Now, I have checked into a lot of hotels, and I almost always get the same warning. “Keep the key away from your phone or credit cards, as it may demagnetize it.” Sure, no problem. I never keep my key in my wallet, but in a specific pocket of my purse. In the past, this has generally been enough precaution, as I’ve rarely had an issue.

But in Tampa, I had an experience that I’ve never had before. Literally every day I was there, I had to have them re-do my key. In fact, the first time I tried to use it the darn thing was demagnetized. I don’t know if they have special super sensitive keys there or what, but by the end of the conference it was making me CRAZY. Every day at the end of the conference, I would go upstairs (to the 16^th floor, which at a conference hotel took forEVER since everyone else was on the elevator at the same time), try my key which wouldn’t work, and go all the way back to the ground floor to get it fixed. I tried keeping the key in different places away from my purse, various pockets in my clothing, and my nametag holder. Nothing would work. One night I even had maintenance come up to make sure my lock wasn’t malfunctioning in some way. They couldn’t find anything.

Finally, the straw that broke the camel’s back: after a brutal 18 hour day involving serious work frustrations and hideous back pain, I went up to my room, which took 20 minutes due to huge lines at the elevator. I limped down the hall, hoping I would make it through the door before my back just gave out. (Plus, being six months pregnant, I really, really had to use the restroom.) Of course, the key didn’t work. At this point, the tears started flowing. I tried, I truly did, to keep them back, but hormones and frustrations insisted on having their way. As I made my way back downstairs, I gave myself a talking to. “Now RW, you know that whoever is at the front desk is not personally responsible for this $%*^% key being so %*#($ difficult.” It didn’t work. When I got to the front desk, I explained exactly why I was so frustrated, in no uncertain terms. Of course, I probably looked pretty pitiful, with tears running down my cheeks. She apologized profusely, gave me a new key, and sent me back upstairs. After directing me to the lobby restroom.

From that point on, I kept the key away from all metal, and I didn’t have any more problems. Of course, the only place on my person that was away from all metal was…. My bra. Oh well. I guess we all do what we must. Of course, I’ve stayed at a few places since then, and I haven’t had any issues…..

Readers, have you ever had repeated issues with a hotel key not working? How did you finally solve it?

“We figured it would be better to simplify that process and reduce the number of boarding groups.”

Uh, okay. Whatever. That reasoning sounds like, well, an excuse. It seems there are two frames of mind to this issue: the parents who want extra time to get their kids, carseats, and gear settled onto a plane before the masses descend, and the other people who get frustrated at the amount of room taken up in the overhead bins by families. The comments in the article above are almost evenly split. Some people wonder if they’re trying to drive off families, some speculate that it’s about people who pay for early boarding getting irritated by families boarding with them. Others say all the families should have to ride in the back.

I don’t have kids yet, so I don’t have any experience myself on that side of it. However, it does seem like it would be easier to board a few minutes early to get the carseats buckled and the kids in them, before having people tapping their foot while they wait for you. Also, I fly enough so that I have status, so I get to board early and don’t usually have to worry about overhead bin space. My concern with having families with small children boarding with everyone else is that it will end up slowing the entire boarding process down. I wonder if United is accounting for that…..

I think the real issue here is that airlines aren’t consistent with their bag policies. Correct me if I’m wrong, but shouldn’t a stroller that has to go in the overhead bin count as your non-personal item carry-on? So if families are getting on a plane and taking up more than their allotted space, it seems more like a problem with the airline and less with families in general. If the policy is one carry-on and one personal item per passenger, both within a certain size, then everyone should have to abide by it, whether they are a frequent flier or a family of four.

Readers, what do you think? Should families with small children be allowed to board first? Or is United doing the right thing in having them board with everyone else?

Chowhound is your best friend when you are trying to make the most of — or just find some comfort in — a new, unfamiliar place.

Many, many thanks to Home2 Suites by Hilton for sponsoring this amazing giveaway. I have been told by many that any time you guys want to do another contest, my readers are ready!

