Your child found what?

So frankly, when the casual mention of a condom wrapper found under the bed skirt of our Marriott room as I checked us out got us %25 off our Disneyland hotel, I pretty much thought that was our "good luck" for the trip. Boy was I wrong.

I'd found the Park Manor Inn in San Diego when looking for efficiencies (with kitchen), and while it got good reviews, looked generally nice on screen, I was not expecting to walk the "historical site" to be quite so lovely.

On check-in, I discovered that our king bed suite with a murphy bed was instead a queen bed with a pull-out couch, and that the hotel was just about booked solid for the night. The manager noted that one of the few available rooms happened to be the room next door (a studio rather than a suite) and it had a king in it. All well and good, but it did not have a couch or pull-out bed, so no place for Kieran to sleep (the kids performs acrobatics all night long and there is no way any of us would get sleep with all 4 of us in the same bed. The managers solution to this problem (so that we would not be inconvenienced by having to swap rooms during our four day stay here)? Why don't we just keep both suite and studio for our stay since they are adjoining (yippy skippy !!!). So we are hoteling it with 2 full bathrooms, 2 bedrooms, 2 kitchens, and and two tvs (and 800+ square feet). Talk about being spoiled. Did I mention that our rooms overlook Balboa Park, that we have 1 of 6 balconies out of eighty some rooms (of course we are not using it much as Akira can fit right through the bars - yikes). We can see the planes coming in to land at the airport looking huger than huge. All the rooms are old school (Chip & Dale furniture, beautiful gilded mirrors, incredible carved tables, upholstered chairs). Don't look too closely of course, as the guilt mirror might be artfully attached to the wall with 3 inch drywall screws, and the upholstered chair caves under ones butt (the springs are as old as the hotel). Named a San Diego Historical landmark by the city in the year hrmph-hmmm-numnina, the charm is there - as long as you don't look to closely.

Its gorgeous. Lovely. Spacious. Not sure if I'll ever want to stay in a regular hotel again.