An open letter to Best Western Grant Park:

I have waited a week since our trip to Chicago to write to you to share my experience staying at your hotel. The wait was to ensure that I expressed my true feelings and not those in the heat of the moment.

We have stayed at the Best Western Grant Park for 5 years in a row. My husband attends a stage combat workshop that is held right across the street, so your hotel is very convenient for us. In years past, we have never had any troubles other than occasionally needing more towels. This year, however, we had a very different experience.

It began with check-in. As we unloaded all of our luggage, we looked for a luggage cart to make it easier to haul everything to our room. Our party consisted of three adults and one toddler. If you didn’t know, a toddler generally requires luggage equaling 2 adults just for that one small being. However, we were informed that the luggage cart was in use. The luggage cart, as in, one cart for the entire 9 floor hotel.

Getting our luggage to our room was also a challenge. While there are usually two elevators for the hotel, one was out of service for our entire stay. And the one working elevator had a strange quirk: when going down, it would always stop on the second floor, before then going on to the first. All of this led to painfully long waits to get to and from the room.

It was made even worse when the one working elevator suddenly stopped working, right before we were able to load our luggage on it. So we carried large suitcases up 7 flights of stairs to our room (plus a toddler who’s just barely walking). I understand that you have a fitness center to promote healthy living, but I didn’t expect strenuous exercise to be a requirement for our stay.

Of course, the one working elevator started working once again as soon as we were finished unloading the car. We quickly settled into our two comfortable rooms and began to unpack. My toddler started exploring the room and quickly found several hazards, such as a knob on the dresser that was held on by electrical tape and easily came off in her hands. Nothing like a choking hazard to make us feel welcome.

We also were greeted by a loud chirping sound in one of the rooms. We called for assistance, and 20 minutes later the maintenance man came in and took our smoke alarm away for a new battery. Maybe you should stick by the general rule to change the batteries every 6 months?

It was around 7:30pm at this point, so we went out to eat. Upon arriving back to the hotel (and waiting a crazy long time to use the elevator again) we were given one more surprise: the key cards to one of our rooms didn’t work. This required another trip down the elevator to get the keys re-coded, and then back up. They worked, and we prepared my daughter for bed.

Once she was ready for bed, we put her in her portable crib, and then went next door to the other room so she could fall asleep without distraction (we brought our baby monitors so we could hear her if she needed anything). But when we tried to get back into the room, the key cards would not work. Again. Another trip down the slow elevator, and back up with newly-coded key cards. They still wouldn’t work.

At this point, I was starting to panic, as my child was locked in a room with no way for me to get to her. Another trip down to the front desk, and a call was placed to maintenance. The man responded with “Yeah, I’ll get to it eventually.” The front desk worker, bless her, was kind enough to reiterate the importance of this request, yelling into the walkie-talkie, “No! They’ve got a baby in there by itself! You hurry!”

About 10 minutes later the maintenance man arrived and cleaned the door’s card reader. He tried the (newly-coded, again) cards, and they worked. My mother was going to be sleeping in the room with my daughter, so I went to the other room and went to sleep.

Around 3am, I heard my daughter crying, so I went next door to try to help. Only my key card wouldn’t work. Again. My mother let me in, and after we got my daughter calmed down, I returned to the other room to go back to sleep.

In the morning, we got the key cards re-coded again, and they didn’t work. They coded them another time, and they didn’t work. We left to go sight-seeing at that point, and asked the staff to please have it fixed by the time we came back.

When we arrived back to the hotel, we were given the key cards and told all should be fine. We went to our room (slow wait for the elevator…Again), and to our shock and awe, the key cards once again didn’t work. Another trip downstairs, and this time we were told we would have to change rooms. After being out all day, and having a tired child who really needed a nap, we now had to drag everything to another room?

The first room offered was nowhere near the other room we had, so we insisted on something closer. They finally gave us a room across the hall from the other room. We went upstairs and spent most of an hour moving everything from one room to the other. The luggage cart was once again nowhere to be found. Finally, though, everything was moved, and we no longer had key card problems.

