was able to get the toilet to stop running by sticking another towel in there, so there was no flood, but the fucker was broke. Unusable. Can't exactly stay in a room with no toilet. Needless to say, I bitched, hard, and they moved us to another room. Of course I insisted that we get to keep our stuff in the first room (since the risk of flooding was over) until the afternoon of the next day. It was about 5:30 AM at this point and I wasn't about to move my shit in the middle of the night OR get up early and do it. Screw that. We grab a couple of basics and our valuables, and off we go to Room #2.
Which they claimed was an upgrade. Hardly. It was the exact same room but with a worse furniture layout. The upgrade, they said, was the full size fridge and stove in it (as if I was about to cook anything on vacay - duh, I barely fucking cook at home). Whatever. It was clean. And the toilet worked. We checked. After being in the room about 10 minutes, however, we learned the AC didn't work. Well, technically it worked - it did pump out cold air after all - but we couldn't have the AC on and sleep at the same time because the fucking thing was so fucking loud I thought my head would explode. So no AC. Great. But it was late (early actually by this point) and sleep could not be held off another minute. So we cranked the AC and froze the room as best we could. Turned the damn thing off and hit the sheets.
The next morning, seriously lacking of sleep, I bitch again. This time to the manager. Galley. (that's his name, really). Galley is very nice. He apologizes. Profusely. He knocks our rate way down for the rest of our stay and gives me the pick of any available room I want. So Galley & I go off checking rooms. Don't want the first floor, I tell him -- view sucks. Don't need a kitchen suite, I tell him. I don't fucking cook. We end up in what appeared to be a very nice room on the top floor with a simply amazing view of the ocean. I'm so tired, and happy to finally have a place, I don't notice that the phone is broken -- ok, like the AC the phone technically works -- there is a dial tone after all -- but all the little buttons, like "Front Desk" and "Wake-Up Call", they're missing. I guess you could dial "0" for the hotel operator, but whatever. I also didn't notice that the patio had no screen on it and there was no way to turn off the patio light so at night the patio was useless -- you couldn't open the door to hear the ocean. You couldn't sit outside. This is Florida. And it may only be April, but the bugs have already come to play down there. (although to be fair, I think this electrical and architectural disaster was the same for the whole hotel). Oh yeah, and I didn't notice that one faucet on the kitchen sink didn't work (not like I needed it, but still).
Whatever. At this point we're fucking exhausted. The day is half-over by the time we've moved all our shit from our first and second rooms and noticed all the problems in our third room so we decide to just say fuck it. At least the room is clean. And the toilet works. And the AC won't keep us up all night. Besides, all we plan to do here is sleep and fuck. The rest of the time we hope to be out and about. We hoped.
But that is a whole other story best left for another time.
For now, if you ever find yourself traveling to Daytona Beach, do not, I repeat, do not stay the The Bermuda House. Granted they've recently come under new management so hopefully things will improve, and the pool bar really is awesome, but unless you are a risk taker, you'd prolly better stay some place else.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Vacay #1
In about 12 hours I will be boarding a plane to sunny Florida. It's pouring rain and about 42 degrees here so I'm super siked. Despite my mini-rant from a few days ago.
Anyway -- I am looking forward to a sweet relaxing long weekend of sun, fun and sleeping in. Despite the fact that some dickhead judge in PA issued a crappy ruling that will have me working over the weekend.
Whatever. I will not let that spoil my plans. Better to work on a laptop on a deck overlooking the ocean than sitting at my desk in my windowless office.
TTFN.
Anyway -- I am looking forward to a sweet relaxing long weekend of sun, fun and sleeping in. Despite the fact that some dickhead judge in PA issued a crappy ruling that will have me working over the weekend.
Whatever. I will not let that spoil my plans. Better to work on a laptop on a deck overlooking the ocean than sitting at my desk in my windowless office.
TTFN.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Can You Spell That Sound?
How do you spell the sound that people make once they've become completely and utterly exasperated with the world? And everyone in it? It's sort of like Ugh, but that doesn't quite do it. Maybe achugh? That's better, but still not quite it.
Anyway -- three days to go until my FLA trip. Which, as I should have fucking expected, is going to cost a teensy bit more than planned. Because now, despite our friends insistence to the contrary a mere couple of weeks ago before I bought our NON-REFUNDABLE plane tickets, we were told yesterday that our friends do not actually have a place for us to stay when we visit because they've turned their guest room into, well, not a guest room. OK -- that's not totally true -- we are welcome to stay at their place if one of us wants to sleep on the couch and the other on an air mattress. Oooh. Romantic. Just what I was hoping for. Goddess knows I love our friends but they are so fucking stupid sometimes. If they'd just decided to redecorate I'd have more understanding but they redecorated BEFORE they told us we could stay at their house, knowing the last time we were there we stayed in their GUEST ROOM!!!!!!! Achugh.
