Conflikt: The Hotel (mostly gripes, but not all)

[kyrielle]

Posting this now, before I forget any more than I have. Or, say, fail to have any time to do it. :) We just got home a couple hours ago from Conflikt, and it. Was. A. Blast. A BLAST. I will write about that shortly. First, the gripes about the hotel, because they're right at the top of my head. Despite all of these I had a GREAT time, and if you don't want to read my grumblings (and notes on possible solutions I may use if it's in the same hotel next year), please to leave the cut-tags unclicked. :)

(This year was at the Holiday Inn Seattle - SeaTac International Airport.)

Friday night I was unhappy with the hotel. Saturday I was VERY unhappy and trying to envision whether I could live without attending Conflikt if it went back to that hotel next year, because argh. Sunday? Sunday I was too overwhelmed with happy Conflikt and had to admit that no, the hotel was not nearly irritating enough to make next year a no-go if they return there (it's not a multi-year contract, so I don't know if they will - we'll find out), and I pre-registered for next year. Also, Sunday people were coming up with potential ways to address the issues next year (including me), and I think the more major ones will either be addressed or a new hotel will be hunted (I could be wrong, just my impression). Unfortunately, some are just caused by "older hotel syndrome" - there's only so much renovating you can do at once, especially if you have to stay in business. (That said, it was easy to treat them like a poorly-designed newer hotel, because everything looked great - clean, tidy, etc. I don't want anyone to be envisioning some run-down place as that was not the experience.)

It was made worse by the fact that I came in stressed Friday anyway - we stopped at the Tacoma Museum of Glass on the way up, and I misplaced Drew and Scott. At least I knew Drew was WITH Scott, but I was a bit twitched all the same. (Scott had told me where they were going, and I had not heard. He thought I acknowledged - and as I was, at the time, staring up the ceiling of Chihuly pieces on the bridge, trying to figure out just how long I could hold my neck like that and not fall over, I might in fact have acknowledged almost anything without hearing it.)

The details of the hotel stuff, for my memory (and, if Conflikt is there next year, anyone who wants to be aware/borrow solutions):

• First one really good thing: the hotel staff was INCREDIBLY helpful and responsive. Immensely. This is tied for one of the best hotels ever as far as responsiveness to issues (real or perceived) raised to their attention. They really, really rose to the occasion, every time I had a chance to see a need. I heard similar comments from other people.


• Food. The hotel restaurant prices, portion, and quality were fairly upsetting to me. Mind you, this is a restaurant in a hotel across the street from the airport, and it's a "fancy" restaurant at that, so I was not expecting cheap. But the one time we ate there, the quesadillas were merely okay, the staff didn't manage to put the chipotle sour cream on the side as asked (but did give non-chipotle sour cream on the side, and yes, we said explicitly...sigh), and Scott's mocha with a shot of raspberry flavor was the bitterest thing I have encountered - including some medicines, I kid you not - and no hint of raspberry to it. Then again, I couldn't taste anything clearly through the bitterness, and it could've had a rainbow of fruit flavors hidden under that.


• Food, again. The previous point was a stronger issue because the selection of food nearby is poor. Two Denny's (which I prefer, strongly, not to eat at, and didn't). 13 Coins which was mentioned in the con booklet but the bad reviews on Yelp are very bad - it sounds like maybe they are hit or miss, and a bit spendy. We meant to try them out, but the times we meant to go we ended up under time pressure. An IHOP which was our breakfast salvation (and the source of a hysterical exchange with Drew: "Front seat." / "Back seat." / "FRONT SEAT!" / "Do you want an omelet?" / "Olamet." And he plunked down in his car seat in the back). Other than that, using Yelp to find other options was a bear because it kept finding crap IN THE AIRPORT since it was right across the street. However, there are several good loci of options in the area - it just took us too long to find one of them.
  
