July has been quite the month for lessons on crime.
- On Day One of Camp J2J, we were stolen from.
- At our first cabina in Puerto Viejo, I was accused of stealing, lying and poor parenting.
- When I got home, I discovered we’d had an attempted break-in at our house. Thievery from every perspective.
On being accused: I chose our first cabina in Puerto Viejo because they offered wireless internet. I like my internet. Being able to blog about what’s happening while it’s fresh is the best.
We arrived in PV 6pm Wednesday, planning to be there at least three nights, more if we were having a good time. Mr Cabina picked us up in town and ran us back to the cabina. He mentioned that the last guest had not been able to stay online – she complained that the service kept going in and out, so they’d run a cable for her. But they believed they had that problem fixed and I should have no trouble with the wireless. He ran off to his dinner date.
I was not able to stay online that night. Like the last guest said, service kept going in and out. I gave up and went to bed. Cursed with being an early riser, I got up at 5:30a, tried the internet but no go. At around 9a, Mrs came by, told me she’d reset the service, showed the boys where to do that. I got back online and it was working, low but sufficient. I got email, but writing time was long past – we had a new beach town to see! We headed off, were gone all day exploring. The boys rented boogie boards at Playa Cocles, I slept on the beach.
That night, back at the cabina, no internet. It was pitch black and we had no flashlight to find our way to the reset box… Mr and Mrs are at their other job in town. I don’t feel right calling them to whine about my internet. Besides, I don’t have a phone and this place is about a half mile to a mile outside town. A stimulating walk. Did I mention it was hot in PV? Oh yeah. I’m going to walk 20 minutes in the dark hot night, complain about my internet and walk back? I don’t think so.
Mr and Mrs are not internet people and don’t understand it’s important to me. They are probably superior people, but this is my life and I’m paying for the room… It’s Thursday night and on Thursday nights, I put a Key West newspaper up on the web. I do it for free, I get a kick out of it. But I couldn’t do it at my $60/night cabina that promised hi-speed internet. I’m fairly annoyed. Not only can’t I get online, it’s too far to walk to an internet cafe… I decide we cannot stay there another night. We will leave in the morning and find another place for the weekend.
The boys have a surfing lesson in the morning at 10 at Playa Cocles. We have to leave early to get a new room and the lesson. Can’t wait till after surfing: it will be too late and we’d have to pay for that cabina again.
We rise, eat breakfast and, at 8:30a, head to town with all our stuff. We walk to the closest pulperia that has a public phone to call a cab. The phone is not working, but the owner lets me use her phone for 150 colones. The cab drops us off in town near one of the two hotels I saw yesterday. We are racing now. Neither hotel has internet, but there are loads of internet cafes nearby. This will have to do. We book a room at Guaraná for Friday night ($50) and at Jacaranda the following two ($48/night). I run to an internet cafe ($2.40/hour) and send this email to Mr and Mrs Cabina:
Hi Mr C,
We have checked out – raced out this morning to get to a surf lesson. The internet there is just not working up to snuff, very low reception and it does keep going in and out, mostly out frankly. I missed a deadline inputting a weekly newspaper because I couldn’t stay on last night, so I gave up and moved into town with the boys. (I’m at an internet cafe now.) I will deposit $40 more in your account – will that work for you? Or I can stop by tonight [at your other job] and give you $40 cash. Let me know what will work for you. Sorry – no phone, you have to email me. Thank you.
We raced off to our surfing lesson. While the boys were in the ocean, I got to use the internet at the Isla Inn across the street from the beach (free wireless with coffee and it worked GREAT.) I get this email from Mr:
That’s a lame excuse. I told you if you were having problems to let me know and I would install a cable directly to your computer as I have for other guests. You told my wife the internet worked fine. You owe us $100. More really, but $100 will do. I have never had anybody sneak out on us like you did today and it left me feeling very strange. I’ve already notified your husband, because I was actually worried about you and the boys and thought there was a family emergency or something. Oh well. Please call your husband and then do make arrangements for one of you to pay us the $100.
Cheers, Mr C
You gotta love it: he calls me a liar and a thief, then signs his email "Cheers." I wrote back:
The internet did work fine for a brief period the first morning, after your wife reset it and after I’d been on for a few hours (I am quite an early riser) with no luck staying connected. And with no luck staying connected the first night we were there. Once Mrs reset it in the morning, it worked for awhile. I don’t think I tried to go back on until later that night when you were working and I was trying to input the newspaper. I was completely unable to stay connected, couldn’t get email, etc. The last lady who was there and complained that your internet goes in and out was correct: it goes in and out. And the reception is either very low or low. Advertising that you have hi-speed wireless internet available to guests in this cabina is just not correct. You really don’t. It needs a cable or a much better configuration.
