Caring for a small baby is a wondrous, magical experience that gives you lots and lots of time to watch an awful lot of crappy TV. Lately I've been passing the hours on the couch with BabyG by watching travel shows. Gosh those shows manage to make every place they go look glossy and appealing. Apart from anywhere with water, I'm particularly taken with the hotels - the ultra luxurious, beautifully equipped World's Best Hotels that send the imagination into a spin.
But somehow all of these are lacking something. I'm thinking of what, to me, would be the world's best hotel. Facilities would be clean and functional, but that's it. It's not why you're there. In the hotel of my (literal) dreams, all the rooms are thoroughly soundproofed. There are world class blackout screens. Fresh white sheets and a pillow menu (I can't be the only one who finds pillows in hotels too damn thick). Check out time is 10am - that's the earliest you're allowed to check out, and no one is allowed to roam the corridors before then. There are no room service trolleys or housekeepers outside your door, no one shoving faxes under your door at 3am, no false alarms requiring you to evacuate three hours before you need to get up for your flight (I seem to have suffered a disproportionate number of those in hotels around the world during my travelling life).
You're here for one thing, and one thing only. Sleep. This hotel does all it can to ensure whomever requires it can have an atmosphere conducive to the best night's sleep possible. I've been lucky enough to stay in some amazing hotels - including a couple on the list - but even in the most ritzy of hotels, there's still light from the skyline, tour groups in the hall checking out at 5:30am, or a laughing couple throwing their shoes at the door*. My dream hotel can't offer any guarantees, but with dark, silent rooms, quiet corridors, blocking mobile and data reception to the rooms for those who just can't help themselves, and an absence of disturbances, they'll do all they can to ensure a good night's sleep for those who just can't get it any other way. Heck - it would even have a doctor on staff to prescribe a little something of the benzodiazepine variety for those who felt they needed it (a reputable doctor, so the place doesn't go all Conrad Murray and have to shut down).
Well, that's my idea of the perfect hotel, anyway. I think I might be just a little sleep obsessed lately...
* This may or may not have been DH and I on our wedding night. We're sorry.
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