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See I'm surprised cause my family are all really big into AirBnB and have had universally pleasant experiences regardless of where we were. We were never in France though so maybe that's the key.
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Jun 10, 2015 20:02
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Magnus Praeda posted:But how else will we differentiate between the things we know we know and the things we know we don't know and the things we don't know we don't know and the things we don't know we know and oh look my head's gone firmly up my rear end oh my now isn't that lovely.... nelsonpunch.gif
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Jun 10, 2015 21:06
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Murphy Brownback posted:Unknowns. Unknown-unknowns is redundant and I think we can all agree that "unk-unk" sounds silly. No, unknown-unknown is different from a known-unknown. You don't understand the concept. It is a useful one. That Rumsfeld or whoever said it doesn't make it not useful. For example, if you introduce a new species into an ecosystem, you know that you don't know what effect it will have. That's a known unknown. Genetic inheritance, or the evolution of creatures, was an unknown unknown. People didn't know that creatures had evolved. They knew there was present diversity, but they didn't know there was diversity in the past, or extinctions, or the rest of that. The fossil record and scientific taxonomy of it began to turn that it a known unknown, and then Darwin completed the transition. Then the mechanism of action of evolution was a known unknown: we knew evolution happened, but didn't know how it happened. For thread-related content: I stayed in a hotel in France that caught on fire twice in one night and that interrupted my viewing, as a 12 year old, of French TV which totally has naked people on it.
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Jun 11, 2015 00:06
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Obdicut posted:For thread-related content: I stayed in a hotel in France that caught on fire twice in one night and that interrupted my viewing, as a 12 year old, of French TV which totally has naked people on it.
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Jun 11, 2015 00:16
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Years ago, I was traveling around France on the cheap with a friend. We took the train to Bordeaux, figured out how to get to our hotel, and walked over. When we got to the hotel, we were redirected to the main office a few blocks away. Turns out the "hotel" was just various buildings owned by a management agency that rented rooms. We checked in at the main office, got our key, and schlepped our stuff back to our assigned building. We hiked up the three flights of stairs and unlocked our room. The room was small but lovely - two beds, gorgeous old fireplace, ensuite bathroom, big windows with lots of light. Also a nice breeze, because one of the windows was shattered. The glass was almost entirely gone from the frame. When I saw that, I collapsed on the bed, exhausted and planning to rest for a few minutes before heading back to the office. Then I noticed that the bed was damp. I was also now damp from the bed. In fact, when we checked, all the upholstery in the room was damp! So we picked up our stuff and schlepped back to the office. I should probably mention that this happened nearly 20 years ago, so calling on a cell phone was not an option. At the office, I explained, en Francais, that the window was broken, the rain came in, and the bed is wet. This started a 15 minute argument about the weather, because apparently it hadn't rained in over a week! Eventually, there was a side conversation in rapid French that seemed to clear everything up. The manager told us it was definitely not the rain. It was just that they had sprayed for bugs that day, that is all! Cue the two Americans staring in horror, now understanding that the room had literally been covered in some kind of pesticide. Eventually, our combined upset and arguing and persistence convinced the manager to assign us a different room, probably to get us the hell out of her office. So we hiked off to our new, more distant, larger, dryer, room. Then we went out and drank all the wine, so in the end it turned out okay.
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Jun 11, 2015 02:34
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Crazyeyes posted:See I'm surprised cause my family are all really big into AirBnB and have had universally pleasant experiences regardless of where we were. We were never in France though so maybe that's the key. See, I have had a very good ones. One of the people I have stayed with is still my friend, and whenever I see her, we end up sitting around for hours laughing and playing medieval music. Others leave you in perfectly lovely rooms and offer you free food. Others, like one of the hosts I mentioned earlier, filled their houses full of cool Renaissance poo poo and sing baroque music with you. It can be very cool! But for every good experience, I've had a negative one, even with the very same hosts. Cats sneaking into my second story bedroom and throwing up, the pee rag, the hiking around with 20 kilos of luggage on my back frantically hunting strangers down to let me in. What it comes down to is inconsistency and lack of formality - you never know what you are going to get when you book an airBnb, and you also never know exactly what will be expected of you. It can be fun, or you might end up locked up in a room watching Highlander for the night in a small town in the French Alps because the owners are crazies. aequorea posted:Years ago, I was traveling around France on the cheap with a friend... Yeah, that's really how you gotta do it in France, except in my case it was champagne, fortified blackberry wine, mint juleps made with cognac, and really good scotch. The trauma from lovely cheap places is easily remedied by high quality European booze.