The deciding factor in staying with you all was the internet. Since that was not available to me there or even nearby, I had to leave. I will happily pay you $40 as the balance for the nights I stayed. My family has been in the guesthouse and spa business for many years. If our service was not as advertised or up to snuff, we did not require guests to pay for time not spent.
I am sorry to have this end badly. The boys and I enjoyed your music and your hospitality, your other job has a very good reputation in town. I need reliable internet access and was unable to have it at your place for the two nights I was there.
He writes back Saturday morning…
I’m surprised at your audacity. As I told you. I ran a cable direct for the other guest and she used it for two weeks with no problem. She worked an average of ten hours every day. I offered the same to you your first night and you never informed me of the problem so I could fix it. Sneaking out like you did without informing us of your leaving, or why, is not appropriate behavior either. You really owe us $360 for a six night stay minus the $80 deposit. You should know this if your family had a guest house. Please pay us at least part of what you owe us and deposit or drop off $100. I had you booked until yesterday through Monday night July 30 per our agreement. I turned down 2 requests for that house over this weekend because the house was reserved for you. Don’t get into semantics. You had totally reliable high speed internet service available to you whether wireless or direct. This is just an excuse not to pay what you owe. Just so you know, dozens of persons have used our internet service and have been satisfied.
I sincerely hope you or your husband make sure we get the $100 you owe us. Sincerely, Mr
I respond…
As I am surprised at yours. I informed you of the problem every time I had it during waking hours. Should I have come to your door late Wednesday night after check-in? That would have been difficult since I didn’t know where your house was, I don’t have a phone and it’s too dark out there to stumble around. [I understand not having a flashlight is my responsibility. As you were quick to point out, I should have read the webpage more carefully and discovered I needed to bring one. My bad.]
Did you expect me to come to your other job on Thursday night to complain about my internet? Or wake you early Friday morning? Oh right, I couldn’t do that. I was busy sneaking out at 8:30am after making breakfast for three teens, packing up, trying to make a 10am surf lesson in Playa Cocles.
I will deposit the $40 into your account. If I had real audacity, I’d ask for all my money back.
Since all evidence points to the fact that your wireless is inadequate, you might want to run a permanent cable to the house instead of making each customer run the gamut of no working wireless before being rewarded with cable.
He does not write back. On Sunday afternoon, I am walking on the main road in town, taking in the sights while the boys are surfing. Mrs rides up alongside me on her bicycle. She says hi and asks if I am going to pay her. I say I will check with Hal, see if he has already deposited the money in their account. If not, I will come to their other job and give her the cash. She gives me the "I will believe THAT when I see it" look, then starts lecturing me on my behavior. I walk away. She is calling after me down the street and finally stops… I stay quiet.
Mr takes over – he rides up on his bicycle, circles me and as he comes alongside, leans down and speaks softly in my ear: "That’s quite an example you set for your kids, sneaking off like that." I don’t respond. Mrs circles back around and says: "There’s such a thing as karma, you know." I still don’t talk… they give up trying to shame me into giving them more money and ride off.
That night, I go to their other job with the three younguns I am training in a life of crime and hand $40 to Mr. He does not say anything. We leave. As we are crossing the street, he calls out: "Thank you. But just because you paid this, doesn’t mean you behaved properly." All three boys burst out laughing. For which I am grateful. I don’t want to be mean, I don’t want to do anything but move on. The fact that they found this amusing lightens the episode.
I wonder why they thought I would sneak out of their place just to go to another place in town to pay as much money? I don’t get that. Was I sneaking out just to sneak out? ‘Cause it’s fun? Was I doing it to THEM in particular?
And is it my imagination, or was that mention of retributory karma sort of a threat? Like, you better act like we say or something bad will happen. Would that give them some satisfaction? Does she hope I spend the next few days looking over my shoulder?
If nothing bad ever happens, does that mean I behaved properly in the eyes of the universe? Or was the prior stealing from us bad karma setting me up to do this evil act?
Was getting home and finding an attempted break-in… was that my karmic retribution? So… are we even now?
