Arcticterntalk.org

The blog of a travelling psychiatrist and football lover. Who happens to be a halfway decent photographer. Takes a cynical view of the world

Archive for the tag “marriott hotels”

28 Jul 2012

South Korea


There is always an expectancy about a place that mixes in awe and dread. This is my first visit. The usual British Airways debacle, arriving 3 hours before departure to Terminal 5 and then reaching the gate in good time to be told minutes before departure of a delay due to a mechanical engineering problem. This then throws out all the other arrangements and the flights subsequent get missed and so on. Do BA care? In my view no. The aircraft that transported me to Hong Kong was an old 747. It looked old and had none of the niceties that other newer planes have. The socket on the floor did not work. The design of the cabin was bizarre.

In contrast Hong Kong, Seoul Incheon , Gimpo and Busan airports were a delight. The Thai airways flight to Seoul was one of the nicest I have been on, comfortable seats and great food and service. The airports too were modern and clean and passengers just flowed through them rather than getting stuck, such as Terminal 5. When one tries to analyse why one airport works well it is interesting to note that the South Korean airports have few shops and restaurants. People turning up this morning to fly from Gimpo ( this is the smaller of the Seoul airports. Seoul is in fact about an hour on the express train from Incheon airport. ) wanted to do just that, fly. They were not piling into restaurants in hordes or shopping as though the day of destiny was approaching. A good learning . Airports are for flying from.

Busan is the second largest city in South Korea and is a modern place. My hotel has placed me on the 33rd floor , and below me is the medical institute and dentistry institute . Somewhere there is a casino. I like this place and the people. Wi-fi is free in the hotel and many other places ( Marriott are you listening?), modern defibrillators line the corridors of the airport but rather confusingly are labelled IPAD. I am sure some younger visitors will get a shock if they disturb the item……

Busan from 33rd Floor

Busan

Busan

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02 Jul 2012

Marriott Hotels- Why do you rip us off for Wi-Fi and in room beverages?


Yet again I arrive at a Marriott hotel in the UK, in Manchester, and find that one is charged £15 for 24 hours wi-fi. I will repeat my usual rant. Firstly it is rare that anyone stays 24 hours in a hotel, secondly this is the same cost as for a month of top-class broadband/wi-fi from Virgin Media and lastly the quality of this alleged “high speed” broadband is very poor. Wi-Fi is free now in so many places, like USA hotels for example, McDonalds, Krispy Kreme and numerous other local bars/pubs/public places. There really is no excuse for this.

My own view remains unchallenged. When you buy a hotel room you should buy all that you reasonably need, breakfast, car parking, wi-fi, newspaper. These are not luxuries, but pretty much what you have at home. The price charged should reflect this.

To make mattters even worse. There is a mini-bar in the room. Oh yes. Can of Diet Pepsi £2.50. …………..A total disgrace.

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29 May 2012

Manchester. Not a city of Angels


Having spent the last 48 hours mostly in Manchester I feel sufficiently able to appraise folks of my findings. These are not exciting but might save you some time and money. Firstly, the issue of paying for wi-fi in hotels. Let me list some reasonable places where wi-fi is free in no particular order, McDonalds, USA,Italy, Munich Airport and the Worsley Pub next to Worsley Park Marriott hotel. Now a game. Lets find a place where they charge 15£ for 24 hours wi-fi. Yes you guessed it the Worsley Park Marriott hotel and in fact all Marriott hotels in UK ( as far as I am aware). This is a disgrace. So my first recommendation is yes to stay at the Marriott hotel ( its rather nice and not overpriced) but instead of eating or drinking there, walk 200 yards to the pub next door and eat for less than the cost of the wi-fi.

My second recommendation is to avoid central Manchester. Signage would be better in Antarctica. The roads are crowded with folks all giving good impersonations of intractable ADHD, not able to wait at red lights, junctions or anywhere in fact.

My final recommendation is to avoid the Palace hotel. A miserable excuse for a hotel. everything was bad.

