Stop Making Me Laugh Or I'll Pee My Pants! Go Back! I Lost My Shoe! Trip Report!

[jenseib]

And all of the resorts are her favorites!

 

[KatMark]

And all of the resorts are her favorites!

Yes....and she has only stayed in three.

 

[mickeystoontown]

The drive back into Hot Springs didn't take long. We took the old way back (used to be the only way until they built a new highway) to town. I saw a $1 store up ahead and told John we should stop since we had never been there. It's a big building with a $1 on the side of it. I like dollar stores. Sometimes, you can find all kinds of treasures.

While we didn't find any real treasures, we did find a few things. I bought a mess hanging organizer thing that hangs on a curtain rod (this is for Disney). I can't remember what else we bought. Oh, yeah, they had a large assortment of swords and daggers. Of all places to find them. Anyway, we bought Hunter a really cool dagger that came with a stand for just $15.00. Good price!

Hunter called while we were in the store. He and his Mamaw were about to go into the movie theater and see Christmas Carol. He wanted to call and tell us that he thought of something else he wanted for Christmas. A motorcyle. Hum....I'd love to say he's getting it but unless I get a humongous Christmas bonus...it ain't in the cards this year.

We finish up in the $1 Store and start making our way back to downtown. I've got a funny story to share with you guys. John would probably kill me if he knew I was telling it. We laugh and tell this story every time we go to Hot Springs. I know it's not going to be as funny when I tell it but I'm telling it anyway.

The last time all of us went camping (when Lacey was still living at home), we stayed at Lake Ouachita State Park. We wanted to go downtown and have a look around. John was driving and we were just about to get into downtown. John rounded a slight curve, changed lanes and pulls to a stop behind a car. I look at him. I hear the kids snickering in the backseat. I looked at the kids and they are just shaking their heads and doing their best not to laugh out loud. The car in front of us was parked in a parking place on the side of the road and John had pulled in behind it thinking it was stopped for the red light. We all busted out laughing and John's just looking at us. We told him what he had done and he started laughing too. Poor man! Now you see why I don't let John drive much.

Of course, when we passed the famous "John pulled behind a parked car" spot, we had a good laugh. Traffic was starting to pick up downtown. A lot of people come into downtown in the evening.

This is when we saw the people in the red shirts. The red shirts that the diamond dash participants received at check-in. There were young teenagers wearing them and walking around with their little gift bags. This is when I got rather ticked off. The contest was supposed to be just for those who wrote essays about why they deserved a chance to win the ring. There were also age limitations. Oh well, nothing I could do about it now.

We finally made our way though traffic and found the crummy yucky parking building for the Arlington. I know I harp on it but, believe me, it's worth harping about. I couldn't find a dang parking place on the first or second floor. In order to get up to the third floor from the second floor, we had to go down to the first floor and turn around and go back up. There was only one ramp and it was for up and down. We found a parking place on the upper level. We walked down (no stairs or elevator) the ramp and back onto the main street.

We crossed the street downtown and walked to the toy store. First, I found a book and a deck of trick cards in the book section. An employee asked if we needed help and we told them we were looking for magic kits. We were really surprised that they had an entire section (albiet a small one) of magic stuff. They ranged from $16.99 to $69.99. Sucker us chose the $69.99 but it has a lot of stuff in it and a DVD. The employee asked if we had been to the magic show that was in downtown. She gave us directions to the show and looked for some coupons but couldn't find them. We paid for our purchase and left.

We wanted to take the self guided tour of the bathhouse so we crossed the street. Bathhouse row is just across the street from the little shops. We walked into the bathhouse and told them we wanted to take the self guided tour. She said they would be closing in 15 minutes so we needed to start on the 3rd floor and work our way down. We, along with another couple, hopped on the elevator and took it to the third floor.

I bet you'd like for me to hurry up and post pictures so here goes. You sat on the wooden board/platform and they lowered you into a really deep tub.

Next was the gymnasium.

We were having to move at a pretty fast pace so we took the stairs to the second floor. I took a picture of the elevator. It had the old metal cage on the front.

This room was used for podiatry:

The men's dressing room:

The next room was a large room with a sitting area in the middle. This was the room that the men used. It had baths and showers.