But wait a minute: does the fact that it was an unsuccessful attempt and, in fact, warned us that ladrones are scoping out the house, telling us we should take further action… Does this mean my karma is ok? That my behavior was in line with the universe all along? Are these events even connected? I dunno. Too deep for me.
I think of karma as lovely background music, playing whether I’m listening or not, regardless of whether I care or not, believe or not. Karmic retribution/reward could not be so swift and identifiable. Otherwise, life would be way simpler.
Potential break-in at your home?
Do you still have Clemenza? Did he scare them away??
If you’re comfortable doing so, would you please name the Cabinas you stayed at? I’d like to make sure to NOT stay there when I head to PV.
DO I STILL HAVE CLEMENZA??? Are you kidding? He’s the love of my life!!! Dog posts coming soon with great pix. I am absolutely terrified that someone will poison my dogs – that would be so horrible. I am writing about the attempted break-in next… all is well!
Hi Erin – I do not feel comfortable naming the cabina… It’s a small tight-knit community over there and I don’t want to cause upset and I don’t want to create animosity – more animosity – for myself.
I HIGHLY recommend Jacaranda! You would love Vera. She is a piece of work – Guaraná had a better kitchen and coffee… but no Vera!
I am curious to know whether or not the “Mr” and “Mrs” of the cabina were Ticos.
Ticos would NEVER have confronted me on the street! They would probably have never asked for the money or chased me for it or emailed me. I’m not sure how they would have handled getting the rest of the money… probably just have waited for me to show up with it. I don’t know really. But no, they were not ticos. They were gringos.
enjoy reading your blog my husband and I have been to PV and are thinking about retiring in PV area I know its hot we live in WPB FL
I would like to hear your thoughts about living there
It was not the Banana Azul 😉
Curious… when you check into the Holiday Inn, Do you check out with out paying or saying anything and then when they approach you about payment, you make them offer because the TV was not working?
We own a hotel here and thankfully have happy customers, however, I am pretty sure I would not want you as one.
I see you are a realtor… Oh how I wish I could have held on to the money and been in that kind of position with some of the ones I was involved with.
Holiday Inns have front desks with a person there 24 hours. You can walk down at any hour, pay the balance due and leave. You don’t prepay for the room when you check in and if you leave early, you don’t pay for the nights you don’t stay. If something in the room doesn’t work, like the TV, they give you another room. If they don’t have another room, you betcha: they discount the rate. Or you find another place to stay ’cause there are plenty.
Hi Caran,
I loved Puerto Viejo, its a funky little tourist beach town. I couldn’t live there – just not enough to do unless you surf or really like hanging out in hot weather. I like city life.
Then there’s the heat… I lived in that heat for 30 years in Key West. I was acclimated to it, I was fine with it. But now that I’ve lived in cooler weather, I don’t think I could go back.
If I ever DID live by the ocean again in Costa Rica, it would either be around Punta Uva, just south of Puerto Viejo. Or on the southern Pacific side, near Ojochal – that place was gorgeous, too.
PV wormed its way into my heart with its funky Key West flavor… If you are really undecided about where to live in Costa Rica, the best thing to do is to rent at first, try out the areas. When you read that Costa Rica has 90 different mini-climates, they aren’t kidding! Everywhere I go, I want to live there…
But Miss “Price Sensitive” does not want to pay for 24 hour concierge. As you can see from her posts she is always looking for a bargain. Now, there is nothing wrong with that. But being a hotel owner and having to deal with all types of issues trying to satisfy North Americans and all their demands and then expecting to pay 3rd world prices is very difficult and not the customer we would want anyway.
Maybe next time she will splurge and save us small hotel owners from gracing us with her presence and check into a holiday inn and stay away from small undeveloped areas that are not yet developed enough to meet her needs. Total win win!
Both the Jacaranda and the Guanará met our needs perfectly. They gave everything they promised for a fair price. I love a bargain, true. But a fair price is all I ask. And – silly me – I like getting what I pay for. I appreciate businesses that keep their promises.
Having owned many small businesses myself, I understand, as it sounds like you do, that it is my job to make sure my customers are happy. Not the customer’s job to “make do” when I can’t keep my promises.
My view has always been that the customer is always right, and I have always had the repeat and referral business to confirm that truth. If I couldn’t make them happy and keep my promises, I let them go with my best wishes. ALWAYS. Having a customer or even a potential customer walk away slighted or unhappy does no one any good. Sometimes, it’s just not a good match.
