Do you enjoy staying in hotels? or do you see them as 'functional' - just a bed for a night or two while you're away from home? I absolutely intend to enjoy it. A nice hotel with a nice room (clean, spacious, well appointed) is a real treat. Granted, even under optimal circumstances, it can end up being no more than a place to sleep, but...I'm sensitive to environment, and it may as well be nice, no matter how much or little time I'll be there. There's events that I do (weddings, or concerts - playing multiple nights at a Beatles convention is one) where it does become home for a spell, and you want to be happy in your room/the hotel itself. When I was younger and toured frequently/for long stretches, I cared ENORMOUSLY about the difference between a nice hotel and a lousy one (I mean, I care NOW, but...the stakes might not feel QUITE as high). It was the closest thing you had to a home, and you'd either feel brought down by a lousy one, or elated by a nice one.
What do you reckon to cheapo chains like Premier Inn and Travelodge? Do you have an upper limit in terms of nightly rate?I'm wondering if there is some equivalency here to, say, the bottom end of US hotels (Motel 6, Super 8) which are cheap both in price and in experience/upkeep. If anyone feels qualified to answer, I'd gladly expand on this. Surely, you'll want me to expand.
Middle price is our general aesthetic/philosophy (as Snee says).
In situations where you're doing a very specific event based drive (drive to ____, see the concert, drive halfway home and stop and grab a few hours sleep in the middle of the night before jumping right back in the car), the cheap chains are absolutely sufficient for the purpose of crashing the fuck out.
What do you look for in a hotel when you're booking? lots of space? central location? TV? bath? nice view? If I'm staying for any real or meaningful amount of time? General cleanliness and spaciousness and apparent security/amenities/functional modernity. I don't need a TV in a hotel, but...sure, I'll take it. A fridge is always nice. Proximity to decent coffee (in hotel, or walking distance).
I mean, when our family does vacations now, it's all sort of VRBO/rental homes. It needs to be homier for a family. I'm glad this is an option now.
Long distance road trips, we'd always try to book a place with a pool for the kids en route when we had to stop for the night midway. Now, they're 14 and 18, and...I can't be certain that they'd care about a pool. And...yeah, it gets real obvious when the kids have suddenly crossed that threshold into "they're (collectively and individually) too big to share a room with mum and dad any longer."
What's the best (subjectively) hotel you've ever stayed in?There have been a few. I DJ'd a wedding in Detroit about 5 years ago, and the clients booked me into a brand new casino hotel downtown. I cannot begin to tell you how utterly luxurious the room was. I feel like it was what you'd picture Batman's master bedroom and bath to look like. Obviously, the hotel itself was BRIMMING with amenities. I'm sure they paid through the nose, but...I assure you it was well worth it. Minus a family to return to, I might have just camped out there until they booted me out.
Over the years, there have been a few in places like London (we're going back a ways here - couple of decades plus, I guess) where somehow whomever was footing the bill managed to find something both modern, well appointed, and sort of centrally located (Angel/Islington was an easy to place for walking, shopping, dining, boozing, etc.). That FEELS like something that would be unaffordable today (last London hotel was DECIDEDLY budget - three mid 40s musicians crammed into a room the size of a matchbook).
I remember a fairly grand hotel in Dallas 30 years ago where the event organizers had flown in x number of performers from any number of places for a big one day event (the sort of 'commercial alternative radio station' had their own sort of mini Lollapalooza in a huge outdoor shed, gorgeous spring day). We were lucky enough to have a few days off, and...I have to assume that money was no object (and/or they'd made a HELL of a deal with the hotel), cause...every single musician, crew member, etc. from all of these bands each had his/her own suite (this is no small thing - I've rarely been at a level of touring where you weren't sharing rooms) for something like two or three days...again, a ridiculous amount of space for one person, and...you could absolutely eat off of the floors in the main areas.
Notable, as perhaps
not the very best, but seriously fucking unique and quite satisfying for it - I stayed/performed in a hotel in Berlin about 10 years ago where...(hold on, I'm looking this place up) - HERE it is:
www.michelbergerhotel.com/en/rooms - wow, Hotel Michelberger! About a one minute walk from the Berlin Wall, and...it was amazing! Huge lobby spaces/restaurant where they had concerts (but everyone was seated on sofas). I swear, in some previous lifetime it had been a school, a dormitory, or some sort of barracks. Anyhow, the rooms were these huge, loft-like, enormous, open, high ceilinged, creatively functional spaces, with these enormous layouts of bunk beds (but like...queen size) on all of these different levels, where...you could be sharing a room with any number of people, and it honestly didn't matter - the feng shui was so unique and advanced that you were ALWAYS in your own space. There were televisions in the hallways playing
the Big Lebowski on silent (this may still be a thing - someone reported back to me many years later that it was). We were in town for less than 24 hours, and...more's the pity. I could have stayed there for a month. Fresh bakery and gourmet kitchen on premises.