  If Conflikt is in the same hotel next year, I will address food two ways. I will hit Yelp ahead of time via the internet where the map stuff is easier to work with, and we can bookmark options. That will solve THAT problem. And I'll see if we can get a refrigerator from the hotel (need to see if it comes with either sort of suite). Being able to stock in snacks or even meals will solve things even better, allow us to deal with a kid who suddenly wants cheese (although the con suite let us deal with that this year, THANK YOU DAVE! - but having it in our room handles the case where it's hours the con suite is closed), is quick and cheap and easy.


• Parking. Their parking lot is older, the shape is non-ideal, and you can get stuck in the back end of nowhere hiking in, which just bites. The larger your vehicle the more likely this is as some of the spaces are perpendicular ones and the rows are tight, so you may need a couple adjacent empty spaces for easy parking.
  
  Solutions: park BEHIND the hotel (there's a door in, but that area is usually fairly well-parked too), or if you're a priority club member, there are a few reserved spaces out front. Be aware that getting out of them means backing up into the path of the "in" driveway on that side, however - and it's RIGHT behind you. On the other hand they are very convenient to the front entrance. (The little loop of parking right by the road is almost as good, and those are angled and not in the the path of people coming in.) Going along the front parking area to the far lot, though, results in a hike (and the parking lot slopes up sharply there, but not so quickly as to cause problems for our Honda Civic, so unless your car rides very low I wouldn't worry, just drive slow).


• Postage-stamp bathrooms. See "older hotel". Our bathroom had effectively NO counter space in the bathroom except right around the sink and a thin (6"?) strip above-behind the toilet. Made putting my contacts in a bit more interesting than I wanted.
  
  Also made toddler-proofing the bathroom fun as I didn't really want Drew at the soap except when we were having him wash his hands, and he wanted to grab it. We had to put the soap in the corner behind the sink where the dish didn't really fit, because EVERY other bit of counter was reachable from the floor or by climbing on the toilet. And we couldn't leave our toiletries in because I also didn't want him getting into those and there was nowhere out of reach to put them, if the soap was out of reach.
  
  Solutions: ??? Drawing a blank on this one. Put the toiletries up by the TV and lump it, like this year, maybe.


• Toddler proofing the room as far as placing stuff in general. All drawers in the chest of drawers were within Drew's reach, in fact all drawers in the room were. The only place out of his reach to put things was on top of the TV stand around the TV, and at the back of the shelf just below it (the front he could reach). This included the hotel's glasses/ice bucket/coffee service, all conveniently left down where my toddler could reach them.
  
  Solution: Lump it, and put stuff around the TV. Or use the safe. Which leads to....


• Toddler-proofing the room: the safe. Drew liked playing with the safe. It required hitting four numbers and the # to lock it and he showed no signs of figuring it out...until Sunday when, having stuffed who-knows-what (a few receipts, it turned out) into the safe, he locked it. With we knew not what passcode.
  
  Solution: The hotel will very kindly come unlock your safe for you with their administrative code, which will not take very long. However, next year I will lock the safe with a code we know BEFORE he can do that. I didn't do it this year because he had become accustomed to playing with it and I didn't want to fight an epic battle when he wanted it open again and it wouldn't open. Next year he will hopefully not remember what it "should" do and I can turn it into "that heavy block under the table" before he can.


• Toddler-proofing the room: the window. Oh. My. GOD. An 11th floor room should NOT have a window that can open wide enough for a toddler to pass through, leading out into open air (no balcony or screen), and a simple flip-lever to open it. Oh my GOD. Yes, to reach it he needed to a climb a chair. Drew is more than capable of climbing a chair.
  
  Solution: check the window to see if it has this "feature" - not all rooms did, some people were baffled by my comments as their windows did not in fact open or did not open far. I also heard that lower floors may have double-paned windows already in and not open, so asking for a room on a lower floor might also be wise. If the window DOES open too wide, call maintenance again - it took them a little longer, as apparently they haven't often (if at all) been asked to address this issue, but they did figure out a way to jury-rig the hardware so the window couldn't open. (It involved removing part of the hardware, adding a metal bar that was never intended to be there, and reattaching it - but it did block the window so you could only crack it an inch for air. Good enough for me.)


