The whole concept of a chain hotel is that you know what to expect. But it can get a little disconcerting when the hotel is so similar that you literally can’t tell if you’ve stayed at that precice location before.
Last night, I experienced an overwhelming sense of deja vu. My internal dialog went something like this: “I’ve stayed at an Embassy suites that looked like this one. On a road much like this one. With a strip-mall across the street, with that Greek restaurant and the coffee shop next door. There were gray-stucco non-descript mid-rise office park offices on the street. And the landscaping was the same… Have I stayed here before? The room configuration is exactly the same. There is that almost-soothing-but-too-loud waterfall noise eminating from the fake lagoon in the lobby. No, seriously, have I stayed at this exact hotel before? I don’t recall ever staying in Milpitas before; I usually stay in Mountain View. The view from the window is similar. Have I stayed here, in this room, before?”
In the end, I decided that I hadn’t stayed at that specific Embassy Suites before. But it is eerily similar to one in El Segundo.
If you’re asking. I don’t love chain hotels that cater to corporate travellers who really just want to feel as though they aren’t staying in different places even though they are travelling every night. I really prefer some local flair.
But perhaps I’m missing the point. The local flair of California is… corporate. That’s what they do well.
Update: A fellow hotel guest was struggling to remember his floor number in the elevator. Our brief conversation was about how all the hotels look exactly the same and he just couldn’t remember what room he was in at this hotel, this time. This is a sad, sad, widespread problem.
Labels: travel