Epicserve

I'm never staying at the Hilton again!

March 11, 2005 | 3:56 p.m. CST

Well I made it to Austin, TX for the 2005 SXSW Interactive. I must say that I'm a little frustrated. I'm staying at the Hilton which is suppose to be the main hotel for SXSW and the Hilton didn't even have a free shuttle from the airport to the hotel and to top it all off the room doesn't come with complimentary Internet access! I mean what the heck is up with that crap! I stayed in a hotel last night that was half the cost that had complimentary Internet access in the room and the room was twice as big! I guess all the lexuries the guests should get go to pay for Paris Hilton's yacht payment or whatever. I'm extremely disappointed in not having complimentary Internet access. I thought that all major hotel chains offered Internet access free of charge. I mean, shouldn't that be something that SXSW would have thought to negotiate when got the "special" rates for the Hilton. Shouldn't having Internet access be important for a computer related conference?

So if not having a free shuttle and not having free Internet wasn't bad enough... After I got checked in I walked around a bit to find a place to eat. I found this restaurant called the Iron Cactus, which was great. It had great food and the atmosphere was awesome. They had an upstairs patio area that was really cool. So I be your wonder were the bad part is... Well, after eating I headed over to the Austin convention center to go register / check-in for SXSW. I get upstairs in the convention center and there and see a least a 150 or more people waiting to register. Then a guy with SXSW stops me and asks if I was coming to register and then told me that their servers are down and there would be over an hour wait to register! Doh! That's when I was like, "Ummm... Yeah, I'll come back later."

Well that's my fun experience at SXSW so far. I'll try to blog more each day or as exciting things happen, that is if I can afford to connect! :)

Update Saturday, March 12th 2005 - The Hilton looses again in the breakfast department! No complimentry continental breakfast! What gives??!!

Related tags: Hiton, SXSW

Comments

Roy Schestowitz
1.   At 11:25 p.m. CST on March 11, 2005, Roy Schestowitz wrote:

There is usually an additional charge for the Internet.

Julie O'Connor
2.   At 8:48 a.m. CST on March 12, 2005, Julie O'Connor wrote:

I agree with you Brent! Free internet should be provided!!! Even little "no-name" sleep-cheaps give free internet. You have every right to be frustrated!!

Vincent
3.   At 1:28 p.m. CST on March 12, 2005, Vincent wrote:

That's why you have the internet, to check such things out before you go. See this as a lesson :-)

Brent O'Connor
4.   At 9:03 p.m. CST on March 12, 2005, Brent O'Connor wrote:

You caught me... I didn't do enough homework before I booked the room. Sometimes I just have to learn things the hard way.

Khoi Vinh
5.   At 4:01 p.m. CST on March 13, 2005, Khoi Vinh wrote:

They also charge $10 a day for the gym! That kind of ticked me off. To be fair, you can get a pass for your entire stay for $5 more. And, for a Hilton, my room rate is actually pretty reasonable. Plus, you can't beat being 30 seconds away from the convention center.

Brent O'Connor
6.   At 4:10 p.m. CST on March 13, 2005, Brent O'Connor wrote:

Khoi,

Good to know about the gym... I was thinking about going tonight. Maybe I will just try to walk more in the evening instead.

Aaron
7.   At 9:12 p.m. CST on March 13, 2005, Aaron wrote:

We're staying at the DoubleTree Club where we have free net access, free workout room, but a one mile walk to the convention center. The weird thing is that they are a Hilton sub-brand. Oh well.

Nice to meet you today.

Brent O'Connor
8.   At 9:45 a.m. CST on March 14, 2005, Brent O'Connor wrote:

Rub it in!!! :) Nice to meet you too!

Jeff Croft
9.   At 11:03 a.m. CST on March 14, 2005, Jeff Croft wrote:

If I were you, I'd demand that Paris herself come to room to take care of everything.

Brent O'Connor
10.   At 11:32 a.m. CST on March 14, 2005, Brent O'Connor wrote:

Jeff, Not sure my wife would care for that... Plus, would Paris be the one to fix my problems? I'm not sure she can fix anything. Seems to me she breaks more than she fixes!

Jeff Croft
11.   At 9:45 a.m. CST on March 15, 2005, Jeff Croft wrote:

Brent-

Sure, Paris won't fix fix anything, but she'll look better breaking the stuff than the people that are breaking it now. :)

Comments are closed.

Comments have been close for this post.