Have you ever been descriminated against? Yeh, me neither. That is of course, with the exception of my recent stay at the Sheraton Baltimore North. So where do I start, how about where most people do, at the BAR.

Coming from the service industry, I was once a waiter, I can understand and appreciate the need for service with a smile, something I did not receive at the Sheraton Bar. A bartender, who was probably 2 yrs my senior, a whopping 26, decided to base his client relations upon the age of the attending patrons. Upon my arival at the bar I was forced to request menus, a circumstance that was due to the tender's inability to pay attention to myself and the rest of my party. After tossing the menus at us, an action which is unacceptable under any circumstance, we proceeded to order; now I must say, the food was wonderful, it was a highlight of the weekend. When it came time to pay the tender told us that "oh by the way, there is a special on Killian's Red today, $2 bottles." Well, thanks for the update!! So I did what any sensible person would have done, asked if he could charge us for Killian's rather than the beers we drank? You would have thought that I asked this guy to part the Red Sea: "Sir we are limited in the number of Killian's we have available for the special, and these are counted by my Manager." Dude, its beer, it grows on trees. Ok fine, I will accept his response, but does that mean that your manager would approve of you telling us about a special after we have paid? Is it that hard to use your noggin?? So that was that, and nothing came of it, but that was just the beginning.

Let me just preface the next part of this rant by asking a simple question, does anyone know what "best and final" means, or for that matter what "guarenteed best rates" means, cause if so then you can run this Hotel. When I made my reservation I was told that my room rate was $170 a night, a rate which is indicitive of my AAA discount. Ok, so not to bad considering that it is a Sheraton, right? Thats what I thought, until I received my bill. Picture this, your sleeping soundly on a Sunday, the day of rest, knowing that your guarenteed something in this life, the rate of your room, only to find that your bill for the two days is, ready...$695. Woha!! Ok lets take it back in the day here, 2+2=4, 3+3=6, 170+170= 340...hmmmm? Well I took it to the manager, and let me tell you that up to that point I did not think I was dumb, but when she was done with me I was second guessing my Ivy League diploma (I am kidding about the Ivy League, I went to Towson). She more or less told me that I was wrong, and my story was inconsitent with her own, well no [--] there are inconsistencies, there are about 355 inconsistencies. So I took it on the chin and went back to the room, where the girlfriend was waiting. Let me just say that she gave a wonderful pep-talk....needless to say, I went back down. Finally after about an hr and a 1/2 of pleasent conversation, we found my mistake.....Im kidding, imagine reading this whole thing only to find that I was wrong, haha. For real, though, she found her mistake and proceeded to pull her foot out of her mouth and her jaw off of the ground, all at the same time mind you. By the way, she never said sorry. Wow!!

Let me just add a few things: we had to take the elevator up 2 floors in order to go down 1, there was human waste in a plant by the elevator (kinda funny), we were woken up three times, once by room service who was at the wrong room (did they change a 2 to a 4 recently, could someone let me know next time, I think a memo is in order?) and then two more times by housekeeping who was asking us to checkout (checkout is at 12, this was at 9 and 10), and finally the pool and hottub was down, dagger!

All in all, not a bad time, ha. Maybe it was a fluke, but let me tell you that I typically stay at Marriotts, I have been to a couple of Westin's (same company), and have stayed at a Hyatt in Hawaii, and never in my life have I had a similiar experience.

I really think that I would have been treated differently if I was 52, wearing terrible golf pants, and driving in a convertable. Instead they saw a 24 yr old hung over young professional who was wearing a shirt that said "I put out," and a matching Ralph Lauren sweatsuit. Should have stayed at a Comfort Inn.