Hotel Criteria
On a lighter note… We recently went to Anchorage, Alaska and we ended up switching hotels. It wasn’t any big fiasco – we were checking out anyway to go to Mt. McKinley Lodge, we just didn’t go back to the first hotel. It did make me think about my criteria for a good hotel, though, and since I post my reviews here, I thought it might be valuable to know what I look for.
- Good natural light – can’t stand it when I feel like I’m in a cave.
- Separate shampoo and conditioner – now that the airlines have cracked down on packing liquids, I use whatever the hotel provides, but I have to draw the line at the “2-in-1″ shamp-ditioner.
- Cable with Versus and USA – we only watch two things on TV these days, and it stinks to miss the Tour de France because we are on a tour de Alaska…
- Free breakfast – bonus points for something beyond dry pastries and red apples.
- View of something besides the parking lot – it doesn’t have to be a fantastic panorama, just pleasant and lacking oil spots.
- Suite with a door – no door = toddler won’t sleep = no fun. Enough said.
- Free Wi-Fi – so many hotels offer this now, that I actually am a little offended when they want to charge me for it. Ironically, it seems to be the ritziest hotels that end up charging. Hmm…
- Clean – this almost goes without saying, but I have seen some strange things in my day. (cherry pits on the bed, open soda in the bathrobe pocket, even broken glass stuck in the bathrobe!)
- Good service – I don’t ask for perfection, but if something goes wrong, I expect courtesy and apologies.
- Luxurious Decor – Paint and bed linens are relatively cheap, but classy design goes a long way to feeling like I am really living it up.
So, there you have it. Did I miss anything? 