You don’t have to agree with me, Colin, and I appreciate your point of view. But share it nicely on my blog or share it somewhere else.
That is nice I don´t have to agree. That is very kind of you. So, you can share your opinion here, but if others disagree they must not or do it somewhere else where people can not see your response. Are you American by any chance? Dissenting views there these days from what I can see are not encouraged.
And I do not always find the customer right. We start out that way, but if you can not please them… hey, move on.. no biggie. Don´t want person is who is unhappy spreading their unhappiness to the rest. Can´t satisfy everyone..
And just for the record for everyone, the place there are referring to is [EDITED OUT BY BLOG OWNER]. They are friends of mine. That does not mean that I support how they handled the sitaution, I personally would have handled it differently. And I do not see her logic in being so cagey about not mentioning the name the name of the place.
Also, please let it all be known to everyone interested in the Caribbean, if a hotel not being able to meet what they advertsised because of unforseen circunstances or an obvious difference in expectations, it is seriously suggested you give this area a miss. You will almost undoubtedly be unhappy. If you are they type that can just roll with the punches, then give it a whirl.
One last thing… if you think the 2 places that you mention always satisfy everyone, you might read the reviews on TripAdvisor.
Jeez, Colin. Take a deep breath! You are welcome to share your opinion here. Just do it nicely. You are not welcome to mention the name of the place. If they want to come on and mention it, fine. That is their right and no one else’s. My blog, my rules. The two places I mention – Jacaranda and Guanará – satisfied me. I didn’t say they would satisfy everyone. As you point out, no place can do that.
I have been a demanding customer in my past. It is unpleasant for everyone and I am not anymore unless I think some good will come of it. But I was not a demanding customer here. The truth is what these owners don’t know about selling rooms to guests could fill a book.
If I had been a demanding customer, I would have complained about the sheets that were pilled so badly they were like sleeping on hairshirts. The dingy stained mosquito nets over the bed. The choking mildew smell when I lay my head on the one small lumpy pillow.
The fact that the doors locks were ludicrous: you couldn’t shut the door to the downstairs bedroom unless you knew where the key was at all times because it locked with a deadbolt and you could not keep it unlocked while you were home. You had to leave the key in the door until you went to bed. Then you better remember it if you get up to pee in the middle of the night, because the only other way in would have been thru the window 15′ off the ground.
Or the lock on the boys’ upstairs bedroom door that only latched on the outside (a slide latch with a padlock.) God forbid, something should jostle the door (like one of our frequent tremors) and it gets bolted just enough on the outside so they can’t get out. Slim to none chance, but mommies think of these things. Should someone want to get in during the night to take anything, no sweat: just push the door open.
Or the fact you couldn’t get the fan in the bedroom to blow on the bed unless you dragged in a chair from the living room and braced the fan on top of that. Not only is the shelf where the fan sits too narrow to angle the fan correctly, the cord doesn’t reach. Or that there was only that one portable fan for downstairs… if you went from one room to another, you had to carry that fan with you or be eaten alive by mosquitoes. Because the whole place was open air with no screens. Charming feature in any season but dengue. Any other time, I would have loved that.
Or the fact that they didn’t provide a flashlight when you absolutely need one there and were perfectly snitty about the fact I didn’t know that and didn’t have one. They insist you bring one with you… they provided knives and forks, a coffeepot, a bic lighter to light the stove. But a flashlight is not their responsibility?
Or the dim lights everywhere… God forbid you would want to read a book. Not possible in any light provided. If I’d had a flashlight like a good girl, I could have used it to read.
The stairs, both in and out, were so steep as to be treacherous. Their dogs kept falling down them because there was no room to turn around.
And no toaster. But I didn’t mention any of that because the truth is, if they’d had working internet like they promised, I would have lived with all the above and stayed the entire time.
Great. I sure would not want to stay there. Thanks for that information and all the energy and time you want to expend sharing every sordid detail of yopur stay including their email correspondence which I am sure they did not intend for public audience.
Now maybe you could share your logic in not sharing the name of the place and censoring anyone else that might do so. If you are convinced your actions are so ethical, and you are so steadfast on your convictions, then do everyone a favour and name the place.
Colin takes a deep breath as per Saratica´s orders and invites … the “recovering realtor from Florida, the same”.