The hotel advertised wireless internet, and we were looking forward to taking advantage of it. However, we were never able to connect to it. Friends in other rooms also couldn’t connect. It seems the wireless network was not quite all that was promised. Luckily, we had an Ethernet cable, so we could connect.

Check-out day was a horror. Check-out time was noon, so we were packed and ready to load up at 10:30. We called and requested the cars from the valet. He told us they would be ready in 10 minutes. I went downstairs to ask for the mysterious luggage cart. But once again, it was in use. I asked if I could have it once the others were done, and the staff person said to me, “We only have one luggage cart, and others are using it. So forget about it.” Classy.

It seems there was a Bears game in town that day, and so while we were checking out, many people were checking in. This made the single elevator nearly impossible to use. We waited through several cycles of up and down, waiting for a chance for the elevator to be empty enough to put a few bags and one person on. 4 passes of the elevator later, we got a nearly empty elevator. We threw as many bags on as possible, and I climbed on and hovered over the stack of luggage precariously, trying not to fall into the nice couple sharing the elevator with me and my stuff.

When we got to the lobby, we looked for the cars. Only one was there. Where was the other car? And for that matter, where was the valet? 10 minutes later, the valet appears, and we ask politely where the other car is. It had been 45 min. since we called. “Too bad, I’m busy. You’ll just have to wait,” was his reply.

A few more trips up and down the elevator (with one person in the room at all times with our now cranky toddler), along with a few trips down the stairs with the most damage-resistant bags, and we had everything in the lobby. 30 min. later the other car appears, and we load up. The valet receives no tip. If it had been possible, I would have made him pay me for the experience. We were ready to checkout at 12:30; 2 hours after we started.

I checkout at the desk, and I am asked how my stay was. I relate all of this information to the staff member. I tell him how unhappy we were with the stay, especially since things were so good in years past. Not looking up from his screen, he says in an unconcerned voice, “Oh, well, I’m sorry to hear you had so many problems. I’ll knock $30 off your total bill.” $30? For a $750 bill? Yeah, that really makes up for it.

So, in conclusion, I don’t know what the hell has happened with the management of your hotel, but clearly there is a problem. The hotel is falling apart and needs a lot of work. Some of your employees need some manners and compassion. I currently don’t believe we will stay there again after this year, even though your hotel is the closest to the workshop. I’d rather walk the half block from the Essex Inn than deal with problems like this again.

And for Bejeebus’s sake, get another damn luggage cart!

Sincerely,

An unhappy mommy

Me: Cordy, tell your great-grandma “bye-bye”!

Cordy: (opening and closing her fingers) Die! Die!

Cordy’s great grandmother: (Puzzled) Did she just tell me to die?

Me: Oh, uh, well, she’s saying bye. She just can’t say the B-sound yet.

Cordy’s great grandmother: But didn’t she just say “ball” earlier?

Me: OK, you got me there. I was trying to save your feelings.

(Later, to Aaron)

Me: Time to lay off the zombie games and horror movies around Cordelia. She’s starting to freak out the relatives. Next thing you know, she’ll be talking like those kids in Pet Semetary or The Shining.

Aaron: Hey Cordy, say “Red rum!”

OK, so yesterday I might have still been in a pissy mood underslept, which made my post seem a little harsh on traveling with a toddler.

So, today, in the spirit of actually being helpful, I present my real tips on traveling with a toddler. (and I promise no “drive at night when they’re sleeping” or “use Benadryl” tips)

1. Bring some items from home – I think that bringing Cordy’s fleece crib sheet and her crib toys helped a lot. I wanted the hotel room to feel like her room when she slept, so I tried to recreate her room with a few carefully chosen items. Aside from the first night, she slept very well.

2. But don’t overpack – While the crib sheet and crib toys were nice, I really didn’t need to bring the overflowing weekender diaper bag of toys with us. She barely had time to play with them, and in the end it just added 20 minutes to our check-out time, as I opened all the drawers in the room, looked behind the curtains, and climbed under the beds (let me tell you, ick) to retrieve every last Little People person.

