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| Submission date: 2007-07-14 - Date of Stay: June 2007 |
| Submitted by: Ronald Helfrich - From: United States |
| Type of Traveller: Business Traveller - Age Group: 51 - 60 |
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| Seek out new forms of motel life... |
| From the street the Celtic Motel looks like one of those blasts from the immediate post-war past. This is what attracted me and my friend to it--the curse of being historians and archivists I guess.
My friend and I were in the Oneonta area to attend an academic conference at Cooperstown. Fed up with the extremely poor quality of the dormitories at Hartwick College--a key I had used to enter my room the first day of the conference would not work the second--led us to search out new digs, particularly new digs with air conditioning. As a result we found ourselves at the Celtic Motel in Oneonta, New York.
When we checked in we found the service competent. When we entered our room, however, we discovered that we had roommates--hundreds of bugs of various shapes and sizes. We immediately told management about this and were immediately given a new room. Competantly good so far.
The digs were acceptable. There were a couple of beds which were reasonably if not pleasurabley comfortable, a TV which worked, a window air conditioner which worked but took a long time to cool the hot and humid room, and a shower which was decent--though it too was home to several species of insects.
The room, as I said, was adequate. Service, however, proved much less so. When we checked out the next morning--early because we had to be at the conference by 8 am--I discovered that I had left my Thermapedic pillow at the motel. I immediately called the office by cell phone and was met with a chorus of we will tell the cleaning staff, in other words, a chorus of tough luck buddy from the young man--I assume he was the owners eleven or twelve year old son. When I went to pick up the pillow later that day the same young man told me first that they housekeeping did not find the pillow and second that they hadn't looked yet. I was out a $100 dollar pillow because of the incompentence of the motel ownership and staff and was not even offered compensation. Let's hear it for that good old pasttime called management is not responsible for their incompetence.
I thus can't recommend the Celtic Motel. I will give the room a C+, service a D, and give management an F for the presence of bugs in the room and their incompentence when it came to retrieving my pillow.
I am one of those people who likes to support local businesses--and I assume the Celtic Motel is locally owned. I can't support them when I get service like this, however. As my friend said to me as we were driving out of Oneonta, if we had stayed at say the Hampton Inn I would have my pillow--a pillow I used because of health problems--right now.
On the more pleasant side of the ledger, my friend and I took dinner at the Autumn Cafe in central Oneonta. It was fabulous and I can highly recommend that establishment. Great food, very good service, and comfortable surroundings. Check it out. |
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