Wyndham? Damn near killed ‘em

Last week I piled the wife, daughter and the son-in-law into my fourteen-year old Lexus ES350—really just a Camry dressed up for Saturday night—and took them down the coast to San Diego, where we were meeting up with my son and his fiancé to go see Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band.

I know, I’m as shocked as you are.

They were playing at Pechanga Arena, a venue I was unfamiliar with and had never been to, even though it’s been there over sixty years under various names.

Since it was just an overnight trip, and arena shows are notorious for hellish parking and hours-long traffic jams leaving afterwards, I used my big brain and thought the best thing to do would be to book us three rooms at a nearby hotel, where we’d be able to leave the car and just walk to the show.

The hotel I found, the Wyndham Garden San Diego Sea World (the arena is right behind the orca prison) was literally across the street from the arena.

Being the hotel snob I am, after perusing their website and seeing that the rooms and the hotel in general—while not up to the usual Hotel Del Coronado/Fairmont San Francisco/Essex House New York/Four Seasons Seattle accommodations I’ve grown accustomed to—looked decent enough for an inexpensive overnight stay.

But as we all know, when it comes to looks, as in used cars and the opposite sex at closing time, they can be deceiving.

Most arenas are not located in the better part of town, and Pechanga is no exception.

When we pulled into the hotel, which come to find out was more of a motel, it looked decent enough. The woman at the front desk who checked us in was pleasant, and directed us to the building our rooms were in. On the way over, we noticed several extremely sketchy characters not just around the property, but staying there.

It reminded me of the Crystal Palace on Breaking Bad, except without the charm. Although if they had room service, like the Crystal Palace, I was pretty sure meth was on the menu.

We went into the room and, as they say, it was nothing like the brochure. Dingy, dirty and with a prison bathroom, there was only one window with a transparent shade out to the upstairs walkway. I imagine that was to make it easier for the addicts to decide what to steal.

All I could think was Gitmo must’ve been booked for the weekend.

If I’d been a little more thorough in my research, and the only reason I wasn't was because I was pretty danged pleased I'd found a place within walking distance, I would’ve seen the pictures of cockroaches in the rooms and Wyndham’s less than stellar ratings on Yelp.

That would’ve been the first clue.

I told everyone not to put anything on the beds, we were getting out of there.

Speaking with the woman who’d checked us in not fifteen minutes earlier, I let her know the rooms weren’t what we expected and we weren’t going to stay. Without skipping a beat, she said no problem and gave us a full refund. Which told me this probably was a daily request.

Fortunately, the Hyatt Regency Mission Bay Spa & Marina had rooms available and we wound up staying there. Instead of across the street, it was a six-minute Uber ride to the arena, and a million miles away from the Wyndham.

In a word, the Hyatt was heaven. I can’t say enough good things about it. And I believe in my heart that their staff is as great and the accommodations as comfortable, clean and pleasant as they were all the time—not just because we’d made our escape from the bowels of hell.

I wasn't trapped in the Wyndham cell long enough to notice if they had movie channels on the TV. If they do, I'd recommend watching Escape From Alcatraz.

Not for the movie. For the plan.

Shower power

Okay, it's time to make some hot cocoa, cuddle up in the blanket, and settle in for a totally fictional story that would never happen in the real world. Never. Trust me.

Just for arguments sake, let's say there was this house. A 63-year old house. And once upon a time, not so very long ago, this house had all the pipes replaced with copper piping because of the promise that copper piping held.

High water pressure. The ability to run different showers at the same time. Hot water almost instantly.

But for some reason, the new pipes never quite delivered on the promise. So for years, the owners of the house just made do, suffering with low water pressure that barely cleaned the soap off their bodies. They were happy everywhere in the house. Except the showers.

Then, one day, the owners of that old house decided to call a plumber. They asked this plumber to snake all the drains and sinks, and see what he could do to increase the water pressure in the showers, and finally deliver on that long ago promise.

Well, this was a very smart plumber. He knew everything there was to know about pipes and water pressure. In fact he was so smart, he knew that all the new shower heads and hoses had water regulators in them. He also knew if those were removed, the water pressure would be like showering at one of the fancy hotels the family liked to go to, like The Venetian. The Hotel Del Coronado. Or The Fairmont.

Now the water regulators were there to restrict the flow of water to conserve it, because the city the house was in had had a drought for a long time. So really, it would've been wrong to remove them.

But that sneaky plumber removed them anyway, and didn't tell the owners of the house until he was done with the job. And even though the owners knew it was wrong, they sure liked the way the showers felt after he was done.

The promise of the copper pipes all those years ago had finally come true.

And the good news is even though they were using a little more water, now they didn't have to waste water while they waited almost ten minutes for it to get hot. Plus they don't have to stay in nearly as long to get clean. So it all evened out in the end.

And the whole family showered happily ever after.