It’s time once again for America’s second-fastest growing sensation…..just behind that Chia Pet stuck under Niagara Falls…..

(Third) Rate the IL Hotel!!!!!!

Now here’s your host….the man whose fire escape plans are always affixed to the back of his door…..Jason Benetti!!!

Thank you, thank you.  Boy is it a lovely day to rate a hotel.  If you’ve just joined us on our program, it’s easy to catch up.  We take the most recent hotel the Syracuse Chiefs have stayed in, flesh out three positives and three negatives, and assign a mostly arbitrary and somewhat meaningless score to it from 1 to 100.  This week, our challenger is the Park Inn Toledo.  If you’re in town for a Mud Hens game, the Park Inn is easy to find.  It’s the one overlooking left-center field.  Onward and upward:

Pros:

1) Bears on my pillow.  When Kevin and I walked into the hotel room, we found these:

Nothing is more refreshing after an eight-hour bus ride than a quick sugar fix by way of gummi bears.  Even better, there were more sweet little creatures left on the bed the second day.  I’m interested, though, in how the Park Inn people and the Haribo people came to this relationship.  Was the gummi bear company soliciting hotels where it could place its product?  Or did the Park Inn people cold-call candy-makers in an effort to make its customers happier?  “Alright, Sno-Caps.  There’s no way this is gonna work.  I’m texting Junior Mints.”

2) Fair is fowl.   The Park Inn Toledo is renowned in some circles for its ducks.  In most rooms, a plastic-sealed rubber duck sits and waits for the next entrant.  While there really is not much practical value to a rubber duck, it is a rather quaint and cute addition.  Plus, sometimes the little quacker’s investigative power saves the day….

3) Location.  As mentioned, the Park Inn is located less than two blocks from Fifth Third Field, the Hens’ gameday home.  This is fantastic news, especially when the team you’re watching plays back-to-back games at 10:30 in the morning.  The hotel is so close that Chiefs manager Tony Beasley–whose room faced the park–said he was going to do something recognizable with his drapes before he left one day so he could recognize his room from in the dugout.

Cons:

1) ….in five minutes or less, or your room is free.   The Park Inn’s rooms are rather normal for a hotel.  There’s a bathroom, two beds, a desk near the window and assorted furniture (usually a pair of chairs arranged in a corner in an L-shape).  There’s also a tall wooden TV cabinet.  When, Kevin and I entered our room early Saturday morning, I was struck by the faint odor of stagnation/cigarettes in the room.  We decided that the smell was inconclusive for smoke, so we decided to keep the room.  Kevin immediately went for the rubber duck.  After opening it, he placed it on top of the TV stand.  The duck’s eyes were shocked to find this:

The Park Inn Toledo’s room service is so good, it gets your pizza through the door days before you arrive.  Plus, to keep you sharp during your stay, they hide the pizza somewhere in the room to allow you to stimulate your mind.  That’s customer appreciation.

2) Don’t go away.  After the 2 P.M. game Sunday, the dinner search was on in downtown Toledo.  So, I asked a gentleman at the front desk for a recommendation of a restaurant at which to eat.  His first suggestion was the hotel sports bar.  This establishment was in view from where we were talking.  If I wanted to go there, I’d have taken 30 steps.  That’s like Columbus asking the Queen what she wanted colonized and having her respond, “Madrid.”

3)  Scents and sentries.  Here’s a look at the area around the lobby’s elevator bank at the Park Inn:

Well hello, Genghis Khan.  Didn’t realize you’d be here.  If you can make it past the stone guards and get into the elevator, it’s fun to play “perfume or no perfume” before stepping inside.  That’s where you guess if an over-atomized member of the housekeeping staff has recently been inside the capsule.  The only true winners are the ones who guess “no perfume” accurately.

Rating:  68

Stay tuned for the next edition of (Third) Rate the IL Hotel!!!