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Jun 11, 2015 06:54
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Helter Skelter posted:This is from way the hell back, but I just found this thread and thought I'd chime in here. I work at a hotel in downtown Seattle and we have the triple threat of PAX Prime, Sakura Con, and Emerald City Comic Con. For the most part, they're great. Occasionally someone will be partying late and we'll have to tell them to keep it down, but honestly most of the folks attending these things are pretty chill in my experience. Which hotel did you work at? I just recently stayed in Downtown Seattle at Hotel Max. Not a bad place, but it was definitely a good place to stay since it was close to all the touristy stuff.
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Jun 11, 2015 10:44
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Not the Max, but same general area. I don't care to name it since I'm still working there and, you know, internet.
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Jun 11, 2015 12:01
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Super 8 Ky side of Cincinnati Ohio. My wife and I got a room for a concert since it was a four hour drive back home. We checked in and went to our room. I should have known something was up right away because the room had a old school tube tv screwed into the table. When we got back to the room I saw that the toilet lid was cracked. Strike 1 Ok not a deal breaker. When we pulled back the cover there were light red / pink stains on the sheets. I go down to the front desk and ask if they could change the sheets. Apparently that night clerk didn't have access to the laundry room. So I asked if we can switch rooms. The lady asked me if I had used the room. (really?) She finally agreed to switch us the other room wasn't much better. It was about 3 am by this point. We ended up sleeping in our clothes. When we were eating the " free breakfast" which was a few prepackaged pastries and a waffle machine, the lady and the house keeper showed me the sheets and said the stains were from the detergent. joebuddah fucked around with this message at 14:56 on Jun 16, 2015 |
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Jun 16, 2015 14:42
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I was staying somewhere in middle of nowhere Guatemala and I swear to god the hotel room had like three dozen bugs and creatures of varying sizes. I don't totally blame the hotel since we were bordering a loving rainforest, but it was by far the most uncomfortable hotel experience of my life (except for the time I vomited everywhere , but that was on me). I was also at a really cheap hotel once that looked like it was really nice back when it opened, but had suffered from a lack of maintenance and care and I went to take a shower. At first everything was fine, and then the brown water started spewing out.
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Jun 18, 2015 00:39
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I've been lucky but my worst was the Boxborough, MA Holiday Inn. Summer of 2014, no less. We picked it because it was close to the nearby wedding we were attending at my mother-in-law's house. Given our plans to spend our waking hours there and only sleep at the hotel, it didn't occur to either of us that anything could possibly have bothered us. The first problem was mildew in the shower. Not a little, but a fair amount on the ceiling tiles. Next was cleaning service. Who shows up at 8:30am to clean, knocking at your door and ignoring the "Do not disturb" sign? Apparently telling them we weren't ready was a major problem because they couldn't be bothered to return later on. When we stopped by in the afternoon to change our clothes, I had to chase down a cart to get some extra toilet paper. The kicker was the breakfast buffet. We picked through five bowls from the "clean stack", every one of them having unwashed remnants of oatmeal. Being "forced" to grab a quick bite at Dunkin' Donuts probably offended me most of all! To their credit, they refunded us our final night and we got something better a little further away. In retrospect, driving by the local Cisco campus was probably the red flag as to why this place was still in business.
