So another week, another travel nightmare. This week I am in the DC area for a few days, than flying over to Ohio and then back home. Staying in the DC/Northern Va area I made hotel reservations through our corporate Expedia account (which is now called Egencia BTW). Though it is fine for airline reservations, I regret it every time I make a hotel reservation on Expedia. This time I reserved a room at the Virginian Suites. I had never heard of it, but it was only $158, which is really cheap for around here. It had 3 stars and sounded good, so I booked it.
I arrived tonight and as I pulled up I have to say that I thought I made a good choice. It is a converted apartment building and every room is actually a studio type of apartment. It has free parking and is located near where I have meetings in Arlington. I gave my name at the desk and they had my reservation, looking good! I was given keys to room 707 and headed on up. I got to room 707 and tried to open the door. No luck, the keys didn’t work. After a moment or two of trying to make the keys work, the door opens and the guy who is staying in the room wants to know what I am doing trying to get in. Well I was reminded of an old Robert Schimmel comedy routine and ran away from there as fast as I could.
I went back down to the desk and told them what happened. The woman at the desk apologized, she meant to write room 700, not 707. While I am waiting for her to correct this and issue new keys, I am looking at the schedule of events at the hotel today. That is when I notice that one of the main events of the day was a someone’s funeral! Thats right, it seems the hotel is used for funerals in the area. That just freaked me out. Now I am getting Six Feet Under deja vu here. I don’t know, call me squeamish, but I just don’t feel good about staying at a hotel that doubles as a funeral home. To top it off, the Internet access here sucks. It is so slow that I am watching the paint dry. Maybe I should go down and catch a funeral or two while I wait for a page to load. In any event, I think this will be the last time I stay here. I just can’t wait for what the rest of this week brings!





