Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Thrift drives the nation tomorrow


This is the lobby of the Drury Plaza Hotel in downtown San Antonio, which is where I'm staying on this lovely fall evening. It was built in 1929 as Alamo National Bank, which must've been an interesting time to open a bank. In light of our current economic doldrums, I'm rather taken with the slogans on either side of the stained glass rendering of the Alamo.

I've never stayed at a Drury before, but I like their "extras aren't extra" mentality. They serve an above-average free breakfast in the morning with real scrambled eggs and pancakes along with more healthy options like fruit and cereal.

They give you three free mixed drinks, pretzels, nachos and rabbit food with ranch dressing during happy hour. I had a Tom Collins with a beer chaser before cutting myself off. You also get free soft drinks and popcorn until 10 at night, which beats paying $1.50 for a can of soda pop. The $18 per day parking fee is tough to swallow, but it's par for the course around here.

Together with free wi-fi and an hour of free domestic long distance per day, you don't need an investment banker's expense account to lodge comfortably here.

2 comments:

Kate said...

Did you take this photo, or use one of their stock pictures? Because mid-October seems a little early for Christmas decorations.

Greg said...

I used a photo I found on a travel website because I didn't have a camera with me yesterday.

As for Christmas coming early, our neighborhood Target already has a row of Christmas stuff next to its Halloween section. And I think that's just sad.