Marriott In Melville

I stayed in Longggg Eyeland this week. For one night. It's funny thinking about where I have slept on that island. In amazing Hampton's estates, in not amazing Hampton's estates... I slept in my car a few times when I was with my Pit Bull of a few months. I would be driving way later than I should have been from New Jersey back to Long Island when I lived there, and there were nights when I would scare myself. Or more specifically, my damned thirty pound eyelids would finally make their move while I was mid-yawn, and my cheek muscles didn't have enough bounce in them to get them back up to that ever so important "Open" position needed while driving. So I would do what any sleep depraved young woman with a big dog in her front seat would do. Pull over into a cute little side street, shut everything off, lock the doors and put my seat back to let my eyelids work off some calories.

Anyway, the reason I really brought that up is because I would have preferred to sleep that way than in the Marriott in Melville. I am sorry, Marriott, really.

Marriott:

I would like commend your staff for being so wonderful that maybe if I had been a little intoxicated, I wouldn't have even noticed how everything outside of your staff was WORSE THAN SLEEPING IN MY CAR IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. Let us count your offenses... When I first pulled up, instead of instantly parking, I drove through your little half circle drop off area just to double check that my GPS hadn't jokingly brought my to an Emergency Room. And if you are going to look like a Hospital, be clean like one! So confirming that I indeed had arrived at a hotel, I set out to park my car. I didn't realize how difficult parking could be in a suburb. I guess when this place used to be an Emergency Room, the hospital owners wanted to keep visitors far away. Upon walking in, employee's were made available to take my bags from me and cart them to my room and bring them in and all of that was a lovely bonus. However, their funds should be for free valet parking. I have a broken foot! I didn't anticipate walking three street lengths in an overcrowded and very distant parking lot just to check in. Maybe that is my fault. Maybe I have been spoiled by less expensive hotels that cater to the needs of people staying in hotels and I am wildly unrealistic in my hopes of not breaking my back and arms and shoulders while hiking to a hotel lobby... in the SUBURBS.

Then, there is the smell to deal with. I thought that the mugginess and dampness and faint scent of mold was because of the open area indoor swimming pool, but as the smell intensified after leaving the very dated lobby fun zone, I realized that the mugginess was the pool, the odor was leaks and moldy carpeting. And I am not sure who's brilliant plan it was to get enormous fans and to have them blasting to maybe dry out the carpeting, but save that money, fix your leaks and then replace the carpeting. Or just move your location and give the poor people of Melville their Emergency Room back. *I just said 'swimming pool' as opposed to 'pool.' I cannot explain that one, but I feel old. Like, 'I remember when Fridgerdair Refrigerators came out and I would walk to school for 45 miles in the snow barefoot and pregnant.' No?

My room. Ah, how I dream to forget you. The entire entry lights were missing bulbs and dim, or were just made to be extremely dim- a decision no doubt made from someone who knows what it's like to be... not bright. The bathroom was great, albeit narrow, and the room did not reak of mold like the hallway on the other side of my door. But my door? I was unable to open it by myself more that 50% of the time. That is right. My foot is broken and it may heal one day. But my upper body strength? I need more than a foam booty with some straps around it to make that someone get healthy. Either way, getting locked in your hotel room is not fun. And the piece de resistance? My "window" was window-like in that it was made of glass. And there were shears on it. But instead of being a window out onto that massive expanse of wasted black top that has been kept clean of white paint or parked cars, I got to peer into the inside lobby. My room was facing the first floor walkway. And I couldn't use the faux drapes on the side of the windows to cover up the shears and block me from people's view because they are only two feet strips of hideous. So I struggled with the door, walked the fifteen feet to the front desk and had to have a grown man escort me into my room to show me where the 'hidden' black out plastic drapery was behind the shears so that I could hope to get undressed and sleep for the night. But that was not before he had to open my own door for me.

And as a side note, there was a giant blown up plastic black rat just out in front of the hotel with protesters and some neon signs about how you don't employ New Yorkers but you are in New York. I don't want to get involved in things I don't know about, but I will say two things. 1. Your staff really was lovely. 2. You should probably work on coming to a resolution to get rid of the GIANT RAT IN FRONT OF YOUR HOTEL.

So yes. I will not be returning.