Also, thanks to everyone for participating! You posted some really amazing tips that will be featured in upcoming posts. We will have more contests this summer, so keep checking back!

Thanks!!!

Now that I’m pretty far along in my pregnancy, I feel less capable of lifting, so I have stopped sitting in the emergency row. I miss the space though. Yesterday, I was super stoked to have a seat in the bulkhead because I got all the nice room without the responsibility. But there was no opportunity for me to throw my purse in the overhead bin, as people boarded the plane with no gap. The flight attendant said, “Ma’am, your bag will have to go up.” I said, “Oh I know, is there a spot right up there?” And she said, “No, the only room left is all the way in the back.” I think she could tell that I was not super happy about that, so she added, “That’s one of the problems with sitting in the bulkhead—your stuff always ends up in the back.”

Now, maybe my experience has been unique, but whenever I’ve sat up front there has always been space set aside. Is that rare? Have I just been extremely lucky? Yesterday, it took a little shuffling, but I was able to find just enough space in the bin one row back, so it wasn’t a problem. But it could have been. It just seemed so weird to me—the person in front has to wait until everyone has gotten off the plane before they can get their stuff because the only room left is all the way in the back?

Readers, what has your experience been? Has it varied by airline?

What I took:

• 4 dresses
• 1 pair of pants
• 2 skirts
• 1 pair of shorts
• Jean jacket
• 3 cardigans
• 2 casual tees
• 2 nice tops
• 2 tanks
• 3 pairs of flats
• 1 pair of flip flops
• 1 pair of athletic shoes

What I should have taken:

• 2 dresses
• 2 pairs of pants OR
• 1 pair of pants/1 skirt
• 1 pair of shorts
• Lighter-weight jacket
• 2 cardigans
• 2 casual tees/tank tops
• 2 nice tops
• 2 pairs of flats
• Flip flops

So as you can see, I was pretty close. I just brought one too many of, well, everything. Four dresses was definitely too many! And 2 skirts and a pair of pants was, again, too many. Two dresses and two other bottoms would have been perfectly adequate. The jean jacket was too heavy and didn’t pack compactly—I would bring a different jacket next time. I ended up wearing the nice tops and tanks under the cardigans often, but didn’t wear my casual tees very much. I could easily have worn the nice tops with my shorts on downtime. Two cardigans would have more than sufficed—I rarely wore them unless I was wearing a tank. Finally, the shoes. Three pairs of nice shoes were too many; two would easily have sufficed. And though I knew ahead of time there would be little time for exercising, I brought shoes anyway, and did not wear them once.

The moral? It is possible to carry-on for a long trip, but you have to be ruthless in your decision making. I wasn’t quite ruthless enough! Next time, though, you can bet I will be rocking the rollaboard. In the next few weeks I’ll do a post about packing other stuff for a long conference. Because after all, when you’re gone for two weeks clothes are really just half the battle…..

For example, the HW was flying home from Florida two weeks ago on a super early flight. The flight attendants noticed that an overhead bin near his seat wouldn’t close. They tried to fix it themselves, but weren’t able to. So they called maintenance. Which took forever. Once they arrived, they tried to fix the bin. Nothing they tried worked so they closed it with….. duct tape. Special airline duct tape, to be exact. Then, of course, they had to do the paperwork. So while the repair attempts took about five minutes, and the actual duct tape application took about one minute, his flight was delayed close to an hour.

Can you see the special duct tape?

Then last week, on a trip out to the East Coast, my flight was boarded and ready to go. And we sat. And sat. We ended up being delayed for over ninety minutes. What serious repair took this long, you ask? There were scratches on the outside of the plane. They weren’t fixing the scratches, mind you. They were applying stickers, to label where the scratches were. This meant we arrived after midnight. Argh.

So what is going on? I haven’t had to deal with maintenance issues in a long time, and especially not trivial ones that took an inordinate amount of time. Is it budget cuts? Getting rid of maintenance staff? Tons of paperwork that must be completed? Who knows. What I do know is that if this trend continues, customers are going to be even more angry at the industry.

Readers, what’s the strangest maintenance issue you’ve ever experienced?

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