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Jun 18, 2015 21:21
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Crazyeyes posted:See I'm surprised cause my family are all really big into AirBnB and have had universally pleasant experiences regardless of where we were. We were never in France though so maybe that's the key. My apartment building is mostly AirBnB rentals. I'm the only permanent tenant....usually the guests are normal and nice people. Then you get the guests that let their kids run around at 3am and/or 6am, while wearing what must be metal shoes. Or you get people who like to piss out the window. Or pile mountains of garbage in the building entrance, and then neglect to take the garbage out on garbage day. Or smoke ten packs of cigarettes per day, inside. Or the guy who decided to go out into the backyard in the middle of the night and move a ladder inside, leaving it so that it blocked my hallway, so that he could save his granddaughter from the "badguys" who would surely climb through the third story window with it...who then gets mad at you for questioning what he's doing in your loving hallway in the middle of the night making a bunch of noise and leaving ladders lying around. 
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Jun 18, 2015 21:56
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Tell me something Americans, a guest approached me very loudly asked 'so you have a adaptor for me, fool?'. Its the first I saw the guest and I did have one for him to use and after I gave it to him he wanted to fist bump me but I played dumb and didn't bump him back. He was polite after that. Did he mean fool as an insult?
Big Willy Style fucked around with this message at 22:36 on Jun 18, 2015 |
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Jun 18, 2015 22:11
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Big Willy Style posted:Tell me something Americans, a guest approached me very loudly asked 'so you have a adaptor for me, fool?'. Its the first I saw the guest and I did have one for him to use and after I gave it to me he wanted to fist bump me but I played dumb and didn't bump him back. He was polite after that. Did he mean fool as an insult? Probably not. It really depends on tone, context, and where, exactly, he's from.
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Jun 18, 2015 22:16
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"fool" and "foo" are, surprisingly, distinct terms. So could have been that!
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Jun 18, 2015 23:03
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So I was at a convention with a friend----my first one, ever. And I suppose somehow or other I caught this dude's eye. He proceeded to follow me around the ENTIRE THREE DAYS. I poo poo you not, I'd go to the artist's alley to get away from him---look up and he's a few tables away, staring at me. Escape to the dealers' room---same thing, only this time he's making more of an effort to blend in. Join in the impromptu dance party in the ballroom---he weaves his way through the crowd, drat near feeling me up, totally on accident I'm sure. At one point I went out into the lobby, thinking being more in the open might make him rethink things and leave me alone. Nope! He comes right up to me, doesn't say a word----just stares. At one point during the second day I got a headache and went to go back to the room for some ibuprofen---guy's just standing there, in the narrow hallway, grinning like the devil. He won't move, and it's clear from his expression that he knows I have to go past him to get where I'm going. Luckily, right then my friend showed up---seeing her, he took off but then later we heard (and peeked out and saw) him wandering around in the hallway just outside our room. It actually took my friend enlisting the help of two big beefy male cosplayers to get him to back off. I don't know all the details but frankly I don't care what they said or did to him; I just wish they'd done it sooner! The convention was fun and all but it would have been a lot better not to constantly have to look over my shoulder the whole time.
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Jun 19, 2015 02:59
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Astrofig posted:So I was at a convention with a friend----my first one, ever. And I suppose somehow or other I caught this dude's eye. He proceeded to follow me around the ENTIRE THREE DAYS. I poo poo you not, I'd go to the artist's alley to get away from him---look up and he's a few tables away, staring at me. Escape to the dealers' room---same thing, only this time he's making more of an effort to blend in. Join in the impromptu dance party in the ballroom---he weaves his way through the crowd, drat near feeling me up, totally on accident I'm sure. At one point I went out into the lobby, thinking being more in the open might make him rethink things and leave me alone. Nope! He comes right up to me, doesn't say a word----just stares. At one point during the second day I got a headache and went to go back to the room for some ibuprofen---guy's just standing there, in the narrow hallway, grinning like the devil. He won't move, and it's clear from his expression that he knows I have to go past him to get where I'm going. Luckily, right then my friend showed up---seeing her, he took off but then later we heard (and peeked out and saw) him wandering around in the hallway just outside our room. It actually took my friend enlisting the help of two big beefy male cosplayers to get him to back off. I don't know all the details but frankly I don't care what they said or did to him; I just wish they'd done it sooner! The convention was fun and all but it would have been a lot better not to constantly have to look over my shoulder the whole time. Creepy. That's what Con security is for, though.
