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Bad Internet, Lighting, Telephone

Avoid Starwood hotels, especially the W After being driven out of the $600 a night Starwood St. Regis in San Francisco because the heat wouldn’t work in either of the rooms they gave me, I registered in the Starwood $400 a night San Francisco W, at 181 3rd St, down the street where the heat did work. The W has all kinds of cutsie nonsense that gets in the way of comprehension. The operator answers with “what is your wish.” My wish of course is that she would answer with “operator.” The Internet service costs $15 a day but it stinks. Much better speed is available for free at any $150 a night motel. It would not run consistently faster than 200 kilobits per second which 20 or 30 times slower than a typical home DSL line. My slingbox would not work and it took forever to download files. W Internet is a small step above using a phone modem. Apparently the W is on an insane drive to save electricity. The room lighting is terrible. I happened to have a light meter with me so I took some measurements. At the work desk the illumination was 22 lux. There is no lamp or light anyplace near the desk. 22 lux is considered to be a light level suitable for inactive areas of warehouses. Offices work spaces are supposed to have 500 lux. If you want to read in bed at the W the light level is about 90 lux, a low but not impossible level for reading. The window benches have their own light which is so dim as to provide only 15 lux. The only place in the room with decent illumination was near the bathroom mirror where it reached 400 lux. The telephone in my W room started beeping at 3 AM for no apparent reason that I could discern even after several minutes of deciphering the instructions on the telephone printed in tiny, low-contrast type. Yes, I had my reading glasses on. It wouldn’t stop beeping even when I unplugged the connecting wires. I called the “what is your wish” lady to ask what do to. She didn’t know but offered to send someone to the room. Apparently calling the operator stopped the beeping. My next step would have been to put the telephone in the hall. The room was nicely furnished, even beautiful. But if they can’t get lighting, Internet and telephone right why would you want to stay in this expensive hotel?