Another 1/2 satisfied hotel

OK; sampled the Pudong Sheraton Hotel last night. I stayed overnight so that iron-wife would have a place to shower and b'fast; then afterward straight to her course teaching on the second floor. You see, she flew red-eye back from Singapore after a 2-day training course there.

I got upgraded when I checked in using my soon to expire Gold Starwood membership card (part of my AC SuperElite upgrade for last year). First impression, my room was nice and huge. And I got a view of the bridge with river. Closer look, windows! Someone never cleaned them. Ummm.... Then the room was hot, I finally figured out that someone had wired the switches incorrectly. Due to lack of strong caffeine, I never realized until this morning that, "3" is the slowest fan speed and "1" is the strongest. Ah, the Chinese thinking, have to be number 1 all the time! Then when I tried eating at the restaurant, "对不起，餐厅已经包起来“。 Translation: "Sorry, the entire restaurant is reserved. Wow... "and if you like, you can order food at the lounge or at the Chinese restaurant". Right.... Me eating Cantonese food in Shanghai? After walking outside to look for a place, I gave up. Golden arches.. Yeah, I am trying not to clog up my arteries here. And size 34 pants and shrinking... No thanks. I went back to the hotel room and ordered room service. And of course, a hamburger and fries. Haha.. What did I just said? Well.. it was a real grilled beef burger. Not fat at all. Right, but the nice thick Fries and Katcup. Yummy.... Ok, one glass of wine and a little of Scotch and I am tipsy. Yikes cannot hold my liquor anymore.

I tried using one of those shaving mirrors hanging on the wall. Pull the arm out and the entire mirror came out with it! Who did the construction? I knew I have been lifting weight but I am no incredible hulk! I looked closer and the screws weren't long enough; wrong electric box installed. and then someone tried to fudge it by putting couple piece of wood across the inside of the box to hang the entire mirror. Wow... Good thing the wiring was good. Or was it the Scotch or wine that made it good? ;-) I called and the engineer came, 20 minutes later. Then another engineer came with some screws. Haha... Two of them, 10 minutes of screwing around. Fixed. When they close the door, I could see the entire door frame moved! Or was that my head spinning? Nope. The frame moved!

The TV was one of those made in Chin@ ones, SVG. The remote to the TV must be talking to different Chinese dialects. Took me couple tries to go from off to on. Or was it the battery wearing down?

B'fast... Yes... Looked big, lots of food; but none appeared to me. And it had cost me RMB 200.00. My room came with a free one so iron-wife used it. All I had was watered down coffee, some British scramble imitation that was left under the heat lamp too long, 3 pieces of watermelon and some smoked salmon. That was it. RMB 200.00!!! Ridiculous.... But at least this hotel is only RMB 888.00 per night plus taxes. The total cost with everything was only 1/3 of what I paid for the anniversary night. Go figure.

Mind you, the staff was very friendly and helpful. Courteous. Efficient. Guess a give and take. Good think I didn't pay too much for it.