Cleveland

Note to the manager who was working at Zocaro Mexican Grill on the evening of March 15:  When I complain about a disappointing entree which was very misleadingly described on the menu and your response is a lame shrug and a feeble, “sorry, ” please understand that you are losing me as a customer.

I ordered the Carne Guisada, which was described as a “Mexican pot roast cooked with root vegetables.”  What I got was a big bowl of stew that was mostly rice, potatoes and a few chunks of tasteless beef.

To be completely fair, I looked up “carne guisada” and it does seem to be known as a stew, but the menu never said stew and never said rice.  I’m on a low carb diet and so all I could do was pick at the tiny pieces of meat, which meant I was done with my dinner in less than five minutes.  Honestly, rice AND potatoes in the same dish?  A dish that’s called “carne” anything?

It’s a shame, Mr. Manager, because I’m here in Cleveland for three weeks, I love Mexican food and I’m my hotel is right around the corner from your restaurant.  You made absolutely no effort to have me leave your restaurant happy.

Well, at least I have the Mexican Food requirement taken care of for Cleveland.  Bleh.

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Maybe I was just in a grumpy mood yesterday.  Not sure why.  Physically I have been feeling less than 100% since I got to Cleveland.  I hope it’s just standard jet lag.  I’m always paranoid that my anemia would come back, and I never want to feel like that again, particularly when I am traveling.

I also had much trouble sleeping last night, finding that I was feeling quite anxious.  Not sure why.  Things are going swimmingly.

I think I’m probably just a little galled by the prospect of this huge 12 week trip, including the recent addition of the exciting but not a little scary destination of Moscow.  There are some hoops we have to jump through to get me there (you actually have to have a visa to go to Russia), and maybe I’m just a little scared.  That’s okay.

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More good news today:  I don’t have to hotel-hop like I was afraid I’d have to this weekend.  When I was booking my hotel for the three week Cleveland stay, the hotel I wanted to be in couldn’t accommodate me for the entire three weeks.  Something silly about March Madness or something.  So, since I am a maniac and I really wanted to restore my Gold Elite status with my hotel brand, I set up a musical-chairs parade of hopping back and forth from one hotel to another one which is not my brand.

Then a curious thing happened.  When I checked in on Sunday, the cheery front desk clerk welcomed me as a Gold Elite member.  I almost corrected her but checked myself.  Sure, if she thinks I’m Gold Elite, I’ll take it.

As soon as I got to my room I checked out my membership information on the hotel chain’s website and saw to my delight that I was indeed now a Gold Elite member.  This was mysterious, because not two weeks before when I checked I still lacked about 30 days to get back to Gold level.

I noticed something curious on the record.  There was a notation of “18 bonus nights.”  Bonus nights?  Further investigation revealed that these mystery bonus nights had been granted by the hotel I stayed in while in Atlanta last October when I was there for the Client. 

This hotel happened to be the worst hotel in the chain I’d ever stayed in.  The staff was clueless and incompetent, and a couple of nights before I left, a maid stole money from my room.  I threw a fit, and was not at all happy about how the general manager handled the situation.

So . . . .it appears the manager bestowed these 18 bonus nights on me to make up for the incident.  Well, that’s nice.  I’ll take it.  But 18 is not 30.  I’m still a bit confused as to how I made it back to Gold Elite status.  But it’s a Quality Problem.  Now I’m working hard on keeping Gold for this year with my sights on achieving Platinum!

Gold Membership Benefits that you Don’t Get With Merely Silver Level

• 25% bonus on rewards points per night of stay
• Free internet
• Free breakfast
• Free local phone, fax
• Free room upgrade if possible

The free internet perk is a valuable one, because not all hotels in the chain offer it for free.  Ditto breakfast.  But by far the sweetest benefit is the free room upgrade.  This can have tremendous results if you get lucky with it.  When I went to BlizzCon in 2008 I had a huge two floor, two-bathroom suite in Anaheim for $87.