From: guthrie@nb.rockwell.com (Karen Guthrie)
Subject: Re: Setting expectations (again)
Organization: Rockwell International
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 19:39:31 GMT


In article <C0qw8J.Muo@apollo.hp.com>, nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson) writes:
> 
> 
>    I hardly got any response to my earlier question on this 
>    so I'm trying again in a shorter form.
> 
>    On our recent trip to Huahine, Bora Bora, and Moorea
>    ("Tahiti") we had a good time except that the hotels
>    we stayed in (Sofitels) were truly awful by the standards
>    of fine international hotels, especially at their prices:
>    $200 - $300+ a night.    Yet all our guide books raved
>    about them and in many tour companies' price guides they
>    were always in the best (and most expensive) categories
>    in the islands.
> 
>    My question is:  Could we have gotten our expectations set better?  
> 
>    What's the right philosophy to have once you're in that
>    situation?   How do you keep from becoming an Ugly American,
>    ranting and raving at the hotel management?  How do you
>    keep from muttering and cursing as you smear DEET (mosquito
>    repellant) over every inch of your body and trying to sleep
>    on top of sweat-soaked, sandy, same-sheets-as-yesterday 
>    and thinking "I'm paying $250 a night for this?!"
> 
>    Some guests, especially the Europeans, who were just as 
>    scratching and bitten-up and bleary-eyed the next morning 
>    as we were, nonetheless seemed to have a better attitude.  
>    How do they do this?  
> 
> 
> ---peter
> 
Firstly it helps to remember that the US is one of the most affluent
countries in the world and so you can't get it just like back home
unless you stay back home or severely limit your travel destinations.
The guide books are often written by people who have been in that 
location for a long time and may be more used to heat and mosquitos 
than you are.  When I travel I try to look for a time of the year 
when I can get the type of climate I like.  I also hate heat but I 
can't always miss it.  Two summers ago we went to the south of france
and my frequently air conditioned american hide suffered plenty.  I 
asked a shop keeper (it was September and probably 100F) if it was 
ALWAYS this hot at this time of the year and she said that it was
cool compared with a month ago.  (Just glad I wasn't there a month
before).  I also didn't want to pay what air conditioned rooms would
have cost me and I forget that all hotel rooms were not created with
an air conditioner and usually forget to ask.  High expectations are
always a downer; how do you to ever exceed that.  One of the best
stops I ever made was in Nepal and we stayed in a $11 room where you
weren't sure if the sheets had *ever* been washed BUT I didn't know
anything about what I was going to see as it was a destination of 
my husbands choice.  It was so different and the people were so nice
and we even saw wild rhinos from the back of an elephant.  Oh I do
complain but only to my husband and I do enjoy getting back to ice
and air conditioning and food that is what I thought it would be but
the memories of my jaunts into the unknown are some of my most prized
posessions.  One trick that I have found over the years is not to go
anywhere where the price of living is so high that it is all you think 
about.  AND don't stay in acomodations that are vastly lower in standard
than you can tollerate.  AND don't be afraid to go hotel shopping and 
change if you don't like what you have.  Not that there would have been
what you thought you were getting but you may have been happier with a
room that was inland a little and air conditioned.  

Best of Luck,

Karen
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