The knobs outside the shower area:

This beautiful statue was in the middle of the room. The front:

A lizard on the back:

The ceiling in the men's room. I told John I wondered if the women's room had naked men on the ceiling.

****Interruption: Client just came by. I need to get his paperwork typed up. Be back in a few.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Gotta say one thing first.....I saw that I typed "mess hanging organizer thing" when it should have been "mesh" but it does hold our mess so I'm not changing it.

 

[KatMark]

Gotta say one thing first.....I saw that I typed "mess hanging organizer thing" when it should have been "mesh" but it does hold our mess so I'm not changing it.

I knew what you meant.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Only have a minute or two. The client is in the boss' office talking.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Continuing on with the tour of the bathhouse. The next room was the Hydrotherapy room. You sit in these boxes and they close you up in it. It's like a sauna. The only thing that sticks out is your head. Even though I'm not claustrophobic, I'm not so sure I'd like it.

For those of you wondering if the women's room had naked men on the ceiling. Nope! They had these windows:

They had made a few announcements by this time that the bathhouse would be closing and to make your way to the exit. We wanted to see the Al Capone display that was on the first floor the last time we went. It wasn't there! They had replaced it with something else and I guess I was in too big of a hurry to take more pictures. This is one of the fountain in the lobby:

The outside of the bathhouse:

A close up of the window. Sorry for the sideways image. I can't get photobucket to rotate it:

***Client is coming. Stopping here.

 

[longing2Batdisney]

the reason there is naked women but not naked men; women prefer to look at nice scerene images while relaxing...men don't know the difference--LOL!!!

there are some beautiful marble fixtures and fountains...

even though you didn't get to do what you went for; seems like you had a wonderful and beautiful weekend!

 

[mickeystoontown]

Please know I am not ignoring everybody's posts. I am trying to get stuff off my desk and deadlines met so we can close at lunch on Wednesday. I also wanted to get my mini-trip report finished up so I can post another one on my Disney trip.

Let me see if I can find the time to write another Hot Springs trip report installment.

 

[mickeystoontown]

We finished up the bathhouse tour just as it was closing and decided to take a walk on the promenade. The promenade is a walkway behind bathhouse row that's on the side of the mountain. You can see down onto the main street of Hot Springs. It's a pretty walk.

We strolled along carry our giant magic kit bag and just took in the sights. We also remembered when we came to Hot Springs on our honeymoon. We got married when we were just 18 and didn't have a whole lot of money back then. Hot Springs was a pretty cheap place to visit back in 1984.

Another one of those "let me see if I can stretch my arm waaaay up and take a picture of us" pictures.

Instead of going all the way to the end of the promenade, we took one of the paths down so we could see the hot springs that came out of the side of the mountain. It was a little bit cool outside so there was a lot of steam rising from the hot water. You can't tell it from the pictures though.

We walked along a little further and found another hot spring:

Yet another spring:

Picture of the mountain wall in the park:

I'm not sure if you can read the writing on this. It was on a huge rock boulder in the park:

The walkway took us right up to the entrance of the Arlington. Still looks pretty from the outside. I promise I'll show pictures of the inside of our room soon.

We walked to the crummy nasty parking garage. Yes, I am complaining again but it was a crummy nasty parking garage. Anyway, we walked to the parking garage and put the magic kit in the trunk. There was no need to take it into our hotel room and just have to bring it back down in the morning. John walked around the car to look at the tires again even though the mystery was solved. He just couldn't understand why they put the new tire on the front. I just stood there.

We were getting a little bit hungry. Not a lotta hungry, just a little. I needed to take a potty break so we went into the Arlington. Wait wait wait! I typed something wrong.

Let's go back......the walkway ended up at the Arlington. We were on the right hand side of the hotel. You could enter the hotel from the right too. It said Arlington Mall. We wanted to see what the mall had to offer so we went in through that entrance. The mall was just a few boutiques, a spa and a hair salon. We walked straight through the hotel and came out on the left hand side of the hotel. Look at the second picture of the hotel. We came out where the green awning is. Then we walked to the crummy yucky parking garage.

Carrying on......

