A few weeks ago, my family and I took our vacation to Busch Gardens (which I have reviewed) in Tampa, Florida. After the drive from Cartersville, Georgia (which is in Northwest Georgia) to Tampa (which is in West-Central Florida), we were cranky and needed a rest. The first decent-looking hotel we came to and the nearest to Busch Gardens was a Howard-Johnson. We quickly got a room.

The first problem we came upon was the fact that there are few entrances to the hotel (not to mention all of the parking is a distance from the entrances). This isn't a problem if your room is on the bottom floor or near the entrances, but if your room is on the top floor (like ours) or if its far from the entrances. So, we had to lug all of our luggage up to the top floor.

The room looked fairly nice, considering it is a hotel room. It had a coffee pot, a microwave, a refrigerator (although it didn't get cool enough), and a probably 20 inch TV.

The two beds were exact opposites. One was too firm, almost stiff. The other sagged when you laid on it (it was comfortable I guess but I still don't like saggy beds).

Being tired, we decided to stay in our room for awhile and watch TV. Here is one of the biggest disappointments. The TV only had maybe 30 channels in a fairly big city like Tampa1. There were five locals (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, WB) and none ever showed anything good. There were four all-news channels (CNN, MSNBC, CNN Headline News, Fox News Channel). I like to watch the news but I like more than that. There was no MTV, VH-1 or anything like that.

Our room had a balcony. You would think that would be a plus but considering our view, it was a negative. Our balcony overlooked the slums and trailer parks (WHAT A VIEW!!)

After the second day, we needed more towels. I called room service. The woman told me a maid was in the hall and to ask her. There was a maid but she didn't speak English and had no clean towels. I called back later and the woman said the same thing. After arguing with her, she finally did bring some towels.

There was a resturant adjacent to the hotel called The Olympian. Not knowing any place else, we ate there. The atmosphere was nice and so was the food. It serves steak, seafood, salads, and other things like that.

On the second day, we noticed something that was very unsettling. We had a few opened drinks and thing like that on the table in our room. It was covered in ants. Our room was infested with ants!


Recommended: No