Four Seasons Rating

Dear Four Seasons Fancy-Dancy Hotel in Austin,

Thank you for a lovely stay in your nicely groomed, well kept hotel this weekend. You get 10 Points for the attentive, quick and polite valet parking attendants who took care of our car swiftly and efficiently. You get another 10 Points for a painless check-in. Also, we award you 5 Points for a nice view of downtown Austin, including the Hampton Inn Downtown right across the street. More about that later.

Furthermore, you get 15 Points for the invisible housekeeping service which swept away litter, turned down our bed and provided fresh towels every hour whether we needed them or not, and 5 Points for the thousand thread, imported cotton, personalized bathrobe that encouraged me to take two more showers than I planned. I was going to award only 2 Points for the cantaloupe shampoo but will up that to a full 5 points just for the entertainment value of hearing people exclaim as I passed, "Wow, do you smell cantaloupe?"

Ten points for being on the rickshaw route to the Drunken Mile, aka Sixth Street, although we decided to walk. Still, it was nice to know that we could take our lives in our hands on the way back if we so chose.

All in all, a very impressive score. Nearly a perfect score. Nearly.

HOWEVER, I am compelled, compelled I say, to penalize you for the High Crime of charging me Eleven Bucks ($11) for High-ish Speed (?) Internet access a grand total of Eleventy Million Billion Gazillion Points, which puts you sort of in last place on Planet Earth. How can you charge the prices you do, supply your customers the high quality products you do, pamper and serve them with great professionalism and care, then INSULT them here in the 21st Century by charging them for Internet access? Why not charge for water? I'm sure yours is the best! Why not charge them for electricity? I'm sure your electrons are Class A! Why not charge them a quarter for using the elevator?

I. Just. Don't. Get. It.

Finally, I award the Hampton Inn Downtown Austin Eleventy Million Billion Gazillion Points even though we didn't stay there. (But next time will.)

So, there.