It’s time once again for America’s fastest-growing sensation…..put your hands together……no, not like that…..no…..you’re calling a time out…..that’s a dove…..OK, clap.  There you go.  It’s (Third) Rate the IL Hotel!!!!!!

And here’s your host….the guy whose toothpaste is always complimentary and whose compliments are always pasty……

Jason Benetti

Thank you, thank you.  It’s our pleasure to bring you the best in International League lodging on (Third) Rate the IL Hotel.  If you’ve just joined us for the game, what happens is this:  we give you three pros and three cons of the latest hotel the Syracuse Chiefs have stayed in.  Then, we arbitrarily and randomly issue a score between 0 and 100.

Today’s subject:  The Hyatt Downtown Columbus!

A 20-floored beast, the Hyatt is the nexus of convention center activity in the capital of Ohio.  If you’re riding an elevator with someone and that person doesn’t have a nametag, you win a prize.  Off we go:

Pros:

1)    Just nice.  It’s a clean hotel.  Hallways are neat.  Modern.  There are no cleanliness issues.  The furniture all seems new.  A few players have mentioned that the hotel is “big league.”  I remember Trent Jewett, in 2010, saying that his suite was so big that he could have played football in it.  This is in contrast to some hotel rooms I’ve encountered in the low minors that aren’t fit to host a game of jacks.
2)    The radius of dreams.  The Hyatt is more centrally-located than Omaha, Nebraska.  Within an eight-minute walk:  A Starbucks, Buca di Beppo, Gordon Biersch, three sports bars, Boston’s, Ted’s Montana Grill, a BD Mongolian Barbeque, Max and Erma’s and a farmer’s market.  Bonanza.
3)    Liquidity.  In the first two days, the hotel has offered free water flavored with real: watermelons, lemons, honeydews and oranges.  You ever try that?  Do it right now.  Take your water (I know it’s nearby unless you live inside Lawrence of Arabia) and dunk a piece of fruit in it.  That’s glorious.  Angels sing when fruit and water are mixed.  Genius.
Cons:

1)    ….twice on the pipe if the answer is no.  Sometimes great deficiencies are exposed with one small misstep.  The first night at the Hyatt, I forgot to place the privacy placard on the door handle.  So, at roughly 10:30 in the morning, one of the hotel cleaning people began rapping on the door.  The dear lady’s knuckles must be rather like Fonzie’s jacket, because she knocked and knocked and knocked, all the while shouting “housekeeping!”  I tried vocally to bust through the wall of knocking and screaming by saying “No, thanks!”  I couldn’t.  She must have knocked  twelve times.  Realizing she couldn’t hear me because of the noise she was creating, I marched toward the door.  As I did so, she plowed into the room with her key card.  What good does knocking and shouting do if you aren’t interested in the reply?  Then, two days later, another maid knocked twice, said nothing and then barged in.  We’ve got to have a uniform knock-and-announce rule for maids.  The police have one:
Law-enforcement officers, before searching a residence, are required, 1) to announce the officers’ presence and 2) to provide residents an opportunity to open the door.  18 U.S.C. § 3109
Let’s go, hotel subcommittee.  Make it happen.
2)    Wired money.  Like video’s relationship with the radio star, expense reports killed people without access to them.  If you are a traveler to Columbus and you’re not there on official business, the Internet will cost you.  $9.95 a night.  If you’re a business traveler, that’s no skin off your neck.  So, the hotel gets little backlash, assumedly, because corporate coffers are coughing up cash for computers.  That’s an absolute cash cow.  Also, what is a cash cow?  Does it graze on dollar bills?  Is it a macramé animal?
3)    Elevators.  This is a really small thing, but the elevators rumble a little when they start up.  Maybe the hotel could just glance at the wiring and make sure everything’s OK.
Score:  91.  Tremendous.

Next up, the Park Inn Toledo!

If you’ve got a comment, please drop it to jasonbenetti@syracusechiefs.com.