I don’t put their name up here because this is just my opinion and in the big scheme of things, doesn’t count for much. Opinions are like feet. Everyone has ’em and they all stink more often than not. I don’t want to hurt their business. I don’t want to be malicious. I’m venting. Another person could go and have a marvelous time, enjoy themselves immensely, be perfectly fine with all the things I wasn’t. Perceptions are colored by stress, money worries, kid worries, heat, hormones… whatever. Naming the place in this context won’t help anyone.
Taking a deep breath.. gotta go feed the dogs and start watching the videos we just rented. Perfect way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon!
Okay… enjoy. Beautiful Sun here in “shady” PV (home of the least wanted or the most wanted. I spend it in the hammock.
Nice chatting with you.
Hello there! I guess I must’ve caught you in Puerto Viejo before you ran into all this mess. You all looked like you were still having a good time at that point. Sorry you had to go through all of that. Kind of puts a damper on the trip, eh?
The beauty of the area is also what’s tough about it sometimes. It’s great to be a little off the beaten path without a phone at times to enjoy nature, the silence and to “get away from it all,” but it sure does make it tough to communicate when you really have to, such as calling the landlord to have the Internet hard-wired.
I know it would’ve been a pain to get into town to ask him or his wife to connect it and come through on their promise, but it was your choice to rent a place that far out. And as a person who runs a hotel myself, I’d have to say I’d have been pretty darn upset if someone ran out on me without staying through their reserved dates (especially knowing I was losing out on other potential reservations) and without letting me fix the problem. Not nice!
Scott, I find it interesting that the only people defending these hoteliers are hoteliers.
It sounds like at your hotel, once your guest is there, they have to stay regardless of whether or not they are satisfied that you have delivered on your promises. Takes the weight off you, doesn’t it? Are you available for them to get to you if there IS a problem? Is it the customer’s job to bend over backwards to accommodate the business owner’s needs and hours, rather than the other way around? In your hotel, how long would a service have to NOT be available for you to initiate a permanent solution?
You find it perfectly acceptable I spent my first two $60 nights there without an advertised service and no way to get it from them when I needed it. Do you think if I had made the hour walk in the dark, on the SECOND night I didn’t have the service, they would have left work to come run a cable to my house in the dark? Do you REALLY think it reasonable I would make an hour walk in the dark to get a service I should have had to begin with?
A walk, by the way, I had been warned not to make in the dark. You warn your guests not to make that walk in the dark, don’t you, Scott? But, by not making that walk, in your eyes, I didn’t give the owners a chance to fix the problem. Is this right?
And you consider the owners totally without responsibility in the situation even though they and they alone had every opportunity to make certain I had the service when I checked in, but didn’t? Sounds like they were just too lazy and too busy with their lives to take care of their guests. It didn’t suit them to run the cable, so they didn’t. I was expected to make do. To run back and forth resetting the modem because the cable was… what, too much trouble?
How exactly would you have handled this, Scott? Why wasn’t that cable installed before I got there???? Mr even warned me the first night that the last guest had complained the service was spotty and unreliable. Those were his words just before he ran out to meet friends for dinner. How was I supposed to locate him, Scott, and tell him the service wasn’t working? Walk into town in the dark, and go to all the restaurants until I saw them? This is MY responsibility?
Mrs came over the next morning announcing she’d reset it (even though it was too late by that time for me to use it). She already knew it wasn’t working; I hadn’t even contacted her yet. So, either she got up and didn’t have it at her house or one of the other guests had called in!
They knew it wasn’t working. They certainly knew it wasn’t reliable. Perhaps they were hoping it would magically kick in and start being reliable? Their attitude was “this is good enough”, here’s the work-around. But pay us top dollar for the room.
Running a hotel is not easy and not for the faint of heart. Ask anyone who does it right. It may not be rocket science, but it take attention and caring. It is not something you can do on the side: slap up some wood, call it a hotel.
Here’s a tip from one hotel owner to another: if you want to make sure your customers don’t leave early, if you want repeat business, deliver on your promises. Even better, deliver before the customer has to ask.
Actually, I wasn’t defending the hoteliers. And I didn’t even think I was being rude, but you certainly had quite an emotional response! I meant to mention in my previous comment that I was shocked and disgusted at how these people handled themselves. I’ve done some favors for these folks — they are customers of mine — and even in their “other” job they have been quite rude to me as a customer, so I shouldn’t be shocked at how they treated you I guess.
However, I still don’t agree with the way you handled the situation. Maybe I’m confused here. Unless I misunderstood something. From the way you described it, they were under the impression the connection was working or else they would have just connected the cable, but in any event that you had a problem, offered to come up with a solution for you.