What's the worst hotel you've ever stayed in?There's been a few. Cleanliness is a HUGE deal - I figure once I swipe my credit card, this is one of the most basic elements of the agreement. Right?
About 25 years ago, I was on a tour that took us through the North of England, and...there was something so dingily, drably, brown and darkly, dankly depressing about the hotel and room in Doncaster that I've never forgotten it. It was the sort of place where you'd wish you'd brought your own blanket to lay over the bed as a basic health and safety measure. I remember my roommate for the night taking out the little pen and pad beneath the phone and leaving a note which read "Don't do it!" in some tacit acknowledgement that this is the sort of place that might convince you to end it all.
There were sporadically grim UK experiences (on a budget, you do what you can), communal bathrooms with standing water, etc.
But...this is no regional complaint. You can absolutely have your pick of dismal US hotel experiences. Last summer, my oldest graduated high school AND turned 18 all within the span of a couple months. I went big for both events - he and I needed the bonding, and...I felt like
experiences were what he would ultimately value most. He'd been making noises about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for ages, and I reckoned we could really make a superb three day event out of this (father/son road trip there and back - 6 hrs. drive, I think). I booked us an afforable chain hotel through one of those third party services (like Expedia or Priceline or...you know, they find the competitive prices for you). "Double Tree by Hilton", right? Sounds every bit as fancy and modern as you'd ever need. Right by the lake, two block walk to the RRHOF. Well...I don't know how long the place had been in a state of decay/apathetic mismanagement (maybe they were perpetually under booked and just couldn't afford to...run and maintain a decent hotel and provide ANY sort of upkeep). But...I was ill-prepared for the levels of grimness and dinginess and sheer apathy. The garage looked absolutely like the sort of place where you'd want to bring your car's engine into the room with you for safekeeping overnight, the pool was...I mean, it was not only closed, but...empty of water. Bathroom doors that didn't lock, no fan in the bathroom (for two men travelling together and eating fast food, this is not negligible), corridor carpets that could only be described as "recent double homicide", the type of scenario where they've provided two adults with "one scratchy towel just large enough to dry your penis!". No room cleaning (you know that sort of issue where businesses cut all sorts of basic services for COVID safety four years ago, and realized they liked saving time and money and never brought them back?) - as with the towels, supposedly you could call and REQUEST a room cleaning, but...I DID call and, there was no service fulfillment. Of course my fucking kid (I love him) wanted to eat the sub-perfunctory grim ass hotel breakfast ($36 charge for this). I'm weird about the nickel and diming, generally speaking (debating adding my own Vegas postscript to this thread). For half the money, I COULD have stayed at a Motel 6/Super 8, and gotten no less. No one enjoys feeling that they've been ripped off.
Do you go for breakfast if it's provided? Are you one of those awful pigs who grabs fried eggs and sausages and bacon and beans and greasy things that have been standing about for ages under those bulb jobs?I would say that even at my most "youthfully stupid", I was always just enough of a picky eater to walk pretty wide circles around even remotely grotesque looking hotel breakfast food. When it was my only choice, I'd find something like toast or croissants or bananas or miniature Corn Flakes boxes that at least gave the illusion of control/food safety. We've stayed in some grim fucking places where "I can't eat that!" is the main issue (and...you know, FOX News blaring from a mounted television while everyone flirts with food poisoning). This feels like some prime example of how I've spent my life working my way into some real state of "control freak" life management.
That said - the Beatles convention every summer is in a Hyatt which is suitably "tony", and the restaurant has a fucking incredible breakfast buffet. The chef making your omelette to your specs right in front of you, etc. It's not free, but...I thank God for the opportunity to pay for a nice hot, hearty, starchy breakfast when we're sort of stuck on hotel island.
Have you ever complained? had any bad experiences?Boy, I'd complain but who would listen?
What's the closest you ever came to throwing a TV out of the window?Still building up to it, I think.
Have you ever worked in a hotel?That'll always be the dream.