[Magdalen] home from Chicago

[Roger Stokes]

Having stayed at a number of hotels in US cities check-in is where 
queues can develop as the receptionist needs to check the details of the 
guest, swipe their card for pre-authorisation and (hopefully) get the 
room card coded properly. (The magnetic strip wears out and I have had 
occasions when neither card I have been given works when I get to the 
room.) Often the itemised bill for incidentals is pushed under the door 
on the last night so interaction with the clerk at the desk is only 
needed if there is a dispute over some item on the bill. It certainly 
makes it much easier to get on your way.

Roger

On 12/07/2017 22:26, Scott Knitter wrote:
> Yes, at some point hotel owners realized all that's really needed at
> checkout is to get the key back, and not really even that if it's just a
> plastic card (although re-using them is the norm). You can let the guest
> just leave and all is settled using the credit card (and the funds
> initially put on hold) that was swiped at check-in.
>
> The Palmer House redid a lot of the restaurant and retail space to be more
> attuned to modern customers and less a sad reminder of realities that are
> no more (closed, empty shops; tired cafes, abandoned little corners and
> corridors). They upscaled their main restaurant...made it all look
> livelier. And the check-in/check-out desk is rather small. I think it used
> to be a long, long counter at which many lines of guests could wait.
>
> There's really nothing like that lobby...I usually find a way to take
> visitors through it even if we're on our way to somewhere else and there
> isn't a real reason to enter the Palmer House. :)
>
> On Wed, Jul 12, 2017 at 1:25 PM, Cantor03--- via Magdalen <
> magdalen at herberthouse.org> wrote:
>
>>
>> In a message dated 7/12/2017 2:07:14 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
>> revcphillips at gmail.com writes:
>>
>>>   Imagine the Palmer House filled with (mainly) men in various
>> configurations>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> For many decades the Palmer House was the headquarters for the
>> annual meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology. always
>> timed around the first weekend in Advent.
>>
>> It had become a bit frayed  by the mid-1970's, and the meeting
>> was moved out of Chicago to a variety of locales across the USA.
>> I am happy to hear that there has been some refurbishing, and that
>> it's sister hotel over on S. Michigan, the Conrad Hilton, has been
>> similarly updated.
>>
>> That style with red brick lower stories and limestone upper stories
>> was very much the norm for good hotels in the 1920's and 1930's
>> so much so that they fairly recently built a hotel in this retro style  in
>> Minneapolis.
>>
>> I do have memories of the rather awful tedium of checking out
>> of the Palmer House after the derm meeting before the advent
>> of computerization.  It was a nightmare, with long lines at all  the
>> check out locations, and much arguing between hotel personnel
>> and patrons checking out.
>>
>>
>>
>> David S.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>