Maybe Next Time — 166 Beds

After isolating myself for more than a year — like most of you — I have returned to hotels. Twice, in fact. I took a test run and stayed at the Captain Whidbey Inn on Whidbey Island — a 45-minute drive, short ferry ride to the Island, and a second 40-minute drive from Seattle — in late April and then, in May, I flew to DC to reunite with a friend and stayed at the Thompson Washington D.C., which opened only two months before the pandemic.

I’ve yet to experience the joy that I once felt for hotels, but I’m hopeful that I can get there. The change in the experience is shedding even more light for me about what it is I love about hotels: the balance of the private and intimate with the Richard Scarry “busy busy world” vibe of the people — staff and guests — who make the building a hotel. (I have the same fascination with airports.)

Unfortunately, in both cases, my contact with hotel staff and other guests was severely limited. At Captain Whidbey, my trepidation led me to stay in a cabin versus within the Inn itself, where I may have encountered other guests in the hallways. At the Thompson, the couch-filled lobby was empty more often than not and the bar at its center was not in operation.

I had considered booking an AirBnB for the trip to DC since I would be there for essentially two weeks, but my desire to stay in a hotel won over. But the experience at the Thompson — which will change as safety protocols begin to be lifted and they are able to staff up — felt like I had booked an AirBnB in a rooming house. Outside of Brianna at the front desk (who was incredibly helpful and friendly), I was never greeted, my room was only cleaned or refreshed when I requested that it be, room service was essentially takeout with a higher surcharge (from a spot that I could walk to and eat on the patio — more enjoyable than eating in my room), and there was no mini-bar, just an empty room refrigerator that I regularly filled with a bottle of wine from Cordial down on the Wharf or DCanter on Capitol Hill.

I didn’t want to put staff or myself at risk for infection but, honestly, the safety protocols felt outdated, from a time before vaccines and the knowledge that transmission of the virus does not occur via surfaces. With a mask mandate in public spaces in the hotel (with which most guests complied) and me out of the room when housekeeping was there, many of the protocols seemed primarily in place because of a shortage of staff. I don’t want to blame those who do not want to put themselves at risk at work, but I also wonder if the hotel is paying adequately or prioritizing their profit margins over repeat business from guests.

Maybe next time.

My Stay: May 12-25, 2021