On Hotels and Housekeeping

I am opposed to housekeeping in hotels. It's not that I don't like a clean room, as anyone who knows me can attest. I'm all for housekeeping on the front - and back - end of a hotel stay. It's while I'm actually checked in that I don't like it. The reasons are manifold, but essentially break down like this:

• I do not want my toothbrush accidentally sprayed with some type of cleaning solution, nor do I want to have to put it away each morning upon leaving the room.
• I do not want all of the extra pillows that I've relegated to the sofa or corner returned to the bed each day.
• I do not need new sheets or towels for a three-night hotel stay.
• I'm not super keen on strangers in my room, in general.

I have found that housekeepers are usually quite happy with this arrangement. One in Memphis recently enthused, "You're a blessing, dear!"

I especially love Sheraton's Make a Green Choice program, which rewards the no-housekeeping-needed traveler with a $5 voucher at participating food and beverage outlets or 500 Starwood Preferred Guest Starpoints for each night the guest declines housekeeping service. I'm waiting for other hotels to follow suit...

Layover Luck

Today I was grateful for my 3+ hour layover. I was not one of the dozens of people on the flight to Detroit with a missed connection. The delay, however, now that was another story. Initially, it seemed to be a run of the mill mechanical issue, but as an increasing number of airline employees swarmed the desk, it was clear this was not merely a broken seat. In fact, the entire flight computer was done and the maintenance was far beyond the skill and scope of the employees at the regional airport: maintenance was on the way, but they had a drive of 100-odd miles ahead of them first.

The travel gods, winked, though, and the Delta operations people saw fit to appropriate the inbound aircraft that was supposed to head to Minneapolis for the Detroit flight. (Poor MSP people, they were already delayed when I arrived at the airport, so today was definitely not their day.) So now we had an aircraft, but could they get the jet bridge unhooked from the airplane? As the flight attendant said in response to the weird noises floating into the plane, "they have to try some different things today." I think that's a euphemism for, "I am as hopeful as you that this flight will actually depart."