A while ago, while we were planning our bike trip, Spencer’s mom asked us if we would consider doing some fundraising for one of their neighbours. The lady’s son was born with DiGeorge Syndrome, which caused a severe heart defect. Baby Wyatt is just over a year old, and he’s already had three open heart surgeries and countless other medical procedures.
We agreed to raise some money and get people to sponsor us for our ride to Montreal. I am hoping we can raise $1000, and all proceeds will go towards Wyatt’s family and the Cardiology Department at The Hospital for Sick Children, through the SickKids Foundation.
I think it’s a great cause, and it really makes the trip to Montreal a lot more meaningful. It also puts a lot more pressure on us to actually go the distance. A lot of people have been very generous, making donations and offering support, which is great. If you are interested in helping out, contact me and we’ll make arrangements.
A few months back, two friends and I decided we should go on a bicycle trip to Montreal. We did some searching around, and found a cool website by a guy who’s gone on a number of bike trips, including one from Toronto to Montreal. He has a great route mapped out that we are going to use as the basis for our trip. We figure it will take us 4-5 days, which will cover about 600km.
It will be a lot of hard work, and I’m sure there will be some challenges along the way, but I think it will be a great accomplishment and a lot of fun. We’re heading out on June 27th, hoping to make it into Montreal on Canada Day so we can celebrate and party for a couple of days before we head home.
I’ve been doing some training over the past months, but I’m going to really step it up in the coming weeks. I’m at a point where I know I can ride 50km in a day, but I haven’t pushed myself farther than that yet. We’re hoping to average close to 150km per day on the trip, so we’re going to start doing longer rides in preparation.
I haven’t done much riding this week, because of bad weather and my bike is currently in pieces. I’m doing a bit of a mini-overhaul and trying to make the mountain bike a bit more road-friendly, since most of our route will be roads and bike paths.
Continuing where I left off last week, I recently sent off a letter to David Kong, the president and CEO of Best Western International. In this letter, I explained the situation we experienced while we stayed at the Best Western in Nashville, and asked for his help resolving the matter. Most people told me not to expect much to come from it, but I definitely hoped for some sort of positive outcome.
During the first week of February, I received a letter from Best Western International. It wasn’t from the president directly, but from Greg Trotter, who is manager of Customer Care. According to the letter I received, Mr. Kong was made aware of our situation and the issues we faced while in Nashville. In the reply, I received an apology for the poor service, as well as some comments about how Best Western strives to provide excellent service and value for all of its customers.
Mr. Trotter went on to explain that he’s aware travelers have a lot of options available when selecting accomodations, and he hopes we will consider staying at a Best Western again in the future. To make things right, he is sending me a check for $80 (Canadian) to cover the cleaning fee and is also sending me a Best Western travel card worth $25.
Best Western locations are all independently owned and operated, so I can see why, despite their best efforts, the level of service provided is not always up to par. It sucks that I had to write a letter to the president to get any sort of help, but I am happy with the way they handled the situation and the end result. My faith in Best Western International has been restored, but I don’t think I’ll stay at their Nashville location again.
Back when we visited Nashville last November, we stayed at the Best Western and had a lot of problems. We were treated poorly, they lost our property and we were overcharged, which resulted in a shitty Best Western experience.
Everything was fine from Friday until we came back to our room Sunday afternoon and our keys wouldn’t open the door. We went down to the front desk to inquire, and they informed us we had been checked out and were facing a $200 fee to clean our room. There really wasn’t a big mess at all, and we arranged to clean the room ourselves if they would remove the ridiculous charges. We spent ten minutes cleaning, which is all it took to get the room up to Best Western’s standards. The head housekeeper inspected everything and agreed it was up to par. We later heard there would still be a $75 fee, which we could discuss with the manager the next day.
Monday morning arrived, we got up at 6:30am and got packed up and ready to leave for home. We complained about the $75 fee, but the people at the front desk claimed they couldn’t do anything about it. We kept getting bounced around while they gave us names of different people who could supposedly help us. It was very unprofessional.
We contacted the valet to get our car, and he couldn’t find the keys. After about half an hour of searching, they realized they had lost our car keys. They called in a locksmith who was able to cut us a new key in under ten minutes. When he tried to start the car, it just clicked, since they left the ignition switch in the accessory position, which drained the battery overnight. This was actually the second key they’d lost that week. The first one was a fancy Mercedes key that cost Best Western over $800 to have cut and delivered.
At this point, we were pretty pissed off. We were being overcharged for no reason, they lost our car keys and killed the battery in the car we were about to drive 1200km home in. We decided at this point we would wait for the general manager, David Legg to show up.
We hung out with the other valet, Tony (the one who didn’t lose our keys). He was a cool guy, and he really helped us pass the time until David Legg finally showed up at 8:30. David knew we were waiting to speak with him, since he was called several times that morning by front desk staff. Still, he made us wait a good 20 minutes until he came to talk to us. David Legg was a total arrogant prick. We went and looked at the room, which was spotless, and he basically told us we were lucky he let us stay there the additional night. He definitely wouldn’t drop the charges on our bill.
After some time discussing/arguing with him, Adam (the car owner) told Mr. Legg he wanted to be compensated for the damage to his vehicle. Once Leggers saw there was potential for some trouble, he changed his tune and told us he would drop the $75 charge if we didn’t pursue any car-related damages. He basically said we’d just call it even, which is all we wanted in the first place.
We should have insisted upon getting a new receipt printed right on the spot, showing the adjusted bill, but we trusted the dirtbag. Once we were back home in Ontario, I checked my credit card bill to find I had been charged the full amount.
About two weeks after we returned home, I was in contact with David Legg who said he would get back to me “within half a day”. I still haven’t heard back from him. I talked to Best Western customer support, who weren’t very helpful, but they did at least contact the Nashville location to get a statement. In the end, I paid the bill.
A couple weeks ago, I got all riled up about the issue again, and decided to write a letter to David Kong, the president and CEO of Best Western International. I’ve had pretty good success with my letters in the past, so I really hoped something good could come out of this.
While in Nashville a few weeks back, we saw a great band from Philadelphia called Hoots and Hellmouth play at The Basement after my girlfriend Amy LaVere was done her set. These crazy guys play some great music and really entertained the crowd with their harmonies and unique sound.
I’ve heard their lineup changes, depending on when and where they are playing. At this particular show, they had two guitarists, an upright bassist and a guy playing a mandolin. They also brought in these big sheets of plywood with tambourines attached to them, which acted as some really cool stomping platforms. Take a look:
Check out this little video clip I took with my digital camera:
