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High-end hotels: Give golf travelers a break, drop the ticky tack chargesThe easiest way to tell if you're in a high-end hotel isn't to check the thread count on the sheets, the plushness of the pillows or the swiftness of the room service. No, the surest sign is to check how much you're paying for an Internet connection. If it's at least $10.99 or, more routinely these days, $14.99, you're in a hotel that thinks pretty highly of itself. If it's a $30-a-day, no-chance-to-decline resort fee, you're living large. Or at least shareholders in the hotel's parent company are living large off you. Welcome to the ticky tack zone of nice hotels. The better the resort and the more expensive the room rate, the more likely it's going to hit guests with more hidden surcharges than a third-rate credit card. Stay in a Hampton Inn or similar chain where the rooms are often as nondescript as those in a nursing home and you get more freebies than a Hollywood Starlet collecting Oscar gift bags. Your Internet access comes with the basic room rate, as does a breakfast buffet and parking. In a 4- or 5-star hotel, all that can easily set you back another $60 a night. It's the bane of fine-thing-loving golf travelers who pay their own way (something I'm not going to pretend travel writers do). It's also as absurd as Michelle Wie ever being compared to Tiger Woods. Do you think providing guests with Internet costs a four- or five-star luxury hotel any more than it does a Fairfield Inn? Better hotels hit their guests with ticky tack charges because they're confident their customers are just going to shut up and take it.From the wonderful beach-hugging resorts of Hawaii, to the Mickey Mouse palaces and golf resorts of Florida, to (gasp!) even Canada's nature wonderlands of Whistler and the Okanagans, the places you dream of staying charge you extra for every little thing they can think of while you dream. Filmmaker Michael Moore may swoon in envy of Canada's universal health care, but when it comes to ticky tack luxury hotel charges, our neighbors to the north are in the same boat as us. It's time for the intelligence insults to stop, though, time for the high-end chains to show as much respect for their financially comfortable guests as a Best Western does for their budget ones.Great hotels need to rise above low-down charges. As always, TravelGolf.com welcomes your comments.
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Revive With Five |
Stay at Mystic Dunes Resort & Golf Club and play Mystic Dunes Golf Club, Orange Lake Golf Resort - The Legends, Hawk's Landing Golf Club, Ridgewood Lakes Golf Club and Orange Co. National - Crooked Cat starting at $402.00. For more information, please call 1-800-767-3574 or click here. |
A thriving real estate market and golf courses such as Prescott Lakes Golf Club are turning Prescott, Arizona into a happening golf retirement community. In fact, U.S. News & World Report just ranked Prescott as one of its 10 best spots to retire in America. How is this changing things in this laid-back Arizona town? Not too much, actually, except for the fact that real estate prices are continuing to surge.
Tip: Heading to Arizona to golf? Check out these package deals
Residents find the finer things in life at the Rarity Rivers in Dayton, TennesseeRarity Rivers is a planned community with all the benefits of small-town America. Dayton, Tenn. enjoys good schools and a low crime rate and the area offers a diverse economy with a wealth of employment opportunities surrounded by scenic farmland, lakes and bluffs. A nationally recognized championship golf course designed by Pete and P.B. Dye Golf adds a note of pure pleasure to life at Rarity Rivers. |