I went to a three day conference for work held at a hotel in Rochester, NY. The rooms all had the highest beds I've ever seen. Had to stand on tiptoes and put one side of my rear on the bed and then sort of jump and wiggle up. I got up one night and put my feet over the edge and slid down--it felt like I was falling (very disorienting when you're half asleep). Does anyone know why the beds would be so high or seen this in other hotels? It doesn't seem like it would be safe if children were sleeping there. Falling out of bed could be dangerous.
Last night at the banquet, the tables were set very nicely--3 forks 2 knives, butter plate, the works! But, no coffee cups, which I thought was strange. The servers starting bringing out the trays with the dinners and taking them to the tables. We were near the back and they started in the front. After a while I noticed that they were no longer bringing food out of the kitchen and our table and another one didn't have any food (we decimated the rolls and butter, however). A lot of the other people were already through eating. One of the women at my table went and found a server and asked if they forgot about us and was told our dinners would be right out. Another five minutes and they started bringing dinners out again. The other people got a beef fillet and crab cake but we got the beef and a piece of fish. We figured that they ran out of something and had to quickly cook something else (probably the fish). Strange since they had an exact number and no extra guests--maybe someone in the kitchen had a fondness for crab cakes or they miscounted. That can happen.
When we were finally finished eathing, that must have been a signal for the coffee to be served, because a young man came out of the kitchen carrying a cup and saucer in each hand. He proceeded to go around and ask each person if they wanted coffee and if they did, he set the empty cup down. Since he only had two he had to turn around and go back into the kitchen and come back out with two more. You can imagine how long that took. It was the most inefficient thing I've ever seen. Then we sat there with empty cups until the servers came around finally with the coffee pots after the cup marathon finished. I can't figure out why the coffee cups weren't put on the table originally. Almost everyone has coffee, decaff, or tea after dinner. The fact that they waited so long was ridiculous--they should have brought the coffee while we were eating. It's like they had a set pattern and they weren't going to deviate for anything.
Finally the speaker and award part of the program started and they announced that they asked the wait staff not to finish cleaning off the tables. So then the wait staff had to wait for an hour while we had our program. I kind of felt bad that they had to wait around to finish cleaning up but it wouldn't have happened if their timetable for the meal hadn't been so weird.
All in all it was a fun and informative conference, but I felt that banquet was a set-up for America's Funniest Videos. Does anyone have any good banquet or hotel stories (that they can share?)
Crafty