Long Weekend

 

After the last shuttle flight landed and all of the stress leading up to it, M and I decided to get away for a long weekend.  It was pretty last minute, so we stayed within driving distance and booked my parents to stay with the kids.

We decided on New Braunfels, which is in the San Antonio area and still takes a great bit of pride in its German heritage.  Just to be different, we booked rooms at a cool hotel that was built in 1929.   The rooms were ok.  There was no central air, so each room had a window until.  The bathrooms had not really been updated, but the age of the hotel made that all forgivable for the sake of staying someplace a little more unique.

We went to Gruene, TX (pronounced "green") and had a great dinner and walked by the historic dance hall.

 It was relaxing just what we needed!  Later that night, about 12:30am, we were startled by the sound of our adjoining door opening!  We assumed that like most hotels, there was either a double door or the adjoining doors could be locked to prevent the person on the other side from busting in.  Not so.  Let's just say that his little entrance into our room was less than ideal timing, if you get my meaning.  The guy was drunk, came back to his room, and thought it was the bathroom door.  At least that's what he said.  He very quickly closed his door and apologized, of course, but it scared the crap out of us.  Plus, how embarrassing!!  I don't think he really saw anything, but still.

M went down to the front desk and they moved us to another room.  Of course, the window until wasn't on and it took about an hour for the room to cool down enough to get to sleep.  When we went to take a shower, there was a dead cockroach in the tub,  The next morning, we packed out things, made a reservation at the Hampton Inn and went to the front desk to get a full refund.  Of course, the desk clerk did not have the authority to do that, so after a few phone calls, they would only refund us for the night we weren't going to stay in the hotel.  So, I brought out the big guns.  I told the clerk to relay a message to the Manager:  If we don't get a full refund, at 8am on Monday morning, I am going to the BBB, Facebook, Yelp, City Search and Twitter and I am going to write this entire story down, including the hotel's dirty bathrooms and lack of security.

We got a call 10 minutes later from a very apologetic manager offering us our refund and another free night.  We took her up on the refund, but declined the free night.  That's the power of social media, I guess.

Despite the rough night, we had a wonderful Saturday!

We found a little railroad museum

Lots of funky antiques

and we even found a little a martini bar that served the best cucumber martinis I have ever tasted!


It was nice to get away, even if we did end up inadvertently putting on a show.  It wouldn't be a good vacation without a good story, right?  Oh, and the Hampton Inn was awesome.