We went back into the Arlington for our potty break and to decide what we wanted to do for dinner. We could hardly get through the lobby. There were guests eating in the center section. The bar on the right hand side was humming. There were people on the left hand side waiting on the band to start playing. We wiggled our way through to the front desk which had a line. I was going to stop and complain about the room conditions but there were too many people and I had to go to the bathroom. It was one of my "I gotta pee" moments. We got to the elevators and there was a line waiting to get into the hotel restaurant that extended almost to the elevators. We wouldn't be eating there.

When we got to our room door, John had to jostle the door around so that the lock would open. As I was in the bathroom, I saw that housekeeping didn't leave us any washclothes even though I had left them a note to please clean better and leave more than one washcloth. Ummmm, what the heck were we supposed to do. We did have three handtowels though.

I'm going to tell you something right now and I know that a lot of you will fuss at us. We tried to call down to housekeeping and they wouldn't answer. They didn't answer when we came back to our room later that evening either. How were we supposed to get washclothes. John got a bit mad and tore a handtowel in half and waaaalah...washclothes. I know! I know! He shouldn't have done it but he did. I think having no washclothes combined with a nasty room and a dud of a diamond dash just did him in.

After perusing the room service flier again, we knew that there was no way we were paying that much for food. Food is not top priority on my list. I'm not saying that I don't like good food. It's just not top priority. Give me something I like and something that fills my empty stomach and I'm fine.

There are several sandwich shops on the main strip so we left the hotel in search for one that was still open. Even though it wasn't late, a lot of those little mom and pop type places close early. When we got to the lobby, it was even more crowded than when we came up 20 minutes earlier. We had a choice, either go through the people at the bar or go through the people listening and dancing to the band. We chose the bar area.

We walked down the front steps of the hotel and there was a man at the bottom of the steps. You could tell that he was just a drunk. He asked for money for food. John offered to get him food and bring it to him and he said he just wanted the money. See....a drunk. It was sad but I'm not about to give away my hard earned money to a drunk to buy more booze with.

There are street crossings at several locations along the street. I pushed the button and started across the street when it turned green. We had to cross five lanes of traffic. It started counting down and I turned to look for John. He's still just strolling across lane three. I jogged the rest of the way across lanes four and five and John was stuck in the middle standing area. Silly boy. Why didn't he just sprint when the countdown started?

I stood on the other side of the street waiting for him. Two ladies and their three children came up and were waiting to cross the other way. They asked if I had pushed the button and I told them yes. (I had so that John could cross.) One of the three children was in a stroller, one was being held and the other who looked to be about 4 or 5 was walking. He was getting awfully close to the road. He kept swinging around the cross walk sign and several cars honked to make sure he didn't come out any further. It was scaring me to death. The mother kept saying "get back". Had he been my child, I would have yanked him up in a heartbeat. I was a nervous wreck by the time the cross walk sign lit up saying they could cross. John strolled his slow self across and we continued our merry way.

All of the sandwich shops had closed already but we continued to window shop a little bit. There was a pet store that had a sign in the window that read "Pets Allowed. Children Must Be Kept On A Leash!". I wanted to buy that for my boss sooooo bad but they were closed. (You'll remember that he can't stand kids.) The further we got down the street the darker and busier it got. There are several bars on that end so we turned around and walked back to the crummy nasty parking building. Sorry, I had to say it.

When we got to the parking building, we saw the hotel we usually stay in when we go to Hot Springs (and not camping). It used to be the "Downtown Hotel & Spa" but the last time we stayed there, they were renovating it and it was really loud and stuff was piled all in the hallways. We haven't stayed there since. I had heard that they the renovations were complete and I wanted to see what it looked like since it was now "The Springs Hotel & Spa". We walked down and entered the lobby. We could tell that the woodwork had been redone and it looked really nice. We got on the elevator and took it to the second floor where the spa and swimming pool was. We walked outside onto the pool sitting area where I took a few pictures of downtown.

