Veronica and I returned home this afternoon after spending a 3 day weekend in Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia.
Before we left home and were in the planning stages of this get away, we made our very first attempt at getting a hotel room through Priceline.
Priceline has their own rating system for hotels and such.
The highest rating for a hotel in the Colonial Williamsburg area was 3 1/2 stars. We decided to go with a 3 star hotel. I am used to basing my decisions on AAA ratings and have stayed at many really nice quality 3 star hotels.
According to Priceline's web site, a 3 star hotel is considered as being the following:
3 star hotels offer a higher level of guest service with several amenities. Guestrooms and public spaces place a greater emphasis on style and generally offer such conveniences as hairdryers, iron and board, and a fitness room. On-site dining is offered but may not be available for all three meals.
We decided to try to get a hotel in this rating group and started placing "bids" for a room via Priceline.
We ended up placing a "winning price" at $79 for each night and we were very pleasantly surprised to learn that we had got a room at the Crowne Plaza in the Colonial Williamsburg area.
Veronica has been at a Crowne Plaza in the Boston, MA area and told me that the hotel rooms and the hotel itself is extremely nice, so I was rather happy and excited that we had got the room at this hotel. She told me that Crowne Plaza hotels were very upscale hotels.
We left for Williamsburg on Friday morning and we were able to check in at the hotel around noon time.
We quickly dropped off our luggage in the room before heading out to get some other things done. During our brief time in the room, it didn't appear to be close to what I was expecting nor what Veronica had seen at the other Crowne Plaza hotel that she had been too.
We wanted to get going and didn't take a good look at things until we got back to the room.
While we were out, we got some picture frames at a local Michaels. The frames were for some of our many photos that we had enlarged from our recent Baltic Capitals cruise and also visited some other stores.
We then had dinner and returned to the hotel room for the night.
When we got back to our room, we started to notice how bad of shape the room was.
We also had problems with the tv set that was in the room. We could only watch about 5-6 channels out of all of the channels that were offered.
The other channels came in but were basically unwatchable.
I placed a call to the front desk and spoke to the hotel manager about the tv issue.
I was told that he would send someone right up.
Veronica and I stayed in the room for 2 1/2 hours waiting for someone to stop by the room to fix the tv.
There was supposed to be a person that was going to be telling ghost stories outside of the hotel at 8:30 that night.
We decided to go outside and listen to the storyteller. On our way out, we stopped by the front desk and explained that we had been waiting for someone to fix our tv after I had called down about the problem 2 1/2 hours ago. We also told the front desk person that we had no tissues nor was there any bars of soap in the room....neither bath nor hand soap.
The front desk personnel looked at a list and said that our room and name was not on it for any type of room issues that needed to be fixed. She immediately got someone to take care of the issues and said that it was unusual that the manager would forget to write our name and problem down on the list nor have the problem taken care of.
After talking to the front desk personnel, we went outside and listen to the ghost stories and had Smores that were served at the tail end of the stories.
We then went upstairs to our room for the rest of the night.
After looking around the room a little closer, I ended up being really disappointed and rather upset that we were staying in a hotel that was sub par especially for a hotel that was carrying the Crowne Plaza name.
The furniture was old, with chips and worn marks all over the wood, holes in the tv armoire, chips and worn marks on most of the other furniture in the room, torn wallpaper, marks all over the walls, stained desk chair with tears and worn out areas in the cushion and arms of the chair, worn out and very stained carpet. Usually when you leave the room in the morning and then return from a day of being out, your room has been cleaned and pretty close to made up as it was when you originally walked into the room the first time. Well.....after leaving the next morning and returning in the late afternoon, we returned to our room to find that the bed had bed roughly put together and made, the sink was still dirty from when we brushed our teeth in the morning before we left...basically...whoever made up the room and cleaned it, stayed in it for as little time as they could and barely spent any time cleaning it at all.
Rather than continuing on with how poor shape this room was in, I figure that the photos would speak for themselves.
I would like to add that none of these photos have been "doctored" or "Photoshopped"...the room is and was as you see it in the photos. Here is a link to the Crowne Plaza hotel that Veronica had stayed at when she was in Natick, MA. Look at the picture of the Double Room in that hotel compared to the Double Room photos below of our room...you will definitely see a huge difference..... Double Room in the Crown Plaza in Natick, MA
This is how we found our room after being gone for the day and it had been cleaned up and the bed made.
Please feel free to click on each photo to enlarge it so that you can really see the wear and tear on the furniture and how poor of shape it was in
And this is what you get for a 3 star Priceline hotel that is supposed to be upscale
This was in the ceiling above the bed. I am not positive but it kind of looked like a bullet hole with something still lodged in the hole
The next morning, we got up early and got some breakfast before heading over to see Colonial Williamsburg.
This was in front of the Visitors Center where you get tickets to go to the various historic sites in the area. From the center, we got on a shuttle bus and were driven to the Colonial Williamsburg area.
Upon arriving we found an open air Farmers Market going on. It was really nice with many venders selling their wares. Got some good cookies and bread there. It was also Homecoming weekend for the William & Mary College students, who also had a homecoming football game in the afternoon. There were a lot of parents and college students which added to the festive atmosphere
Below is the "Capital" building from the colonial days
Everyone that worked in the area wore era period clothing and there were always in "character" and acting/talking as they did back in the colonial day.
This nice lady welcomed us into the Coffee House where we had a tour and had some hot chocolate.
Veronica with the welcoming lady
This was in the game room
This guy also gave us the tour of the coffee house
This is the room that we had hot chocolate in..it was very strong and unsweetened...just the way they made it back in the colonial days. They did offer us sugar to sweeten it up.
I asked the nice lady if I could take a photo of their kitchen area that was attached to this room and was open but she said "no" because there were modern items in it...there was a dishwasher hidden behind an old looking cabinet door. They make every attempt to keep everything in the era period of the colonial days
This gentleman talked about the politics and worries of the day during that time period
A general street view in the Colonial Williamsburg area
A colonial era tavern and restaurant
The local Silversmith and his female helper
Local doctors office and apothocary
Not exactly who this was but he was sure a rather dapper dresser
Workers in a fabric/tailor shop
More photos from inside of the doctors office and apothocary shop
Here is a leather worker...he made shoes and other leather items along with repairing them
Below is the local blacksmith
Below are photos of the kitchen area in a tavern
A typical meal was a whole fish, some mutten, potatoes and bread
This was in the laundry room of the tavern
They had several of these "announcement/bulletin boards" in the area.
You can click on the announcements to enlarge them
More folks in period garb and in character
They had carriage rides throughout the area
Various scenic photos of the area
We stayed long enough to watch the Fife And Drum group march up the street
Even though our room was not even close to what was expected or should have been, Veronica and I still had a really nice and special weekend together.
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