By You have to have a little drama at a Blissdom 09 conference right? I got to take part in that bit’o fun on Saturday night. Let me put this into perspective first.
We stayed in the Hotel Preston in Nashville TN for our conference. Our rooms were lovely and beds were comfortable. We didn’t have to walk forever to get to our conference sessions. However….when it came to the elevators…there was much to be desired.
There were 2 very small elevators for the entire hotel. After each session of our conference you had to line up…and I mean line up… to wait for a ride to your room. Picture 200 woman waiting to get on 2 small elevators. Do you think that as in most situations when those elevator doors opened…you put only 7 people (which I guess was posted on the inside of the door, but I never saw until after our most unforgettable moment of Blissdom)in at a time or would you get as many as you could fit on the elevator so others wouldn’t have to wait so long? (yep….you pile in)
So now fast forward to Saturday night after waiting for these elevators for 2 days…we finished up the Girls Night Out party (lots of fun…thank you!!) and headed to the elevators. Doors opened and everyone got on. Ali and I were the last two and they invited us in and said they would make room. We had started the decent up and all of a sudden we had the floor drop out from under us for a moment. It was enough that 13 woman screamed in unison! Then the realization that we were stuck hit pretty quick when we weren’t moving and the doors weren’t opening. Hello???!!
The one closest to the elevator phone …Heather …did as we have always heard you should do and tried to call the front desk for help. She was getting no answer. So the next step was to call the front desk. We had one calling a friend in the hotel from her cell phone and asking her to go and tell the front desk we were stuck….another one looking up the number of Hotel Preston on her phone and someone else calling the front desk directly, and I do think there were a couple people twitting for help. I on the other hand pulled out my handy dandy little Flip camera that I just got and decided to film a bit. Not any help in the moment of crisis…..but fun now that we are all safe and back home.
We had 13 people packed like sardines into this elevator (limit 7 people….but we were under the 2400 lb weight limit and that is what really matters.) There were lights that were sooooo hot glaring down on us.
Listen carefully to what was being said by some…sounds like we were going to have a little hoopla for the dirty bloggers (thank you Chris Mann for asking who writes the dirty blogs) to blog about!!
Emotions ranged from laughing and trying to keep things light to fear for some. Although we were between the basement and first floor…being packed into a tight space with little fresh air and hot lights beating down on you can really do a number on someone who is the least bit claustrophobic and some who maybe didn’t even think they were claustrophobic. I think the unknown of how long we were going to be in there also can do a number on your head. Ali and I were right by the doors and they were a little cooler. After we had been standing there for a little bit we offered to move and give others a chance to be where it may be cooler. I intended to be the one to move because other than sweat flowing freely down my otherwise non existent cleavage (Ali…I think you really should have won that award for best cleavage at Blissdom!!) I was fine. But as it worked out the woman that came up front was closer to Ali. It worked like a Rubik’s cube to try and move. You couldn’t move into that slot until someone else moved first.
Here is the video Blog roll of the now famous (and watch Heather’s Queen of Shake Shake’s blog because she is working on the getting the movie deal for us….we have to figure out who would play our parts best….you can leave your suggestions for that in the comments!!) elevator 13!!
In this next clip we are like close to 40 minutes into it and still trying to stay cheerful…notice how shiny we all are….ok….we were glistening (as one put it in the elevator) just a bit!! Nah….we were sweating like pigs!!
Oh….the pregnant woman that was so claimed we had with us….we did. But she was not birthing twins as we were stuck in that elevator as was rumored…and we weren’t on the 120th floor and no Chris Mann was not with us…darn it…heck, we would have been happy to be stuck in there for even longer if he was.)….she is however 3 months pregnant…Miss Ali of Alidotes! (Love ya roomie!!
When we pressed the button to try and find out what was going on, we would get a response….but they weren’t real good at checking on our status inbetween…and I don’t think they were at all excited to hear from us when they did…I think they were a little scared of the hormones of 13 woman trapped in an elevator to want to talk to us much….
We were told that the elevator man had been called…and was working on it. When he first got there he opened the basement doors and we caught a glimpse of him….not sure what he got glimpses of..but he never spoke to us (again…I think very afraid of us) . He just closed the door without a word and kept on working. We felt him or someone (evidently the manager was also helping) on top of the elevator…little scary, as we were being bounced around a bit at that point as they were working on things. We didn’t know that the elevator won’t fall (of course the next day I talked to my hubby who says they can’t fall….even if you cut the cable there are safety mechanisms in place in the walls that will stop the elevator from falling….But as I told him…but we only see what is in movies and they fall in the movies!!)
I am still waiting 2 days later to hear back from the manager who had to talk to his manager who had to talk to someone else to see if they were going to do anything to try and turn this “not so lovely experience and memory of their Hotel” into at some form of a positive experience. Wouldn’t you think it would be worth it to them to keep bloggers on the positive side for their Hotel’s reputation?
Here is a brief glimpse of our freedom. We had no idea when the doors were going to open, so my purse being on the floor almost flattened Ali as she tripped over it getting out. (Thank goodness I didn’t hurt the pregnant lady!!
Here is the blog roll of who was on this adventure:
1) Heather at Queen of Shake Shake
2) Jennifer at Playgroups are No Place for Children
3) Victoria at V-Dog
4) Heather at The Spohrs are Multiplying
5) Emily at DesignHER Momma
6) Amy at Amy in Ohio
7) Hebba at JeepGirl17
8) Shannan at Mommy Bits
9) Ali at Blessed Treehous
10) Jenny at Mommin’ It Up
11) Dawn at Kaiser Alex
12) Cortney at Once a Month Mom
13) That would be me!!
Visit their blogs and say hello!! I will be posting more pleasant things about Blissdom 09 and best zero turn mower for your big lawn soon because I did have a great time. We got to hear some amazing singers and I learned so much!!!! But I had several people who really wanted to see these exclusive videos!!! (Maybe I will have ET tonight or Oprah knocking on my door? Yah think???)
Update as of 7pm Monday – The general manager did call me. He was only on his 4th day of general manager of this hotel. (But to get that title I am sure he has been in the business a long time and has experience dealing with problems). He is going to have some training for his employees and has a meeting scheduled with the elevator company and owners. I suggested a sign on the outside of the elevators mentioning how many people should get on. Of course it has nothing to do with the number of people, but the weight limit – which he agreed with.
He offered me a very small discount to my bill to free pass to big best above ground pool, which I ended up telling him was basically insulting. I told him that it would be like a restaurant giving you your coke when your meal had been ruined. He did add a little more that I still think was insufficient to try and keep a customer happy and feel happy about hotel, but what can I say. (Personally I think the bill should have been completely comped…but maybe I am being unrealistic myself.) He did call and is going to make some changes that will hopefully keep it from happening again and keep future clients happy.
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