There's tons of hotel news flying around this week and we don't have time to give each and every story the love and attention it may deserve, so you will have to settle for some news briefs.
· Ultimate Meth Hotel Hell: A woman in Pensacola, Florida had a black backpack fall from the ceiling of her hotel room. Inside it? A portable meth lab. Oy. [AP News]
Beijing Hotels Still Empty: While swimming and NBC Olympics ratings probably had their best Olympics ever, Beijing hotels still are suffering. [BusinessWeek]
· Excalibur Goes Electronic: While the outside of the Excalibur Hotel & Casino still looks like bad interpretation of medieval fantasy, inside the poker rooms are going electronic! [Fox Business]
· Hotel Dorms Get Student Desks: Colorado State University has a shortage of housing for its frosh class so it's putting a few of them in hotels and giving them student desks. [Pueblo Chieftain]
· Element Heads to (Outside of) LA: An Element hotel will open in Palmdale, Calif. Yeah, we'll never go there either. [Green Meeting]
A Fordham University senior is suing the New Yorker Hotel after the room she was placed in as substitute dorm room she claims was infested with bed bugs.
Michelle Hopkins filed a suit yesterday after the insects allegedly feasted on her in the Manhattan hotel that doubled as her dorm.
"I can't sleep anymore, I haven't slept in forever," Hopkins said, breaking into tears in her lawyer's office. "I'm petrified."
A student housing crunch at Fordham led Hopkins to find a room through Educational Housing Services, which leases four floors of rooms from the New Yorker Hotel at Eighth Ave. and 34th St
Colleges often use nearby hotels as a way to supply rooms to students but we were surprised the New Yorker was being used as a dorm since it is undergoing a huge renovation with completion expected around August 2008. Additionally, Hopkins is suing the hotel's owner and manager which happens to be Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church and Ramada Worldwide. Moonies own a hotel?
We understand that if a hotel is doubling as a dorm that it has challenges that others would never dream of. But that's no excuse for them to let themselves go--they are still hotels!
The UCSC Inn in Santa Cruz plays the dual role and plays it...not so well. They claim that they're the perfect hotel for business travelers and vacationers alike but, looking into the past guest reviews we have to beg to differ:
We chose this hotel because we thought it would be nice since it is supposedly affiliated with the university, but we were wrong. The room was pretty gross. It looked like a typical furnished dorm room from the seventies. The walls and ceiling were pretty run down too escpecially in the bathroom (lots if mildew that had been painted over so many times the paint was bubbling).
They have a mediocre breakfast but you can't take any food out of that cafeteria room which is ridiculous.
What's going on here? It appears that the UCSC Inn thinks that just because they're a dorm that keeping a 70s look and cafeteria style dining for all is appropriate. Wrong! We're all for cattling the students into the cafeteria for a generic meal but not the guests.
It's old news that hotels across the country and even in Canada are having to play dorm for overflowing university campuses.
But while some hotels are prepared to handle the long-term, extended stay business traveler, it doesn't quite seem they know how to handle a 20-yr-old college kid.
Goucher College in Baltimore has put up many students at the Sheraton Baltimore North Hotel. One resident explains that she pays suite rates despite having the dorm furniture rather than the hotel furniture. Although she enjoys the pool, hot tub, and fitness room from time to time, overall living at the hotel causes more bad than good. Like WiFi hell. You'd think having free WiFi would be a bonus for a student, but think again.
Apparently the Baltimore Sheraton's network is anything but secure and their support team is anything but helpful:
"One night I was checking my Goucher email and a porn website popped up! I closed it, and ran a test for spyware on my computer and it found 101 of them." She remembers, "I called the [Sheraton technical support] and they ended up hanging up on me. Then, I couldn't get in touch with anyone from the Goucher HelpDesk.... That kind of problem wouldn't happen if I were living here."
Looks like the students aren't really treated like real guests, unless that is the Sheraton Technical Support would hang up on just anyone. Maybe it had something to do with all-night kegger and raiding the maid's cleaning carts.
What does a hotel suffering from lack of guests due to SARS and a university that expands its enrollment have in common? Extra needed student housing and an empty hotel creates a match made in heaven.
The Best Western Primrose Hotel opened its doors to students some years ago and some have literally lived in the hotel for all of their undergraduate years, though the hotel staff calls them "long term guests."
So what's the advantage of living your dorm life in a hotel? WiFi signals, concierge, lobby bar are among the top. But as the Globe and Mail explains the situation is in fact rather boring. Even worse, the hotel apparently houses the geekiest of all the nearby Ryerson Business Management School's students:
"I assumed that a hotel would be a nice place to live," says Mr. Barron, who shares his spartan 325-square-foot, two-bedroom suite (decorated with posters of Hilary Duff and Harry Potter) with a roommate. They each pay $725 a month.
There are several things wrong with this from Hilary Duff to the price. But the students who live here like the safety and the fact that its so quiet. As for the short term guests, complaints of an always busy elevator are the norm. If you avoid school hours it should probably help.
If you got a hotel dorm story and want it to spread like pinkeye, send us an email. Or if you just want to vent about your weirdo roommate, that's ok too. We promise full anonymity.
There's tons of hotel news flying around this week and we don't have time to give each and every story the love and attention it may deserve, so you will have to settle for some news briefs.
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by juliana
