Tuesday, February 3, 2009

SUPERBOWL XLIII (part 1)

This is the sexy mermaid statue outside our "hotel"

First, let me start by telling about the luxurious accommodations we were so privileged to be given upon arrival in Florida. Words cannot describe the luxury and class of our experience that first night.
Thursday started out perfectly. The flights were uneventful, and I didn't feel motion sickness at all, nor did I completely lose my appetite. The other couple traveling with us didn't lose their car keys in the Denver airport, and the airline didn't lose one of their bags in Denver, either.
Upon arrival in Tampa, we thought it would be more cost effective to use public transportation around town, and opted not to get a rental car. Apparently, for the other couple, the Randells, $500 was just too much to spend for transportation. So we paid $80 for the airport shuttle to drive us to our hotel.
Ah, this lovely hotel. The Oasis Palms Resort. Just across the street from St. Pete beach, situated deep in the heart of the lovely Treasure Island, which is about a 30 minutes drive from downtown Tampa.

Don't be fooled by the "open" sign. As you can in the window it is completely dark, no one is inside.

The shuttle drove us out of town, towards St. Petersburg, and over the bridge (across the bay) to Treasure Island. I just knew we were going to be staying in the lap of luxury. As we were escorted further into town, the street lined with hotels kept getting darker and dirtier. The hotels slowly shrunk into motels. When finally, at around 9:00 p.m., we stopped in front of this tiny dirty dingy yellow motel, with the blinking neon sign saying "Oasis Palms Resort." I thought this can't be it.
We got our bags, walked to the office door, which was locked. No life inside. The sign on the door said "Office hours M-F 12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m." It was after 9 p.m. Then we saw a sign next to a germ infested courtesy phone saying to call if arriving after hours and someone will come check you in. We called that number probably 20 times, and got nothing but a voicemail. After leaving a dozen messages, we decided to walk up the street to find some shelter and food (since it was pouring rain). We were stranded outside our hotel with all of our luggage for an hour and a half. The ONLY restaurant open was the Waffle house, about a mile down the rode from the motel. A tiny empty sorry excuse of a diner, that happened to be out of everything, except waffles. After eating day old waffles, we trekked back to the motel, and found someone in the office. We checked in, were directed to our rooms and this is what we found.

The room was no bigger than a small child's bedroom. Including the bathroom. The double bed took up most of the space with its wicker headboard and dingy faded dolphin bedspread.

I was standing against the opposite wall/entry door while taking this picture.

The child-sized shower was so small we had to walk in sideways to fit through the doorway. The shower head was installed about chest level on me, so even lower for C. Dust and mold populated the corners of the tiny shower.
There were no extra plugs in the room. We had to unplug lamps and clocks to charge our phones and dry our hair. And there was No phone in the room. I was afraid to take my socks off in the room. That's how dirty it was. I was afraid to sleep under the sheets because I was sure they weren't changed or washed after the last guest. The dish towels they gave us to shower with were stained with brown streaked that I can only guess was one thing. And on the wall opposite the bed was hung and brand new fancy 36" plasma TV, complete with DVD player. It appears that the stories are true, that "certain types of people" will spend a fortune on electronics, and nothing on housekeeping.
After C got out of the shower, he walked the 2 feet from the shower to the bed and sat down to get dressed, and noticed that his feet were completely black. I'm glad I didn't take off my socks.
I lay awake in the bed comparing this place to the Bates motel, and just waiting for some psycho killer to barge into the flimsy door and stab us to death.

Oh, and if you look up this hotel's website, you will find a photo of the slightly less disgusting hotel on the opposite side of the street.

Needless to say, we called the company that booked us into that shit hole (sorry, but there is just no other way to describe the place, and forever thereafter during the trip the place was dubbed "the shit hole") and complained. We were upgraded to a much nicer hotel, and the rest of the stay went somewhat splendidly.

Consider the fact that we have no rental car, and have now established that there are no businesses for miles on this street other than cheap crack-whore motels, and of course, the Waffle house.

More stories to come.......

16 comments:

mCat said...

Oh, this is getting good! I can't wait for part II. You have definitely intrigued me and I'm so sorry about the piece of crap hotel! YIKES-A-RAMA!

Kristina P. said...

Wow, I can't wait to hear all about this! You DO have great stories!!

Annette Lyon said...

ICK!!! (I'm eating lunch right now. Thanks for that . . .)

Small would be one thing (our room for our trip to NY was itty bitty), but filthy? I would have had a coronary.

tammy said...

Wow. Can't wait to see if it gets better or worse.

Devri said...

Oh I can't wait...

Sorry for the black floors, did you get bedbugged too?

Shelle-BlokThoughts said...

LOL...I'm sorry, I don't mean to laugh, but that is something that would happen to ME...no lie, I have STORIES...especially in Florida!!! :)

But hey...SUPERBOWL? Was it worth it? I bet it was!

Elisa said...

Oh! This is even better with the pictures! It's definitely worse than I thought-- or even pictured!!

(love the photo of C in the shower!) :>

This explains the comments on my blog-- at 11pm from Tampa...

WOW!!

Shauna said...

Can't wait :)

Mikki said...

Ugh!!! I'd have been majorly worried about bedbugs. Hope you didn't get bit by any.
Hope the rest of the trip was seriously better.

Wonder Woman said...

Oh. My. Scary. And hilarious about the TV. I love that it was a photo of the hotel across the street!

I'm excited to hear the rest of the story!

p.s. I love the name of your blog, too. I actually named our Feb. enrichment activity "share the love" because of it. So thanks!

Nick and Stacey said...

Oh my goodness, I would have died! I cannot beleive that! It is amazing to me some places can still remain open, or are okay with letting people stay there!

Andrea said...

Not to laugh at your expense, but holy crap! That dolphin bedspread and the fish shower curtain were just a little too much not to laugh. I can not believe that places like that actually exist. And the waffle house to boot!

chelle said...

I am so not hungry anymore. HUM... I will be looking for part II with much anticipation. m

wendy said...

Oh my gosh, what a nightmare. But I did think the dolphin was sexy and the dolphin bed spread was sooo classy. The shower head is ridiculous. Believe me, we have had our share of "shit holes" as you so eloquently put it over the years. One time on a trip through Oregon, we stayed at this one place that in the bathtub was a pubic hair ----yes!!!! I freaked out and said "we are sooo out of here". can't wait to hear about the rest of the trip!!!!

Suzie said...

You had me (and my sister who now reads your blog) both laughing out loud. Can't wait for the next installment!!!

Spence said...

I didn't know that's why you were out of town. I didn't even know the super bowl was going on. show's how much I'm into football.