The Hotel In San Diego

So...

I spent the past nine weeks living in a hotel for Bikram Yoga Teacher Training. Hotel living isn't easy. There are comforts that you want and can't really get access to. Such as...

• Inconsistency in room assignment
• A bath tub
• Fridge space
• Reliable Internet connection
• Toilet paper when you need it
• Clean sheets
• Proper disposal of trash
• A toilet that doesn't break
• Clean towels
• Horrible Customer Service

These are all issues I had while staying at the Town & Country Hotel in San Diego for my two-month training. But before I go into the specifics around the issues, let me tell you what was good about the hotel...

Location: It kicked ass. Easy to get to. Near the subway. Near a mall.

That's about it. Now for the "difficulty" with the hotel...

• Inconsistency in room assignment: We were put in the shittiest of the shitty part of the hotel. Oh.. Wait. Excuse me. SOME of us were put in the shittiest of the shitty part of the hotel. Others were only put in the semi-shitty part. The "semi-shitty" part had "moisture" issues experienced by some yogis (i.e. mold). Those of us in the shittiest part of the "motel" (because where we were staying was NOT 'hotel" quality) put up with a moldy smell (no actual mold) and one person (not me) found a rat in their room. (I actually never found a single bug, so I can only report about the vermin critter from the person whose room it was in who told me. To the hotel's credit, they did move him to a different room.)
• A bath tub: There was a teeny-tiny border around my shower that one could certainly attempt to bathe in... But yogis need access to a bathtub. We have to soak. Our muscles badly needed it. And our area of the hotel didn't have it.
• Fridge space: I was fortunate. I had a single room. So I got the tiny fridge all to myself. But most people were in shared rooms, and had to share the same size fridge between the two of them. I could barely fit my needs into the fridge each week. I can't imagine how tough it was for those who had to share the small thing.
• Reliable Internet connection: The hotel gave us a "discounted" rate of $5 a day for Internet. I need the Internet. DAILY. So that wasn't gonna cut it. I opted to subscribe to an AT&T Wi-Fi account for $20 a month instead. The connection was always reliable, but it was way cheaper than paying the $5 a day price to access the same connection. The cancellation fee for the annual contract for the AT&T Wi-Fi account was only $20. So my total cost for Internet - $60. Way better than the $300 it would have cost me to do $5 a day.
• Toilet paper when you need it: OHMYGOD! Housekeeping would NEVER give you spare toilet paper rolls. And I didn't want them having to clean my room every day (I went every other), so I had to start taking the toilet paper roll off the post just to get them to replace it when they did clean. Even if you had just a thin layer of toilet paper left on the roll, they wouldn't replace it. So I was hoarding toilet paper like crazy. I even stole some off the housekeeper's cart when she wasn't looking. GIRLS NEED LOTS OF TOILET PAPER!
• Clean sheets: I think my sheets were changed maybe five times the entire time I was there. How do I know? Well, I only sleep on one side of the bed. The other side of the bed was where I ate. And I am a messy eater. Crumbs and a pizza sauce stain remained for a good two weeks on my bed at one point.
• Proper disposal of trash: Every Saturday, after I did my grocery shopping, I would have a bit of trash. Not much... But more than would fit in the small room trash bin they gave us. So I would put my trash in plastic bags next to my can on Sunday mornings. I would also breakdown Zico bulk boxes and cereal boxes, indicating they could be trashed. Housekeeping would often leave everything that wasn't in the trash bin. So I started throwing the trash in the garbage can near my building... But a worker passing by once asked me not to do that. He told me to just leave it in my room for housekeeping to get. It was a vicious cycle.
• A toilet that doesn't break: Nothing like having your toilet break on you regularly while you've picked up a habit of drinking three liters of water in yoga class. At LEAST twice a week, I would have to call housekeeping to send someone to fix my toilet. At one point, I wanted to ask them, "Can you please just leave the plunger? I'll do it myself."
• Clean towels: Just like with the toilet paper... Towels - even when you left them on the floor - wouldn't get replaced when you needed them to be. I would often see the towels I had left of the floor to replaced (which is a method they asked us to use to indicate when we wanted towels changed) folded exactly up back on the rack. One time though, one of my fellow yogis had to call housekeeping THREE TIMES before they brought her clean towels. They're not very responsive.
• Horrible Customer Service: There are just far too many things I could say about the number of times someone would call or go to the front desk for assistance with something, and get the response from the CSR on the phone or there say, "That's not my job." Oh, and my favorite part was when my Mum sent me Halloween cards a week before Halloween from Arizona, and they didn't call me to tell me about them till 12 DAYS afterwards.

I would never stay there if I had a choice. But in terms of teacher training, staying there was certainly manageable. And, again, the location was good.