• The upstairs function room sound bleeds into the hallway because there is AIR SPACE around the doors and the decorative pillars. Had we had the other upstairs room as originally planned, I'm not sure we could've used it easily due to sound bleed. This one is the concom's problem, but there were various ideas floated; the hotel has other spaces, maybe modifications - temporary or permanent - can be done, etc. I'm pretty sure this will be a 'must address' for returning. In any case, I can't do much to work around it on an individual level.
  
  It is exacerbated by the fact that if your toddler gets fussy, there is NOWHERE to go beyond that hallway on 12th floor. You have to wait for the elevator (luckily fairly quick unless all three are in use) to get yourself out of everyone's earshot.


• The main con space (12th floor) overhang. I am afraid of heights and this room is round and sticks out over the edges of the rest of the building.
  
  Solution: same as I did this year: sit in the middle and avoid the edges. It is fairly easy to tell where the overhang begins, luckily. And next year I will not be taken by surprise by it while freaked out over having lost my toddler earlier in the day.


• The main con space vertigo inducing carpet. I know hotels have to use prints that hide stains, but they do not have to use prints that were specially engineered by aliens to induce maximum vertigo in order to facilitate the overthrow of our species.
  
  Solution: this was discussed with the concom and they may or may not be able to limit the visual impact from the front row to the stage and down the center aisle. If they are, enjoy it. If they are not, sit at least one or two seats to the side of the center aisle and not in front, so that I can look at the stage without seeing too much of the carpet.


• The main con space vertigo inducing windows. The windows on the rounded section lean OUT. It adds to the lovely carpet vertigo.
  
  Solution: Hope the curtains are left closed as they were Sunday, which solves the entire issue. If they are not, DO NOT LOOK AT THE WINDOWS FOR LONG. Especially because that usually involves seeing the carpet. Also, it will be easier now that I know - it took me until sometime Saturday to realize they leaned and were contributing to my reaction.


• The awful split of main con space on 12th floor and secondary room on first floor.
  
  Solution: this wasn't intentional and was a last-minute change by the hotel, due to some sort of issue or other with the second room we were supposed to have on the 12th floor. I'll just hope that whatever went wrong with that room this year doesn't go wrong again. :P


• Secondary con space is small, stuffy, has no way to see in with the door closed (to see if it's okay to enter), massive sound bleed from the area outside if the door is open, and has vertigo-inducing carpet.
  
  Solution: We were only there because the Queen Anne room (12th floor) had to be pulled. Hope that we aren't in there again. I do find it interesting that this room was smaller than the one next door for the dealer's room - but the dealer's room needed every inch of space it had, unless you were planning to stuff the dealers in and not let customers enter. The concom's aware of this issue, so presumably it'll be addressed.


• Handicapped access. I feel odd addressing this one because I'm not handicapped, but the 12th floor restrooms are not handicapped accessible, and I gather from those in them and briefly seeing one that the handicapped ROOMS are not all that accessible (beds too high, bathroom access difficult even with retrofits). And sadly, that's really not addressable other than by the hotel fixing things - which may or may not be doable. Be aware, especially if you use a wheelchair, of this issue. There are handicapped accessible bathrooms on the first floor, just not on 12th.


• For locals, the hotel charged $7 a day for parking for people who weren't guests - the guests got it free (vs. their normal $12 a day). Maybe the concom will have better luck negotiating next year? It seems a little hard on day-trippers. If they can take light rail it comes very close, but....


And on a non-gripe note, if we're in this hotel next year I need to bring the swim stuff, as the pool does allow little ones in it even in diapers as long as they're in a swim diaper (many don't) and is inside and thus usable in January, unlike the last hotel.