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Jun 19, 2015 04:44
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Yes, and in hindsight we should have gone to them. But I didn't have a name to give them to tell them who to watch for (do you have any loving idea how many 'fat Naruto cosplayers' there are at any given convention at any given time?).
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Jun 19, 2015 05:01
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Did you ever broach the subject of "I'm not interested, go away"?
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Jun 19, 2015 07:12
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I stayed in a hotel in Oregon and when I was in the room I searched the hotel up and apparently the owner got shot by a runaway teen. http://www.kval.com/news/local/59038347.html
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Jun 19, 2015 07:33
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photomikey posted:Did you ever broach the subject of "I'm not interested, go away"? Do you seriously think he didn't loving know she wasn't interested? Or that her talking to him at all would have been a remotely good idea?
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Jun 19, 2015 14:54
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Blue Footed Booby posted:Do you seriously think he didn't loving know she wasn't interested? Given my general impression of Naruto cosplayers... possibly not? I'm not saying what he did was appropriate behaviour, but it's entirely possible he was so socially inept he had absolutely no idea how his creepiness was being perceived. I agree that going to security, or doing exactly what was actually done, were better options than to talk to an obsessive, creepy jackass.
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Jun 19, 2015 16:54
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Astrofig posted:So I was at a convention with a friend----my first one, ever. And I suppose somehow or other I caught this dude's eye. He proceeded to follow me around the ENTIRE THREE DAYS. I poo poo you not, I'd go to the artist's alley to get away from him---look up and he's a few tables away, staring at me. Escape to the dealers' room---same thing, only this time he's making more of an effort to blend in. Join in the impromptu dance party in the ballroom---he weaves his way through the crowd, drat near feeling me up, totally on accident I'm sure. At one point I went out into the lobby, thinking being more in the open might make him rethink things and leave me alone. Nope! He comes right up to me, doesn't say a word----just stares. At one point during the second day I got a headache and went to go back to the room for some ibuprofen---guy's just standing there, in the narrow hallway, grinning like the devil. He won't move, and it's clear from his expression that he knows I have to go past him to get where I'm going. Luckily, right then my friend showed up---seeing her, he took off but then later we heard (and peeked out and saw) him wandering around in the hallway just outside our room. It actually took my friend enlisting the help of two big beefy male cosplayers to get him to back off. I don't know all the details but frankly I don't care what they said or did to him; I just wish they'd done it sooner! The convention was fun and all but it would have been a lot better not to constantly have to look over my shoulder the whole time. My security deals with creepy assholes all the time. Usually girls would be out having a good time and some rear end in a top hat(s) would follow them back to the hotel thinking they're gonna get some cause someone talked to them in a bar for 3 minutes. Usually on what we call "drunk nights" AKA the weekends, security asks "Are they with you? Do you know them? No? Then get the gently caress out guys." ALWAYS go to security if you feel uncomfortable about someone. Big Willy Style posted:Tell me something Americans, a guest approached me very loudly asked 'so you have a adaptor for me, fool?'. Its the first I saw the guest and I did have one for him to use and after I gave it to him he wanted to fist bump me but I played dumb and didn't bump him back. He was polite after that. Did he mean fool as an insult? I've had a guy call me "boy" once. I'm a grown rear end man. Sometimes it's just the slang or they way they talk at home. Usually an "excuse me?" would make them realize that's not how we talk in this part of the world, but I usually just brush it off and never take anything personally, even when someone is trying to insult me. South African slang is the greatest thing I've ever heard though, cause I have no idea what they're talking about aside from the random "FOOK!" and they're so passionate about being angry.
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Jun 19, 2015 20:49
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Thoguh posted:Now those prices make a lot more sense. The really cheap price and per person rates definitely gave off a "basically a hostel" vibe. On the subject of B+Bs/Hostels: Can anyone recommend a good app for locating and comparing them if I'm traveling without reservations? I like to travel cheap when it's just me.
