cram-the-fam hotel room that left a mark

Turns out our hotel room in Boston was one of those places where I begged the kids not to drop their toothbrush on the floor.  The carpet was scary.  I avoided the bathroom until it was absolutely necessary.  There was an enormous moldy area on the bathroom ceiling.  The hallways had an unidentifiable, unpleasant odor.  The room layout was so strange that the only possibly way to set up the two air mattresses was to shove them on either side of the pullout bed.

All our bags are on the pullout, but can you see how the two beds were around a set of half walls?  The bathroom (and I use the term loosely) was over to the right just before you got to the pullout.  We did required maintenance to come up and plunge the toilet at one point.  Embarrassing!  Don't stare at the carpet too long - cooties might jump thru your computer screen and land on you.  You've been warned!

In the middle of the night when I needed to use the bathroom, I did my best imitation of a kid in a bouncy house.  I was forced to step on an air mattress, do a partial cartwheel across the pullout, and take one last step on the other air mattress before sticking my landing on the questionable carpet near the bathroom door.

For our entire stay, Coach remained paranoid that we were going to be busted for housing too many family members in one room.  I assured him that the staff had already realized we had ignored fire code.  If they hadn't demanded that we buy a second room that first night, then they weren't going to bother.

We had been called out for doing the family-cram in a hotel room once.  We flew into Orlando for a visit to Disney World years ago.  We opted to stay at a hotel near the airport, since our flight was so late.  Why pay Disney rates to just sleep part of a night in a pricey hotel?  We hadn't considered the fact that the hotel employees would notice how many there were in our group when we utilized the free shuttle service from the hotel.  Oops.  At 11:30 at night, we were the only family in the shuttle.  Our cover was blown, and so was our budget.  The hotel manager informed us we would need two hotel rooms for our brief stay.  

I wished I was back in Disney, but alas - here we were in Boston.  The second night I awoke to Mini growling at Laddie to leave her alone.  His focus the entire trip was to torment her, so this was not a surprise.  He was on his phone and aiming the lit up screen at her sleeping face.  He was on the pullout with Reggie and she was on an air mattress.  Yes, you are not mistaken.  Lad is the oldest - the college kid.  Don't get me started!

After being awoken by Mini's cries for peace, I noticed how stuffy the room felt.  Then I realized I was sleeping in a pool of sweat.  The room had transformed into our own private sauna once we had fallen asleep.  I got up, messed with the AC, and told Mini to switch places with me.  I gave up my spot in the bed, because I knew there was no way I was going to go back to sleep anyway.  A bit later, Lad opted to take a shower and leave the sauna room to hang out in the hotel lobby.  The room was insufferable.

The next morning, we packed up our stuff.  I celebrated my last march across the carpet.  While the worker bee children hauled our bags downstairs with Coach, I approached the desk.  They agreed to take $100 off of our room charge for the second night because of the issue with the AC.  I learned that it wasn't just our room.  The entire hotel had lost AC.

Picturesque Boston College

While we had enjoyed the city of Boston, we had suffered thru Laddie's disruptive behavior and survived one of the top 10 worst hotel stays ever.  I was ready to wrap up this road trip.  We bid the city good-bye and headed to Boston College, where we had scheduled a tour. 

The 'Great White' - you can see the paint chip above the passenger door.

Boston College was very impressive.  After the tour as we stood next to the car in the parking garage eating the lunch that I whipped up from our coolers, I made an announcement.  'Unless one of you plans to get a sports scholarship here, none of you will ever attend this pricey place.'  I did appreciate the fact that the tour launched the college search process for Eddie.  They touched on important points in general about the application process for high school students.   

Serving lunch next to the car was easier than distributing food inside the car.  As anxious as we were to get to New York where we would drop Lad of at college, we didn't mind taking a few extra minutes before leaving.  That's when my tall husband noticed that the hotel valets had given us a lasting gift.  There near the roof above the passenger doors of the great white van was a substantial paint chip.  Perfect. 

This is a closeup of the paint chip.  It almost looks like Ferdinand from the children's book about the bull.  Bummer because otherwise our former-airport shuttle van is a real gem.