But -- like I said -- the plane tickets are non-refundable. And, I've already made a lame excuse for missing work a mere three weeks before vacation. So we're going. We're just staying in a hotel and spending about $500 more than we wanted to. Bastards. Achugh.
Which reminds me -- if you were a manicurist and I told you NOT to cut my nails, that I was trying to grow them out after they had been wrecked by a prior manicurist, would you then file them all the way down as if they had been cut? Would you? I would assume not. Which is why I was so utterly amazed to look down during my pre-Florida mani (and pedi of course) to see my beautiful on-their-way-to-being-long nails filed down to practically nubs. Which is prolly why the salon hung the monstrous Plasma over the manicure tables - to distract us from their idiocy. That'll teach me for watching a movie during a manicure. Achugh.
At least I have not suffered like my friend M. She's on her way to Korea tomorrow and so spent yesterday in the chair getting a cut & color. If she were me, she might ask -- if you were a stylist and I said I want highlights to my existing color, would you dye my hair a lovely shade of hooker bleach blonde (M.'s terminology, not mine)? Would you? I would assume not. But that's exactly what happened to M. As if she wasn't freaked out enough about her trip to begin with (which, to be fair, I can't blame her -- her boss is making her go to Korea for two weeks and yet she doesn't speak the language and will not have a host or guide of any kind. Nice, huh?). My boss may hate me, but at least he's not shipping me off to a country where I don't speak the language. And at least I didn't step out of the chair with hooker hair. But I do have nubs and my wallet is $500 lighter.
Achugh. Or whatever.
Anyway -- three days to go until my FLA trip. Which, as I should have fucking expected, is going to cost a teensy bit more than planned. Because now, despite our friends insistence to the contrary a mere couple of weeks ago before I bought our NON-REFUNDABLE plane tickets, we were told yesterday that our friends do not actually have a place for us to stay when we visit because they've turned their guest room into, well, not a guest room. OK -- that's not totally true -- we are welcome to stay at their place if one of us wants to sleep on the couch and the other on an air mattress. Oooh. Romantic. Just what I was hoping for. Goddess knows I love our friends but they are so fucking stupid sometimes. If they'd just decided to redecorate I'd have more understanding but they redecorated BEFORE they told us we could stay at their house, knowing the last time we were there we stayed in their GUEST ROOM!!!!!!! Achugh.
But -- like I said -- the plane tickets are non-refundable. And, I've already made a lame excuse for missing work a mere three weeks before vacation. So we're going. We're just staying in a hotel and spending about $500 more than we wanted to. Bastards. Achugh.
Which reminds me -- if you were a manicurist and I told you NOT to cut my nails, that I was trying to grow them out after they had been wrecked by a prior manicurist, would you then file them all the way down as if they had been cut? Would you? I would assume not. Which is why I was so utterly amazed to look down during my pre-Florida mani (and pedi of course) to see my beautiful on-their-way-to-being-long nails filed down to practically nubs. Which is prolly why the salon hung the monstrous Plasma over the manicure tables - to distract us from their idiocy. That'll teach me for watching a movie during a manicure. Achugh.
At least I have not suffered like my friend M. She's on her way to Korea tomorrow and so spent yesterday in the chair getting a cut & color. If she were me, she might ask -- if you were a stylist and I said I want highlights to my existing color, would you dye my hair a lovely shade of hooker bleach blonde (M.'s terminology, not mine)? Would you? I would assume not. But that's exactly what happened to M. As if she wasn't freaked out enough about her trip to begin with (which, to be fair, I can't blame her -- her boss is making her go to Korea for two weeks and yet she doesn't speak the language and will not have a host or guide of any kind. Nice, huh?). My boss may hate me, but at least he's not shipping me off to a country where I don't speak the language. And at least I didn't step out of the chair with hooker hair. But I do have nubs and my wallet is $500 lighter.
Achugh. Or whatever.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Striking My Fancy Today . . .
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Rainy Day Music...
Heard Rihanna's new single last night for the first time (came out about 5 days ago) and it is my new favorite song. Which is somewhat appropriate considering it is crazy pouring today. And of course, it's supposed to snow on Easter. Thanks be to the goddess that I've only got 8 1/2 days until I leave for Florida.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)