[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: Travel Stories

[Sheryll Townsend]

I keep meaning to send you all my little travel story
- about time I got around to it. As a brief intro, let
me say (for those who don't know) that my husband
cooks at a kid's summer camp from mid-June to the end
of August. Any time we have for vacation is between
camp and the start of the school year (he cooks a
private school, starting right after Labour Day). We
tend to take short (2-3 days) trips to Toronto or
Montreal and that's usually all we have time for.

Okay, on to the travel story. We decided to go to
Toronto 2 years ago. Since I am the one at home in the
summer, I make all the arrangements. I booked the
train tickets and the hotel room. Now, we don't have
credit cards (by choice) and always use one of my
mother's cards to reserve our accommodations - with
her permission, of course. And despite the fact that
neither of us drive, I do hold a CAA (Canadian
Automobile Association) card, which we use for hotel
discounts and such. Okay, so everything is booked -
hotel rates quoted to us with a very nice discount and
confirmation numbers were recorded.

We arrived in Toronto around 11 am and our hotel
check-in time is 3 pm. Not a problem. We visit the
half-price ticket booth and purchase tickets for a
dinner theatre production, for which we will have to
arrive around 6 pm. So far, so good. We do a few
things downtown and then head for the hotel, arriving
at about 3:45. The front desk confirms that we have a
reservation and asks us for the credit card. I tell
them we are paying cash and they ask for the card
anyway. Note that this is a new one to me, usually
most hotels ask for the CAA card instead, to verify
that we're eligible for the discount (they don't much
care about the credit card if you have cash in your
hand). Of course, we can't produce the card. They then
ask us for a driver's license. We don't have that
either. Okay, says the clerk, let me see your
passports. Passports? We're from Ottawa, it's 4 hours
away and in the same province. Why in God's name would
we be carrying passports?! This comment does not
impress the desk clerk much (okay, I'm tired and
irritable at this point, did I mention that we had
been up for about 36 hours at this point? We just
wanted an hour nap and to go to dinner). To end this
bit - they refused us the room. Without a driver's
license, credit card or passport apparently you cannot
have a spot at this place. Of course, when I made the
reservation I asked about check-in requirements and
had been told none of this.

Okay, it's 4 pm, we have dinner at 6 and are very
tired, have no room to go to and it's rush hour. No
time to head back downtown where there is a plethora
of hotels. There are motels on this same street and we
decide to take a look at them. The next one has a
large sign saying 'driver's license required' - we ask
anyway and are refused a room. Further down there is a
very seedy looking place, but we're tired and don't
care. They also have a similar sign, but in we go. The
young lady behind the desk is very nice, but advises
us to look at the rooms before we agree (I said it was
seedy-looking, didn't I?). We looked - the rooms were
very run down but we didn't see obvious signs of
disaster. She very kindly gave us the room and even
gave us a wake-up call after our short nap. In short,
the room was terrible (we hadn't looked closely at the
bathroom) - the carpet was made up of 2-3 different
pieces, the sheets were thread-bare, the sink was
cracked and you couldn't have paid me enough to step
into the tub. But, she did warn us before we booked
the room, so we were okay with all that. We went to
dinner, had a great time, checked out the next morning
and found a nicer, if much more expensive hotel
downtown. 

I ended up in a battle of letters with the hotel we
had booked at. The manager refused to sign his name to
any of their correspondence, so to this day I have no
idea who I was dealing with, if it was even the
manager at all. I was accused of credit card fraud and
told that it wasn't possible to own a CAA card without
having a driver's license (it is, but you can't get
roadside service, just the discounts). It was never
resolved and I eventually gave up. I reported them to
CAA, they are no longer listed in the CAA Tourbook. I
also spread the word far and wide, so I suspect that
may have affected them somehow.

And I must add one thing. Although the motel we spent
the first night at was pretty bad, the staff there
went out of their way to make sure we had as pleasant
a stay as possible. If the place was a little nicer,
we would stay there every visit, just to be treated so
well! I think the young couple we encountered owned
the place. They didn't seem particularly well-educated
and appeared to be doing the best they could in
running the place. I give them a lot of credit for
that. The money we saved staying there paid for a
hotel smack downtown and close to everything for the
next night (though the room was nicer, it was half the
size!).

The rest of the trip was good, and we went back the
following winter for a late anniversary trip.

Sheryll, who mostly stays in the suburbs to save costs
and could tell lots of cheap motel stories if she were
so inclined!

P.S. The place we stayed that winter was reasonably
nice, $40 a night, clean and one a good transit route.
However, when we went to the coffee shop next door,
the guy said 'You're staying THERE? I guess you don't
want to hear the stories about that place?'. No, we
never heard the stories. We had a great time and
didn't feel the need to hear anything bad. It was a
dying breed of motel - a little 'Mom and Pop' kind of
place, and we liked it.




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"Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."

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