Your first night you had a problem. Then “Mrs” came by in the morning and reset the modem. You could have asked her instead to connect you directly to the router by cable. But you both made the reasonable assumption the connection was working, which it was, albeit slowly.
Later on, it went down again. You decided it was too dark to walk to town to let them know about it. Your decision, also reasonable, and certainly not their fault.
I bet they would have left work to hook up your cable in the dark the second night that you didn’t have a connection, but you didn’t give them the chance now, did you?
You ask me what I would have done? I would have simply gone over in the morning and asked them to hook up the cable. It would have been much faster and taken much less energy than packing up my stuff and moving to another hotel. And most certainly taken less time than it has to do all this complaining about it.
As far as false advertising goes, I think you’ve lived in Costa Rica long enough now to know that everything doesn’t work perfectly here all the time. I’ve tried very hard to control things like ICE and INS, but they don’t cooperate with me very much.
And to answer your other question, yes I’m available for people when they have problems. We have an on-site manager. And no, people do not have to stay at my place whether or not they are satisfied. But they can’t just leave for no reason and think they aren’t going to pay. They have to at least give me a chance to make them happy.
As for me, yes. I do provide a phone. I do provide internet. I do suggest people do not walk around in the dark. And I do advertise that we have a phone and wireless internet. I also tell people we have electricity. But not in a million years would I try to tell someone the electricity, phone or internet work all the time. Pretty much every single day one or all of them go out for at least 10 minutes, if not for longer. It’s part of the life here. I tell people if they want the Four Seasons, they had better not come to Puerto Viejo, because it’s not going to be for them.
I imagine in time we’ll have destroyed the culture and charm in Puerto Viejo too, just like we’ve done in Jaco and other places like the Pacific Northwest of Costa Rica. We’ll have condos and big, fancy hotels. Then it’ll be much easier to find good places to rent.
Dear Scott, yes, I did have an emotional response. I apologize for going off on you like a loaded gun. When you left out the part about being “shocked and disgusted at how these people handled themselves” and that “even in their ‘other’ job they have been quite rude to me as a customer”, yet didn’t forget to admonish MY behavior… maybe you can see how I got the wrong idea.
If you don’t understand my point of view AS THE PAYING CUSTOMER, there is no way I can explain it any further. I’m out of words. I don’t believe I behaved improperly. I believe they advertised a service they KNEW they could not reliably provide (not an ICE problem at all), but didn’t care because internet is not important to them. I don’t think they care about any of it. I don’t think they should be in the hotel business. Everything in their attitude says, “don’t bother me.”
I’m glad I left. In hindsight, I wouldn’t change a step except to insist on cable the first night even though it would have made him even later to his dinner date. Unfortunately, I’d left my crystal ball at home and didn’t yet know the wifi was completely unreliable. I did the right thing for my schedule, my money, my vacation, my boys. My choice.
Well for weeks in advance you advertised all over the boards looking for cheapest place possible to stay in Puerto Viejo cause you felt everything was overpriced…. guess what. the old saying… you get what you pay for.
again, just another liberatian type seeing what they can get from everyone else and out out the least.
I see from your blog, you sucked everything thing you could out of key west and costa rica looked ripe for the picking… no biggie. You are definitely not alone down here.
How DARE you hotel owners, responding to a customer that way? You think it’s the *tourists* “wrecking” Costa Rica?? You better look in your mirrors, for a change! Duh – you don’t like tourists but you own and run HOTELS? Are you nuts?
There is no WAY I’d have stayed in a place such as she describes, and I don’t believe 60.00 a night is a “bargain” when I’ve paid less in *good* hotels. If you can’t provide high speed internet, it’s simple – DON’T SAY YOU DO!
Talk to a man the way you two “men” have written to her, and you’d need a dentist. Follow me on your bikes down the street while calling ME names, and you’d need a hospital. Guaranteed.
It’s OUTRAGEOUS that anyone is defending the actions of those hotel owners! If you’re in a business that depends on tourism, ACT LIKE IT. If you hate tourists, could it be you’re in the wrong line?
Thanks for sticking up for me, DJ. I had my very angry moments as well. You know, I didn’t consider the gender thing. If I were a man, I doubt Mr. and Mrs. would have followed me down the street. If I were a big man, almost assuredly not. But I am a 5′ tall Rubenesque woman. Not at all scary-looking and easy to taunt.
But enough about them. Let’s get back to me! Pura vida!