3. Pack some food from home – Again, to help make things feel less foreign, a little food from home is a good thing. Otherwise, you’re stuck eating lunch in a food court that has few choices for toddlers, so you end up feeding the kid an overpriced grilled cheese sandwich with some type of fancy cheese on rosemary bread. Nice, but I don’t think she appreciated the upgrade to her sandwich; plain ol’ American on white would have been fine, and cheaper.

4. Plan time to run the child – No one likes to be kept in a stroller all day (or for 30 seconds, in Cordy’s case), so make sure the child gets plenty of time to crawl, cruise, toddle, or whatever. Run ’em hard, too. Make sure that they’re ready to collapse before putting them back in the stroller. At the very least, they won’t have as much energy to resist your attempts to restrain them.

5. Expect tantrums – Rare is the experience where you can travel with a baby or toddler and keep the child on their schedule. Somewhere, at some point, something will throw them off and set off a chain of events that will end with the kid on the floor crying and screaming, with you looking around for the quickest escape from the other people who are watching the spectacle with awe and annoyance. Realize it’s gonna happen, and there’s nothing you can do to totally prevent it. Just work on your best “I’m sorry” smile, and your best “I’ll rip your head off if you say one thing about my kid screaming” dirty look, depending on the situation.

And finally, one special tip for a select group of parents:

For parents who are on anti-depressants: deciding to cut back on your medication at the same time you are going on a long road trip with a toddler is a bad, bad, bad idea. Take my advice, and wait until you get back.

Now that we are back home, and I am hopefully nearing the end of my sleep deprivation from this weekend, I can reflect back on the experience of traveling with a 16 month old.

And what does my reflection tell me? NEVER EVER DO IT!!

OK, maybe I’m being a little harsh there. Maybe I should rephrase it to say “Never travel with MY 16 month old.” I’m sure some kids love to travel. There must be toddlers out there who don’t blink an eye at being transported to somewhere new and strange. Kids who don’t get cranky at being thrown off their schedule in any slight way.

The biggest problem I ran into was listening to all the advice out there on how to travel with a baby or toddler. It’s one of the big questions you can find on any parenting web site, and several baby books have their own chapters devoted to it.

I, for some stupid reason, blindly believed their advice. Not one shred of professional advice has worked for my daughter thus far, so why was I so naive to think that these tips and tricks might work to keep Cordy smiling and cheerful? Clearly no one told Cordelia that these were the things that were supposed to work on her.

Problem #1: The nuclear option. Even though you’ll probably never see it published in What to Expect, it’s the great secret of the Parent Club that Benadryl is the magic bullet for a happy traveling toddler. Moms half-whisper it to each other in playgroups, pediatricians advise it, off-record, of course. Parents are all over message boards, hinting at a teaspoon of Benadryl for a desperate parent, although always following it up with, “Of course, I’d never do it, but I’ve heard it helps.”

They all claim they’d never drug their own children, but hand out the advice to anyone who will listen. OK, maybe some of them have never tried it, but if you’re giving me dosing instructions, I somehow doubt you’ve never done it. Benadryl is well-known for inducing drowsiness in an otherwise restless and cranky toddler. Somewhere in the fine print is what most people leave out when giving you this advice: while it will make most kids drowsy, there is a small percentage that will turn into hyper-monkeys when given the stuff.

Cordelia didn’t want to sleep our first night in Chicago. I gave in at 4am and gave her a dose of Benadryl. Clearly I should have done a trial run with this stuff to see what would happen. But I was tired, and wanted her to be tired also. Turns out, she’s part of that minority. Benadryl is cocaine to her. She was wired for the next few hours.

Even though she was tired, her eyes were wide open, and she was a ball of non-stop energy – up, down, up, down, roll left, roll right, up, across the room, back again, open the drawer, close the drawer, up on the bed, down off the bed. Once it was finally wearing off, she laid on her tummy watching Wiggles, clearly exhausted but unable to close her eyes.

