When I booked my trip to San Jose this time around I was crazy excited about the hotel I was getting. The Crown Plaza, downtown San Jose - walking distance from restaurants, bars, and clubs. In addition to its location, the amenities were looking good to: light rail station nearby, easy access to major highways, fitness center, high-speed internet (not wireless). Of course, things had to go horribly wrong.

What I hated

• No airport shuttle: The hotel is three miles from the airpor, but no shuttle. So cab it is: 3 miles = $15. Alright, fine. But what do I see when I get to the hotel: not one, but two courtesy vans. One of them is unloading a flight crew that has obviously just come from the airport. I guess the courtesy van is just for airport personnel. I feel special already.
• Internet service: service is $10/day. Now I recognize that not all hotels have internet service, but I think you need to make a distinction when you’re going to charge for something on your website. Much like they explicitly stated that parking is $12/day (also bullshit where I come from, but I understand that it is common practice elsewhere), they should have had some mention that I was going to get raped on internet service.
• No local information: I went to the front desk to get some information about the light rail (which has a station across the street); they, of course, didn’t have any. Instead, they direct me to walk over to the convention center, where there will surely be more information.
• Parking - the worst thing ever: In the garage, you get a ticket when you enter the parking lot. Every time you want to leave the parking lot, you have to take your ticket in to the front desk and have them stamp it, then when you give the ticket to the parking attendant and tell the parking attendant your room number. This is almost too stupid for words. But let’s go through the logic for shits and giggles. They have a parking garage in downtown San Jose, which is available for public parking ($12/day is a ridiculously high rate in San Jose, btw). In order to keep regular people from just saying that they are staying at the hotel, you force them to go inside get a stamp from the front desk, which is not exactly a fool-proof method, because no verification is done by the hotel desk staff to make sure you’re actually staying at the hotel. Then you go back to your car, give your ticket to the attendant, who looks for the stamp, asks you what your room number is, and then writes it down on the ticket. There’s no way you’d lie about your room number, right? As annoying as it was to get my ticket stamped every time I went in and out, I guess I shouldn’t complain too much because I got three free days of parking because they didn’t have me on file as having used the parking lot on three of my five day stay. (Take the good with the bad).

There were some good things about the hotel that I should mention.

What I liked

• Free HBO: Came in handy when wasting away hungover mornings/afternoons/evenings.
• The bed: It was awesome. I need a new bed. And it must be king size.
• Location: The downtown location was awesome. It’s nice when you don’t have to worry about driving home from the club. As you can imagine, I took full advantage of that amenity.

In the end, as much as I hate the Crown Plaza, the location made it all work out in the end. I’m still never staying at that fucking place again.