Saturday, March 7, 2009

whoever gave this hotel a four-star rating is ****ed.

... by which of course I mean that they were completely accurate. To be honest, I don't know half the time what the actual star rating is supposed to be for any given hotel, who has determined it, and what sort of money changed hands to get there. 

So I think it's time for a better system, and I am just the one to design it. It's a ten point scoring system, and it works on a binary basis, by which I mean that there are ten criteria that the hotel either has or does not have. Each of the following criteria is worth one point:
  1. Hangers in closet are free-hanging and ready to steal, not like those annoying ones that leave you with a nub on top while the hangy part stays fixed.
  2. Conditioner is in a separate bottle to the shampoo.
  3. Room service/housekeeping/concierge uses your name when you call them from the room.
  4. Something yummy is left in your room daily - the welcome fruit does not count.
  5. The temperature selector on the air conditioning thermostat has some connection to the temperature it will actually deliver.
  6. There is an easy-to-find TV channel listing.
  7. Internet access is free (bonus point if wireless).
  8. Room is any one of: tasteful, cool, sleek, ridiculously large, has excellent view.
  9. The widescreen TV doesn't stretch every crappy analogue standard-aspect channel it receives, rendering most movies unwatchable.
  10. A firm pillow is available, or can be provided with a minimum of fuss.
Thus I can rate this current trip as follows:
G Hotel, Penang: 5
Hilton Kuala Lumpur: 8
Puteri Pacific, Johor Bahru: 3
Howard Plaza, Kaohsiung: 3.5 (because three pieces of welcome fruit is better than one)

The pass mark is necessarily low, because I want to leave room for a hotel to really satisfy me, and for me to be able to express that. Hence, even though the G Hotel gets 5, I'd happily stay there again. The Howard Plaza Kaohsiung is serviceable, but the Puteri Pacific just makes me sad in so many unexplainable ways.

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