We hopped back on the elevator and took it to the 4th floor. It looked like they had done some painting and had shampooed the carpets. I wish we could have seen one of the rooms to see if they had done anything to them. But, we figured they couldn't look any worse than what we were staying in at the Arlington. We went back downstairs and this was parked outside:

When we were in the toy store, the lady who worked there told us that the magic show was just a few blocks down from The Springs Hotel. It was just a few steps away. Since we were so close, we figured we'd go in and see if maybe they had some magic stuff for sale in a gift area or something. There was a show scheduled for later that evening but we lucked up and met the magician himself as he was in the ticket sales area chatting with his staff. He asked if Hunter was with us....he was going to teach him an easy trick or two. He didn't have anything for sale except one of his DVDs. He told us to be sure and come back and let Hunter see the show. We walked away with nothing but it was kind of neat to meet the guy himself.

John's phone rang while we were in the parking building and he was inspecting the tires again anyway. I walked over and took a few pictures. In Hot Springs, they have these vehicles that are called "ducks". I don't know if you've ever seen them before. They look just like boats but they are also vehicles. They park along the street and then take you on a tour of the city and then drive out into the lake where they become a boat. I saw one coming down the street and tried to take a picture but I didn't get the whole thing.

The call was semi-worked related so I didn't mind him taking it. Self employed people have take those calls when they can 'cause you never know when they might turn into money. We drove around trying to decide what we wanted to eat. We saw pizza, italian, burgers, hot wings, chinese, just about everything but we just couldn't decide.

One of the last things we saw was Ryan's. It's a buffet so we could eat a little of everything. I'm pretty picky about buffets but we've eaten at this one numerous times and I know that they refresh and clean the buffets regularly. We ate steak, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, fried okra, tacos, spaghetti and a few more things. I like being able to get a little taste of everything. Their rolls are simply delicious. Their salad and dessert bars are really good too. As a matter of fact, I took two of each of the three kinds of cookies and brought them back to the hotel with us for breakfast. You do know that cookies are the breakfast of champions don't you?

Stuffed to the max, we drove back to the hotel. If we thought it was crowded when we left, we hadn't seen nothin'. There were people everywhere in the lobby. I almost got run over by two couples dancing. The people extended all the way up to the second floor overview lobby area.

I did manage to take a picture of the sign in front of Al Capone's car. I may have posted this before because I found two pictures of it on Photobucket.

We stopped on one of the floors before going up to the fifth floor and I took this picture of the giant chandeliers.

We watched a little television before drifting off to another restless night. Again, I could hear every little thing that went on around us. Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep.

***Up next: Pictures of the nasty room!

 

[aaaateamsgrandma]

Hot Springs beats the Holiday Inn in West Plains for a honeymoon. Now on to the washcloths. Not only would Don have cut them up, when I checked out the next day I would have taken them with me to the desk and thanked them for the washcloths. Let them figure that out.

How can something so pretty be so nasty

 

[FairyGodmotherJen]

Gotta say one thing first.....I saw that I typed "mess hanging organizer thing" when it should have been "mesh" but it does hold our mess so I'm not changing it.

Ok, I completely knew what you were talking about and never would have guessed it was a typo! I think I've been reading your trip report too long!!

 

[mickeystoontown]

We awoke the next morning and knew that there were just one thing that we still wanted to do. That was to take the drive up the West Mountain Drive. The drive is up one of the mountains surrounding the city and you can see for miles. Other than that, there wasn't really anything.

We ate our breakfast of Ryan's cookies, two of which were sugar free. Wouldn't want to start the day off with too much sugar.

While John was in the shower using our handmade wash clothes, I took pictures of the room so I could document the room conditions. Since I hadn't been able to talk to hotel staff yet, I wanted to take pictures.

These are in random order. Sorry.

Entry wall wallpaper and baseboards. You can see drops of something on the paper and the dust on the baseboards.

Wires stapled around the door:

Facing the door. The left corner. Dirty baseboards and carpet.

Bugs on the ceiling. Yes, they were ladybugs but still bugs.

More ladybugs:

Corner sheetrock knocked off and dirty walls. This was about halfway up a wall.

The window:

You can't see it real well in the picture but there is a crack above this adjoining door:

Again, I can't get photobucket to rotate a picture. This is the adjoining door. You can see the dirt along the door facing (on the left but it's on the bottom in the picture).

Scuffed furniture. I understand some scuffing but not this much scuffing.