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Jun 19, 2015 21:11
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elendilmir posted:On the subject of B+Bs/Hostels: Can anyone recommend a good app for locating and comparing them if I'm traveling without reservations? I like to travel cheap when it's just me. I'm traveling around Europe right now, and hostelworld has served pretty well. The app is pretty nice and functional too
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Jun 19, 2015 22:30
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FilthyImp posted:"fool" and "foo" are, surprisingly, distinct terms. I just googled this and, unsurprisingly, foo means fool. I dont know how a complete strangers is meant to think it isn't an insult.
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Jun 20, 2015 03:43
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Big Willy Style posted:I just googled this and, unsurprisingly, foo means fool. I dont know how a complete strangers is meant to think it isn't an insult. Though this changes with inflection. It's not entirely an insult.
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Jun 20, 2015 04:55
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Blue Footed Booby posted:Do you seriously think he didn't loving know she wasn't interested? I bartended for a while in a bar that was staffed by only one person per shift. ID checking, serving, dish washing, bouncing. In the beginning I was really uncomfortable and used to dance around situations like that, but sometimes you just have to look someone in the eyes and say "I talked to her. She's not interested. Move along." Frankly, I was surprised how well it worked, and it's something I carry with me to this day.
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Jun 20, 2015 05:46
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Big Willy Style got that thinny-thin skin.
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Jun 20, 2015 08:30
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what medieval village do y'all live in where 'fool' is still an insult? Need to know for a paper I'm writing. also photomikey you're cute. You really think a guy bartender telling a bar patron to lay off is analogous to a girl getting stalked approaching their stalker at a loving creepy nerd convention, alone, in a hotel corridor? You even think somebody badly (+ drunkenly) hitting on a girl is anything like getting followed around for an entire day? This is one of those people where engaging in any way is taken as a sign of interest, and "not a good idea".
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Jun 20, 2015 11:00
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Boys are gross and stupid and don't take hints. Let's get back to hotel horror stories.
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Jun 20, 2015 14:35
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I stayed at a "hotel' in a very poor African country and to be honest I was happy to have things like flowing water and a toilet. However, every night I awoke to the sound of rats literally running through my room, but not just through my room, also through every wall, and the ceiling. I was able to listen to them by lying awake in bed under the mosquito net which was covered in bugs from the outside. There was no electricity during the night.
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Jun 20, 2015 16:03
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I stayed in a hotel in Paris for 11 days last August. The room was barely bigger than the double bed, though it did have room for my suitcases. It was en suite, but due to the size of the room, the toilet and sink were located inside the shower. I didn't mind this at all, because it meant I wasn't showering in a tiny closet you could barely turn around in. It also came in handy the second night I was there, after the patrons and employee of the local bar bought me fuckloads of shots and took me out drinking with them after close and I threw up immediately after getting to my room at 4am - so nice to lay on that cool tile floor with room to stretch out. You could literally poo poo, shower and shave at the same time  The only crappy thing about it was it being on the 5th floor and the hotel had no lift. It made getting to the room entertaining after a night of drinking, trying to navigate the tiny spiral staircase in near-dark. This isn't really an uncomfortable hotel experience, but reading some of the reviews left by fellow Americans about the place they're clearly the worst things in the world. The place was clean, the staff was nice, but "ugh room so small no elevator why was the toilet in the shower!"
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Jun 20, 2015 18:41
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SubponticatePoster posted:This isn't really an uncomfortable hotel experience, but reading some of the reviews left by fellow Americans about the place they're clearly the worst things in the world. The place was clean, the staff was nice, but "ugh room so small no elevator why was the toilet in the shower!" So basically as far as they're concerned if that hotel followed the Geneva conventions they never would have to be subjected to such war crimes?
