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What a difference a day makes

I'm currently posting from a gosh-awful Best Western motel near the Milan-Malpensa airport. The long list of bad things about this place is too amazing to post. The good things? It has an Internet connection (although only pay wireless in the lobby), and it's close to the airport.

The weather was relatively lousy today, and I just now (2200 local) finished the grant writing I needed to do. At 0415 tomorrow morning I get the wakeup call to quickly pack and head for the airport.

It's time to come home. Friend of Bart

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That List

should be posted! Share the suffering.

  • By Anonymous (not verified) at 2006-06-11 13:24
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Here's everything I can remember...

All of this stuff is really trival, but when I was in kind of a cranky mood anyhow it kind of added up. Besides, I was just coming from a really nice hotel overlooking Lake Como (and costing a similar amount). Sometimes, it's just a bad vibe. The place definitely had a creepy feel to it. Best Western. Uggh.

  • 90€ for a really average room in a crummy district near nothing.
  • Only about 1km line-of-sight from the airport, but about 15 min by taxi due to bad placement.
  • Couldn't figure out how to catch their shuttle from the airport, since no documentation was provided. Taxi driver raked me for 40€ on the way there, and claimed not to know how to get there. (Was 20€ on the way back—go figure.)
  • Room was about 2.5m deep, but about 6m wide. Window in back looked out over busy freeway, abandoned construction.
  • The pool was outdoors, next to the freeway and construction.
  • Room lights would only operate with card key in a slot near the door. May be common; I don't know. But no obvious documentation, so had to ask at the desk.
  • TV had bugs. Clock didn't work, meaning no clock in room. Touching either volume-up or volume-down immediately muted the set; power-cycling restored the volume.
  • Hotel restaurant was expensive; 30€ for a good, but not great buffet. No other food options reasonably accessible.
  • The staff was uniformly frostily barely polite; only time during my whole Italy trip I really ran into that.
  • I was there because I needed to leave at 0445 to get to the airport. The shuttle wasn't running yet, and breakfast was not being served. Fair enough. But it would have been nice to get some help with either.
  • Called at 0400 to cancel 0415 wakeup call. Clerk said no prob. Of course, rang at 0415 while in the shower anyhow.

Looking back over the list, I'm a little embarassed at how cranky I was about it all. It's not like it was dirty, or dangerous, or badly false-advertised.

I wouldn't go there again.