I’m just back from the E&P/MediaWeek Interactive Media Conference in Miami. Can’t let this go by without mentioning that this was by far the worst convention hotel experience I’ve ever had.
The culprit: The Radisson, 1601 Biscayne Blvd., downtown Miami.
How awful was it? Let us count the ways:
False alarm: On Wednesday morning at 4 am, throughout the hotel a loud, booming voice came over the loudspeakers, waking every guest in the hotel. The voice apologized, at length, for the fire alarm throughout the hotel and said it was a false alarm. Except, there was no alarm. Two minutes after he finished, the fire alarm did come on – a loud, incessant, irritating siren. Ten minutes later, after many of us were on the verge of dozing off again, a really loud voice came over the loudspeakers yet again, this time apologizing in Spanish. Think that’s all? at 4:30, the same voice came on one more time, waking everyone up again. A lot of red eyes that morning.
World’s worst elevators: With five elevators, you’d think it wouldn’t take long for one to appear. Wrong. The coup de grace came when a few of us got in, hit the Ballroom level button to take us down one flight. At the last moment, a guest came in hit Floor 17. Guess which way the elevator went?
Bizarre layout: The conference and trade show took place on the lower level, and only through one set of elevators.
Shitty wi-fi: A media conference without working wi-fi is DOA. Wireless was up and down — mostly down. When it was up, it was slow. No wi-fi in any of the hotel rooms. Wi-fi hit and miss in the lobby. Even those who paid for the privilege of an ethernet connection in their rooms often couldn’t get online.
Shitty service: Both mornings at breakfast I couldn’t track down a waiter to get a cup of coffee. No self-service for that, natch.
Parting shot: When I walked into the Business Services office on Thursday afternoon so I could print out my airline boarding pass, the staffer said, "Sorry, the Internet is temporarily down." Right.
Despite all that, glad I made the trip. It was especially great to meet all the Knight News Challenge winners.
JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.
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