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Jun 20, 2015 20:02
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I moved 2400 mile last month with a packed up kia soul and my husband. I made a reservation a couple weeks in advance for a hotel in Albuquerque. We didn't get in until around 10:30pm (after driving for a good 14+ hours, including a stint in texas while it was flooding everywhere). We got to the place, and the person manning the desk claimed like, three separate things: we had no reservation, we made the reservation wrong, and they didn't have any open rooms and we needed to leave. I still don't really understand what she was trying to say, but my guess is that they figured we weren't going to show up and sold our room to someone else. And now I will never make a reservation without paying in advance again! If it's pay-when-you-arrive, what's the motivation to keep the room reserved? The uncomfortableness of that experience was mostly that it's pretty frustrating to find a hotel room that isn't rear end expensive or lovely in a larger city over memorial day weekend at 11pm. I did once stay at a motel 8 or something in Winston-Salem during the fall High Point Market (everything in a reasonable proximity to High Point was booked solid), which was conveniently next door to one of the seediest adult stores I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of those. The vast majority of hotel/motel stays I've done have been pretty great, though.
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Jun 21, 2015 06:41
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That sucks. I can't speak for the hotel in question, but in my experience, if you have a reservation (pre-paid or not) and the hotel has no open rooms when you arrive, it's generally on the hotel to find alternate accommodations or you. Additionally, where I am at least, said alternate accommodations are paid for by the hotel who hosed up to begin with, meaning that if we gently caress up you get a free night (just not where you originally booked). Paying that mea culpa money is a lot cheaper and easier for everyone involved than getting screamed at all night because someone hosed up the inventory management that day. My only real piece of advice in that sort of situation is to always try and have a copy of your confirmation letter/email to wave in their face and say "yes, motherfucker, I do have a reservation". If you legit booked it for the wrong date or something (intentionally or not), well, that's on you.
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Jun 21, 2015 08:02
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I stay in hotels several times a year for work. Fortunately, work travel means I usually have a "preferred" hotel that doesn't suck and I can only think of two really bad experiences. The most recent one was staying at a Hyatt. I had a day off and spent the whole day out exploring the area a few hours away and didn't return to my room until about 11pm. When I came back I found that the cleaning people had left that little lock lever stuck in the door effectively propping my room door open for the last ~10 hours or so. Fortunately I was the last room down the hall and my laptop, etc. were all still there, but I was pretty pissed. The first time I ever traveled for work I ended up having to book my trip the day before I was flying out. Turned out there was some huge event in Boston that weekend and the only rooms in town were $400 a night (uh, no). I ended up staying in a Motel 6 like 20 miles north of the city. This really sucked in Boston traffic, but the worst part was finding the motel. I could literally see the sign for 30+ minutes as I drove around in vein trying to find the parking lot. Finally I made a wrong turn on to a freeway on-ramp and discovered that the parking lot entrance was located on the freeway on ramp. I was casually mentioning this to my parents a few months later and it turns out that we'd stayed at the same motel on a family vacation 15 years prior and had the same issue then.
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Jun 21, 2015 15:44
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Helter Skelter posted:That sucks. I can't speak for the hotel in question, but in my experience, if you have a reservation (pre-paid or not) and the hotel has no open rooms when you arrive, it's generally on the hotel to find alternate accommodations or you. While I've been walked by major chain hotels, I assume when they screw up and overbook at a 12 room mom and pop hotel, they pretty much just shut out the light and lock the door and you're out of luck.
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Jun 21, 2015 18:58
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I was driving across Montana by myself (as part of a cross-country move) and ended up in backwater nowhere, even by Montana standards. It was around 11:00pm and it was storming heavily, and I was dangerously exhausted and needed to sleep. I stopped at a hotel in some small town, and it turns out they were booked. The guy in front of me didn't get a room either. So I got back on the road and tried again--turns out there was one more hotel nearby. I get there and the same guy is in front of me--and he got the last room. He invited me to share it with him. I ended up accepting because I didn't know what else to do. I was worried he'd want us to have sex, so I slept with my mini-crowbar in my hand (secretly) in the bed closer to the window. Turns out he was a perfectly nice guy and though it was pretty clear he would have been down with that, he didn't push anything. He was like 50 though. Anyway it was very stressful at the time, but ultimately there was no harm done and I appreciate him helping me out.
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Jun 22, 2015 03:14
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Was sleeping in the car not an option? I can't think of anything weirder and more uncomfortable than sharing a room with a stranger.
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Jun 22, 2015 06:00
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