My Theory on Bed and Breakfasts
Many years ago, I used to work at Tourism Victoria. Because I did reservations and completed tours of lots of accomodations, I regularly got to meet B & B owners. My time there, combined with subsequent stays at B & Bs in North America and Europe, have laid bare a truth:
If you open a B & B, you want to talk to people. Specifically, you want to talk to your guests.
There’s absoloutely nothing wrong with this–it just isn’t my bag. I seek complete anonymity in my accomodation choices. The less I communicate with the staff, the better. The first time I discovered express checkout was a red-letter day in Darren’s world.
Needless to say, I don’t stay in B & B’s very often anymore.
July 11th, 2005 at 7:48 am
Too true. My wife feels similarly to you in this regard, though I don’t share the same aversion. I like people, generally speaking, and seek their company. Bed and Breakfast’s (or “Bread-n-Breakfast” in the south U.S.) cater to that trait. I do draw the line however, at the threshold of my room. I expect not to be bothered in there unless I should request a wake-up call of some sort.
July 11th, 2005 at 9:30 am
Bed-and-breakfast vacations are as different from hotels as camping is. Just like some people don’t like camping, it makes great sense not to like B&Bs too—or to prefer them. And of course, Darren’s self-publicized hopelessness at small talk doesn’t help, I’m sure.
July 13th, 2005 at 9:42 am
We gave up on the B&B experience when we had a horrific experience at a B&B in Saskatoon. The owner gave us supreme hell for showing up late (we actually showed up an hour earlier than I said we would when making the reservation), was surly when we asked if there was a room with a shower, hid her (friendly) dog away from us as though we were axe murderers, and was derisive when we asked for a yellow pages so we could find a hotel for the next night.
The coup-de-grace was when we opened the door the next morning and found a plate of cold pancakes left on the floor in front of our door.