san diego: a terrible hotel

i'm not sure how much of this is going to be repeat information, but i feel that it is my duty to let the public know about the terrible hotel i stayed at while we were in san diego. i have stayed in some pretty bad hotels, actually, all in san diego. in our first year of marriage, two of our good friends got married, but in san diego, and not to each other. so were down there more often than usual. so we stayed in some really cheap hotels. but at least you know what to expect when you stay in a place where you pay only $60 a night- nothing. you expect nothing, and you get nothing. and you leave feeling satisfied that you got everything you thought you were going to get. when we booked our rooms at PORTA VISTA BOUTIQUE HOTEL. apparently 'boutique' means 'crap house' in california. who knew?...

so, the website looks nice enough. i was looking forward to staying at a quaint-looking independent hotel. they had recently renovated the place to look modern. i didn't really care for the decor, but that was the least of my issues. the rooms were TINY, which is ok, since it made us not spend time in our room. there was supposed to be 'free wi-fi', but of course it just happened to be 'down' for our first two days there. there was a 'stain' on the carpet by my side of the bed. i called it 'lotion' the whole time, but that may have been wishful thinking. my shoes were on the whole time i was in our room.

the walls are very thin, and pretty much any outside noise sounds like it is in your room. we got there on thursday afternoon, so friday morning was still a school day. in arizona, school is out. i can only assume california kids are still in school, cause i could hear the blasted crossing guard blowing his blasted whistle every five minutes, starting at 7am. awesome. friday also happened to be garbage day. i know this cause i could hear the garbage guys faithfully doing their job. at about 7am. if anyone in the hotel is taking a shower- i could hear them taking a shower. i was really tired, so despite all the noise, i managed to go back to sleep after every interruption. i got my butt out of bed at 9:30 every morning, just in time to get my free breakfast upstairs...

the wait staff at 'the glass door' are very lucky that i ate breakfast there twice after having gotten more sleep than i am used to. cause if i had been tired AND hungry, people would have surely died there. i have never seen so many incompetent people working in one place at the same time. lily and topher move with more purpose and speed. they could work there. serisously.  i asked for 'cutlery'. 'what?' 'a knife and a fork dude.' english was this idiot's first language. i got a knife and fork about 20 minutes later. after having asked a different guy for it. the food was mediocre at best. the coffee was terrible. did i mention the service was garbage?

oh yeah, and they had those tiny little jars of jam on the tables. four of them. in a cute little jam-holder. and of course, at least 2 out of the 4 jams were half-used. that's gross for a restaurant. not hygienic people. what if people licked their knives and re-dipped it into the jam jar? there were so many opportunities for me to catch a disease at this hotel! if you read lindsay's blog, you have already heard about how her coffee mug had lipstick on it. lipstick that wasn't hers! here are robert and lindsay pretending to enjoy their breakfast experience: 

the location of the hotel is pretty central, so that's one positive for this horrible establishment. also, they were pretty close to the starting line for the marathon. i saw lots of people walking towards the spot where i dropped off my princess husband. (just joking chris!) another nice thing was that the hotel staff did have a spread of fruit and coffee for the marathon runners, starting at 4am. so thanks for that.

but otherwise, our experience was a pretty negative one. someone also managed to lose half of their bikini down a drain which caused the pipes to back up and spew dirty nastiness up in some of the rooms. our room was unaffected, but poor robert and lindsay were not so lucky. remember what i said about disease-catching? the hotel wanted to compensate them with a free toothbrush and toothpaste because robert's toiletry bag probably caught an std. scoundrels. they ended up comping our mandatory valet parking of $14/day. so i guess we 'saved' $56.

anyway, i am all about supporting small businesses and giving the 'little people' a chance. but porta vista hotel- you had your chance, and you guys suck. i give thee no support.

here we are in the hotel lobby, on our last night there. so happy to be leaving in the morning! (i look a little pregnant in my dress. it's the dress. not me. do not ask if i am pregnant unless you want me to punch you in the face.)