Name This Caption!

November 5, 2012 at 2:54 PM | by Chanize | Comment (1)

It's Monday and just the right hour for some work procrastination. Take a minute and play Witty Wordsmith with us, whydontcha? That's right, it's time to Name.This.Caption!

This one's a toughie, because it touches on Hurricane Sandy and as much as we'd like to think "new week, new start", we're flummoxed. Plus we know people are still out there affected by this disaster. If we can put a name on this, it might help should we ever encounter it again. We'll explain.

You're captioning the above picture. But first, you must look at the one below. See the difference? We looked more than a few times to make sure we weren't seeing things.

The difference is $380 dollars. For the same hotel.

We put the Hotel Indigo NYC Chelsea on blast last Wednesday for selling out of rooms by 3pm for $519. That day it was advertised on Hotel Tonight as one of the few places available during the peak of Hurricane Sandy madness. Yet just three days and lots of controversy over incoming NYC Marathoners later, and the price of that same hotel had dropped by less than a third of its Halloween rate. How could that be if the city was still in crisis mode?

Now, we'd started our initial hurricane coverage relieved hotels weren't price gouging. Then we began receiving news of bootleg hotels charging boutique rates. Finally, when we saw what Hotel Indigo was charging, we got irate and said so. Some believed the $499-plus rate was within the norm (though discounts have happened years ago).Others were turned off.

Saturday, was NYC Marathon-eve. Thousands of runners had descended upon the city on Friday and claimed their hotel reservations. This caused some displaced storm victims to be turned away from those hotels or asked to leave.

But there would be no marathon.

Our part in this tale? Simple. We got stuck in the city Saturday at 1 a.m. by missing the last train (forgot schedule wasn't "normal"). We were certain we'd be sleeping on the street, given what we'd witnessed all week. But, we decided to check Hotel Tonight and see if maybe, possibly, there would be a miracle for our tender wallets.

There was, and we are grateful as hell for a place to lay our head. But our guilt runs high, too. Were there others who could have benefited from the room (we did have a roommate) if they'd known? As you can see, a few places were available on HT at that time of morning. Though, we will note at exactly 12:13pm, the front desk called our room to remind us that checkout was at noon.

So what's the caption here? "You Lucky Devil"? "Thank Your Lucky Stars"? "No Rhyme, No Reason"? "Marathoner Mass-Exodus Means Rooms At The Inn-digo"?

Help us out! What do you think happened? Does this help you play the Hotel Tonight game better? Let us know in comments below!

[Photo: HotelChatter]

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