Continued in next post

 

[mickeystoontown]

The phone wires were enclosed in a metal tube thing. It had rust all over it:

You can't see it real well but there are cracks in the wall:

Large black marks on the dresser wall:

Torn wallpaper in the entry, dirty wall and baseboard:

Another picture of the wallpaper. You can see how long the tear/peeling was and how wrinkly the paper was. Again, I can't rotate the picture.

Looking down at the entry wall:

Large spot on the carpet in front of the bathroom. I don't know if you can see it or not but there were strands of the carpet coming up on the edge:

Large crack in the bathroom ceiling:

Closer look at bathroom ceiling crack:

Ladybug on the bathroom ceiling. There was another one in the other corner.

Dirty marked up entry wall:

Another scuffed dirty wall:

Again, photobucket's not letting me rotate the pictures. You can see the dirt all around the door:

Continued in next post

 

[mickeystoontown]

A few bathroom pictures. Busted wall corner.

Closer but a little blurry and not rotated:

This unrotated picture is behind the bathroom door on the righthand side. They apparently repaired the sheet rock but didn't smooth it out. Just painted over the big blobs of sheet rock mud. You can also see hair on the wall.

And one more of a bedroom wall and the dirty baseboard:

I have a lot more but these give you a general idea of the dirty room. I have written the Arlington general manager a lengthy letter giving them a little piece of my mind. I also burned a CD for him with all 50+ pictures of the room.

 

[mickeystoontown]

I found two more dirty room pictures. In the first one you can see the dust on the baseboards much better than in the first blurry picture I posted:

The entry wall again (looking from the bedroom towards the door):

Again, these are just some of the pictures I took.

 

[aaaateamsgrandma]

Lisa that is awful. You know what they are going to do don't you? Give you your next time free. I know you can't wait to go back. I don't know how I would have handled that but I know the room wasn't cheap (that would be under 45$). Even that is too high from the looks of it. My brother the shriner goes there every year and they must be in renovated rooms cause he says it's really nice. Or he's a man and pays no attention. Although this is the pickiest man I know.

Did you take a shower with socks on? I have antique furniture that has not been redone that is in better shape than that.

All I can say is I'm glad you and John can have a great time despite your circumstances.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Lisa that is awful. You know what they are going to do don't you? Give you your next time free. I know you can't wait to go back. I don't know how I would have handled that but I know the room wasn't cheap (that would be under 45$). Even that is too high from the looks of it. My brother the shriner goes there every year and they must be in renovated rooms cause he says it's really nice. Or he's a man and pays no attention. Although this is the pickiest man I know.

Did you take a shower with socks on? I have antique furniture that has not been redone that is in better shape than that.

All I can say is I'm glad you and John can have a great time despite your circumstances.

It's pretty bad isn't it. The pictures simply do not do justice to how yucky it was. We paid $212 + for a two night stay. That's too much for what we were given.

Had we been in the room more than we were and had we been in town for longer, I would have stood in any length line at the front desk. As it was, we weren't in the room much. Thank goodness!

I figure the Arlington will offer me a free night's stay, just like you said. The only way I would do it is if they offered me one of the very best rooms available. I know that the floor we stayed had one of the better suites on it...the Ronald Reagan suite which was about 4 or 5 doors down from our's. So, I don't know what the best room would be.

 

[aaaateamsgrandma]

It's pretty bad isn't it. The pictures simply do not do justice to how yucky it was. We paid $212 + for a two night stay. That's too much for what we were given.

Had we been in the room more than we were and had we been in town for longer, I would have stood in any length line at the front desk. As it was, we weren't in the room much. Thank goodness!

I figure the Arlington will offer me a free night's stay, just like you said. The only way I would do it is if they offered me one of the very best rooms available. I know that the floor we stayed had one of the better suites on it...the Ronald Reagan suite which was about 4 or 5 doors down from our's. So, I don't know what the best room would be.

Isn't that sad that they think they get by with that? I would say a better room would be a clean one? I would ask for the best room in the house and meals. Then you and John will have a grand time and never leave your room.

 

[Mikes:)Mom]

OMG! That room is awful!! Let us know if you hear back from the manager. I'd love to hear what they had to say..