Hotel Continental Breakfasts – The Ultimate Gratitude Test

The other day I was online, looking for a hotel in a mountain town in the Cascades. The town always fills up with summer tourists, so I was planning ahead, which I rarely do. I was browsing hotels in the lower price range when I saw this user review:

“The biscuits and gravy were nasty but the waffles were okay.”

My first thought was “What do you expect, pal? When have you ever stayed in a place where the biscuits didn’t have the texture and flavor of Play Dough? Never, that’s when. And that thin, brown gravy with the mini-meat chunks? You didn’t actually think that stuff was edible, did you?

Here’s a hint for my commenting friend. In any hotel in the mid-$70 range, two things are guaranteed at breakfast:

1) There will be some guy like me who can’t figure out that flippy waffle-maker thing. He’ll char the batter into the waffle machine and fill the room with light smoke (so be glad your waffles were good, pal).

2) There will be a mounted television loudly playing Fox News. This isn’t for your enjoyment – it’s so you get annoyed and don’t each too much. It’s the lodging equivalent of a scarecrow.

That’s what $76 gets you. Guaranteed. Deal with it.

I don’t understand people who do online reviews and bring up little things. Sure, if a python came out of the toilet and bit your pecker, then it makes sense. But if you’re fortunate enough to be on vacation in a beautiful mountain setting, why take the time to nitpick a breakfast buffet? There are so many other fun things you could be doing. Sometimes I think the whole online review thing is really just a way to spare people from having to listen to a cranky, gloomy spouse.

If the reviewer was the guy down the street who owns the $75-a-night hotel, operating in disguise, that’d make perfect sense. But I don’t think it was. I went ahead and reserved the hotel not recommended by Biscuits-And-Gravy Guy. I never take advice from ungrateful dark stars.