Important!

I like to think I'm important. At least to a few people. But there's always that event that brings you down a notch to let you know you're not as important as you think you are. This was one of those events.

We had booked into a hotel called The King's Arms in Amersham. We'd booked a few days in advance, but the day before we were due to arrive we got a call letting us know that one of the hotel's "important corporate clients" wished to extend their stay and therefore we would NOT have a room. Apparently corporations are people! They must be more important than people. I may have to start booking hotel rooms in the name of our corporation.

Thankfully, we had made the reservation through hotels.com and they were very helpful in getting us another room near the airport at the same price. It took a couple of hours to iron it all out but I was pretty excited when I found out we were staying at the Renaissance at about half their normal price. I was thinking "Take that King's Arms! We are staying at a much better hotel. So there."

That elation was short-lived. The Renaissance at Heathrow was a construction zone. The room itself was fine but the hotel amenities were a joke - free bottled water and free wine only go so far. Marriott should be embarrassed to put the Renaissance name on this one. We may have been better off with the food served in the bar, but we wanted a proper meal, not a sandwich so we went to the restaurant. The food was mediocre at best and the service in the restaurant, which for all intents and purposes was an over-priced buffet - was almost non-existent. We had breakfast there the next morning and it hadn't improved. Bottom line - If I'd paid their asking rate to stay here I'd have been furious. Not worth it is an understatement. But since I got home and looked at their website, I really don't think they gave us the deal they were making it out to be. I think we paid the going rate - which is still too high for what it is - but about right considering that it's at the airport. So now, I think I'll have to have a conversation with hotels.com about that "deal".

We are STILL looking for a good hotel that's near Heathrow Airport. We're really not that fussy - it just needs to have adequate space in the room for our luggage, an en-suite bathroom, an elevator OR a navigable stairway, space to park, and proximity to at least one decent restaurant. And it looks like it might help if they catered to travelers instead of "important corporate clients".