The environmental movment guarantees discomfort... My wife and I recently went to the Washington, D.C. metro area to visit some museums and our daughter.  We stayed at the Hilton Hotel in McLean, VA.  Previous experiences at Hilton hotels elsewhere didn't prepare us for our disappointing stay.  Tonight I was given an opportunity to answer one of their surveys and this narrative I left for them pretty much sums it up for me...

The thermostat in the room is one which relies on a motion sensor to determine if the room is occupied. Only when occupied does the AC (in our case) operate at all. If one isn't moving about the room, and sleeping (the purpose of having the room) is too still, then the AC goes off and in summer the temperature immediately rises. Thus at night we were too still (i.e. we were sleeping) and the AC cut off and temp in the room shot up to 78 degrees. While this is "environmentally" friendly, it is unreasonably uncomfortable. After about 2AM we were constantly up to provide movment so that the thermostat would turn on the AC. Frankly, I could have slept better on the parking lot.

Frankly, I think it ridiculous that in a room in which one cannot open a window for fresh air one can't turn the thermostat to a reasonable temperature once you've occupied said room and leave to perhaps eat so that you can return to a comfortable room.  But this environmental policing (and I'm sure it saves the hotel money in energy costs) makes the room more a high class sauna as both my wife and I awoke at about 2 AM in a sweat and spent the rest of our sleepless night trying to provide just enough movement to keep the AC on so that we could catch a few winks.  For the money spent I would indeed have been more comfortable sleeping in secure quarters outside ON the PAVEMENT!  How do I know this?  Well I have actually slept on pavement, outside, in the summer so I have a basis for a comparison.  At least outside one has the intermittent respite of a breeze. 

So, in our society, we now think that it is right and proper to charge premium rates to put people in uncomfortable quarters just because we might be saving a bit of electricity.  Do you think it will stop with hotels?  No, they want to get into your homes, cars, everywhere you are just like BIG BROTHER and tell you just what you should do and how comfortable you should be.  Do you want to return to the 1950s when most of us had neither money for travel or air conditioning? 

Labels: Culture

  ¶ posted by The Editor 10:14 PM