Bed Bugs - Fun For The Whole Family!

R.a.n.t. of week 03/10/13
A few weeks back I was complaining about a trip to a water park called the Wilderness. To be fair, it was a rather silly complaint. However, in that r.a.n.t, I mentioned another problem I've had with the same location. Following is the rant I promised.

Wanting to have one last family trip with my father who's battling with cancer, we opted for the Wilderness. As all of us siblings (5 of us) have children, a water park was an ideal place. We rented two 3-Room 'condos' to accommodate our entire family. However we ran into two problems, the second only discovered because of the first. It was a four day trip, but my son started to get sick on the second day. We did what we could to help him feel better, hoping he was just exhausted from too much fun. He was sent to bed early that day but we made sure to keep checking on him. In the evening, after we returned to the room where he was resting (my step-mother sat with him during the day), I went to check on him again along with my sister. It was then she spotted something on the sheets. With him now getting worse, he was burning up and that just rang the dinner bell for the bed bugs. Upon closer inspection, we counted at least ten. If those were the ones we could actually see, how many were there we couldn't? Immediately we had him get up, shower and change clothes. The rest of us were mortified and the rest of the trip was shot.

As a side note, this transpired a few months before I was going on my European vacation (Not with Chevy Chase). Can you imagine how I felt each night as I slept in yet another new bed? Bed bugs were continually on my mind. If it wasn't hoping I didn't sleep in another bed bug filled bed, it was fear that despite my precautions, I might have brought some home from the Wilderness and while I was travelling abroad they were multiplying in my bed at home waiting for me. But I digress, back to the story...

We called housekeeping, the front desk and anyone else from the staff who would listen to us. They offered us another room, but by this time I didn't want to stick around. Plus I wanted to take my sick son home and get him resting in his own bedbug free bed.

Bonus Photo

A week after my Wilderness visit, the bed bug bites began to show (which is the typical length of time). I circled them all in green marker. Sorry for the poor photo.

Do you feel my family should have been compensated? If so, how?

Laodicean Tub

R.a.n.t. of week 02/10/13

As those who are fairly close to me know, or if you keep up with me on Twitter or Facebook, I've been trying to lose some weight. Usually this consists of weekly Weight Watcher meetings, food tracking and attending Blast Fitness where I mostly run the track. After my time at the gym is complete, I like to sit in the steam room for a few minutes. Once in a while, I like to treat myself to sitting in the hot tub, as I did last night. Right away you are certainly thinking how miserable and awful it must have been. Au contraire mon frere, it was the one highlight of the evening. But as I sat there I got to thinking of my recent visit to the Wilderness of this past weekend. I've had problems with this place in the past (see bedbugs in a future r.a.n.t.) but I was willing to give this place another fair shake. I'm happy to report, overall the trip was good. Cue the ranting bit.

Why is it there must always be a dozen or so kids in the hot (cough) tub at any given moment? It's bad enough the water was lukewarm at best, but to deal with the rugrats on top of it. Why was the water lukewarm? It seems people like to have the section leading to the outside, open, even in the dead of winter. And it was a popular place indeed. I'm not so sure what the appeal was, but people love it. So I can't really fault the Wilderness for that. What's interesting to note is the lifeguards came within 30 seconds whenever a child younger than six was in the pool with its parent, to shoo them out. What about the other kids? They have an entire water park designed just for them. But no, one little girl wants to do flips in the hot tub. One little boy wants to practice his breast stroke. Another child looked like he was considering a cannonball if not for my stern look. And kids don't know how to simply walk from one end of the tub to the other, they must splash and spray everyone they pass. It half made me wish a 'hot tub time machine' actually existed. No, not for me, for the kids. Nothing would have delighted me more than to transport every single child a week into the past.