Rants and Ramblings: random commentary about culture, media, politics, technology and whatnot.

slumming at the travelodge

One of the benefits of travelling as a group of four is that most of the major expenses — hotel, car rental, fuel — get split four ways, making an ambitious trip fairly affordable. Our experience with the Travelodge in downtown Seattle proved that in this case, as the adage goes, we got what we paid for.

I was aiming for “cheap but convenient” when I picked the Travelodge out of the Expedia pile. Within walking distance to just about everywhere we wanted to go, it was certainly convenient. And at $106/night, it was the least expensive motel in the downtown area.

As we found out when we arrived, cheap has its tradeoffs. Like the slightly ghetto parking lot behind the motel. Or the fact that they didn’t have our reservation for Sunday night (the day we were to return from Vancouver) on file. Or the room they initially booked us into: A smoking room that still had some artifacts of its previous occupants — half-empty soda bottles, an unplugged iron left out, some paper on the table. After a bit of contention with the late-night front desk clerk (yes, I did specify non-smoking when I made the reservation), we finally were reassigned to a smallish non-smoking room that was a marked improvement over the original room we’d been given.

However, elements of The Ghetto remained, such as the standalone shower in the bathroom, whose walls appeared to have been painted to cover mold and mildew. And the rock-hard beds with well-worn mattresses that likely hadn’t been rotated in years, if ever.

With the late hour and our jet lag, there was little we could do but laugh a bit at the more ridiculous elements of the situation. That, and go to sleep.