Good things? Norton Caines Services on the M6 Toll are the best I have found this year. But avoid petrol there. I can buy my diesel for 137.9p at my local south london Esso garage. Diesel at Norton Caines was 152.9p. Put it another way. Filling my tank there would have cost me an EXTRA £10.

Not Manchester but in fact a view in January 2011 from outside a hotel in Coventry on a cold morning

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10 May 2012

Hotels and WiFi and What will hotels do with all those extra foam pillows?


 

Recently I seem to have travelled a lot and in each hotel it is costing £15 for 24 hours wi-fi. Now a couple of things to mention here

  1. How often does one ever actually stay in a hotel for 24 hours? It is more like 12 hours as the norm. Ever an option to pay 50% of the price? no…..
  2. Wi-fi is free in almost all USA hotels, MacDonalds and various other hostelries
  3. Rarely is one given the option to buy a hotel package that includes wi-fi

This is a total disgrace. I will specifically cite the Marriott hotel in Glasgow because not only did they charge 15£ but the wi-fi reception in my room was appalling and hardly worked.

 

So Mr Marriott can you please give us free wi-fi, free car parking and in fact everything else that you should give us free ( breakfast in my opinion) and stop ripping us off. One day a hotel chain will do the EasyJet version and provide all this at a knock down price, companies will insist we stay there and then your lovely hotel will be empty. What then will you do with all your extra foam pillows?

End of rant……

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10 Feb 2012

Why do Marriott hotels not give Wi-fi free? Selena Gomez


After 2 hours of an unspeakingly dreadful junior Disco, well for me not the children who shrieked their way through 2 hours of songs that bore no relationship to the term that I call music.  A cold walk home. Whatever they say the temperature is it feels like minus 10. Most lower league football has been called off tomorrow so no Brentford and yet another game to re-arrange. All kind of dull really.

So todays rant must be against hotels and in particular the Marriott hotel in Leicester. This place is not cheap. In fact bed and breakfast is 149£/night. The pleasures of wi-fi are only available in the ” bar and restaurant” areas. Otherwise broadband costs 15£/night. This is roughly what virginMedia charge me for a whole month of excellent connection. They then charge 5£ for parking and there is no other option so really the overnight cost becomes £154. There finally is the option to eat in the bar area and a sandwich will cost around 8£ and a burger around 14£. These are disgraceful prices. No room was also available for me when I arrived past the check-in time to compound matters. The hotel is also souless and the staff look like a dose of ECT ar around 4000 volts might be needed. End of rant. But there again, things might get worse and they did. Do not ever be tempted to eat or stop at Newport Pagnell services. They are well beyond awful. Sausages and mash, served to me who eats football ground fare , were appalling, served on a cold plate, the food looked like it might have been cooked this week, possibly. A dreadful waste of 7£. I make all these points and for me the cost is borne by my employer, but I would never spend my own money at either of these two establishmnets again. No camera with me so an old photo to keep you going today. So to finish the evening some music from one of my more unexpected artists, Selena Gomez. Very underated.

Even the heat of a candle is welcome tonight

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30 Nov 2011

Cayman Islands Here We come


Some great news tonight. My Scuba diving instructor daughter, also known as my middlest, has been offered a job in the Cayman Islands. I am now going to become an expert in working travel out, when to go there, where to stay! my first attempts have not been so good. I had a look on the Marriott website, as have a fair amount of points saved up over the years and just randomly picked a date at the end of March. The bad news was no availability in the Cayman Island hotel, ok, but wait they were suggesting alternatives. Interesting, these began at 500 kms away and extended to 2500 km away. Bit like trying to book a London hotel and being told ” sorry but Barcelona is available”…….

the ramifications will be massive including the videas that she will post on You Tube. If you have a few minutes go to the site and type in Kim Bushe, beware there are a few, but look for the diving videos and in particular Roatan and the shark diving videos. These are fabulous and keep the sound on too as the music is also worth listening to!

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