Problem #2: Driving at night. This was one that everyone told me to do. “Drive at night, when she’d normally sleep. Then she’ll sleep the entire way.” Yeah, well, good theory.

We didn’t follow the advice and instead drove to Chicago in the afternoon. No problems at all – Cordy didn’t really nap, but she was also content to stare out the window and look at the scenery. Driving home, we decided to try the plan of driving at night. The first hour, Cordy slept peacefully, and we congratulated ourselves on a good strategy. Then we stopped for gas and food, and Cordy woke up.

An alert toddler in the car is really not a problem during the day. An awake toddler in the car at night when she’s exhausted and there is nothing to look at is pure hell. I mean it – Satan himself was in the backseat laughing at us. That is, until he couldn’t stand her screaming any longer, then he said, “You’re on your own, folks. I’m going back to hell for some peace and quiet.”

The drive home was miserable, and Cordelia didn’t sleep again until we were home at 2am.

So, parents who may be considering traveling with your child, I give you this advice: don’t. Find a grandparent and leave the kid at home.

I can guarantee that by following this advice, you will not have to deal with an overtired toddler who is strung-out on Benadryl and a total grump to be around. I promise it will work for you.

(Of course, I am clearly insane, since I’m already talking about taking her next year. Although my mom said she wouldn’t go with us again, even if it was the last day of her life and the Stones were playing in Chicago and gave her a front row seat.)

For our last day in Chicago, I made my annual pilgrimage to Ikea. There are no Ikea stores in Ohio. We must travel either to Chicago or to Pittsburgh in order to visit the big blue box, and frankly, Chicago is further away, but there’s more to do there.

Ikea is my Mecca of home shopping. Lots of unique items, and best of all – cheap.

While we have thankfully outgrown our “College Eclectic” home decorating style, I still appreciate inexpensive but well-made home goods.

This year’s haul: two laundry bags and holder, a cute bin to hold Cordy’s toys, two wall-mount reading lamps for each side of our bed, a tunnel and play tent for Cordelia, and a little wooden wagon with wooden blocks for Cordy. Last year I found a bead puzzle, and that thing is still the most popular toy in the house.

After shopping and eating dinner, we picked up Aaron from the stage combat workshop, and began the long trek home. I drove the entire way, thanks in large part to the support of Mountain Dew Livewire. Yeah, I was a little slaphappy, too.

I can’t be sure, but I have a theory that there is a rip in the time-space continuum somewhere in Indiana along I-65. In this rip, what is normally only 2 hours feels like 20.

Time drags on, as you look at each road sign hopefully, praying you’ve covered 20 or 30 miles, only to find you’ve covered 5 miles. I swear that the section of I-65 between Gary, IN and Indianapolis is the single most boring stretch of highway in the world.

Also along that stretch is the Slowest Burger King in Indiana (TM). Aaron decided he really wanted Burger King for dinner on the way home, so we stopped off to fill the gas tank and let him get food. 20 minutes later, we were all in the car once again, all awake (including Cordy, thanks to the long wait), and ready to get back on the road.

We arrived safely in Columbus around 2am. A frantic dash was made by myself, my mom, and Aaron to quickly bring the unhappy (and still awake) Cordy inside, set up her crib with all of her must-have items, change her and prepare some milk for bedtime. After she was asleep, the three of us soon followed, exhausted from a very long weekend.

Today, I took Cordelia over to her grandpa’s for the day. I had the day off work, but I really needed some time away from her to get unpacked and also take a nap.

Aaron, on the other hand, had to go back to work today, and got to have a huge announcement dropped on him: his company laid off another 30 people today. A little over a year ago, they laid off 20 people and cancelled the telecommuting policy, forcing me to look elsewhere for another job. Now 30 more are gone.

Some are people I worked with for several years and I considered friends. I feel so bad for them; they were given no notice, and probably were given insultingly small severance packages.

Thankfully, Aaron escaped the axe, probably because he’s one of the poorly paid employees. Most of the people cut in his department were those who made better money. Hooray for being…underpaid?