When will you be taking the jet out again?

So the weekend in Santa Barbara turned out to be a weekend at the Four Seasons Biltmore in Santa Barbara. Talk about great service. I was asked my name by the valet guy and for the rest of the weekend I was "Mr. Montgomery" to everyone I came into contact with. So, we checked in and were told we would be staying in a deluxe room. That sounded nice. After checking in we headed off to our room. Vanessa opened the door... but the safety latch caught and we could only open it 2 inches. So that was the first problem. The second problem was someone was in our shower. WTF?

We closed the door and walked about 10 feet to a house phone in the hallway. I explained the problem and they were stuttering. Sounds like this doesn't happen often. After making our way back to the lobby they apologized many times, bought us drinks (non-alcohol for Vanessa) and had us wait in the bar while they sorted it out. No problem. Drinking wine, looking at the beach, relaxing. So the problem was they didn't have another Deluxe Room with a king bed. The solution... an upgrade to a Deluxe Cottage Suite. Actually that was around 7 upgrades. So the room was in a private cottage, 1,100 square feet, 2 plasma screens, a full size living room, fireplace, two bathrooms with a rain shower, 2 person bathtub, steam shower, heated floors, etc, etc, etc. After we got home I checked... $2,040 a night. Wow. My company also provided $100 cash and $200 of hotel credit. Not bad.

So while waiting to get our car from the valet to go to dinner, there was a father and daughter standing in front of us. She had her boyfriend with her who was dressed like a slob and I can only imagine the father isn't a fan of. So while waiting for their car I thought I heard him say something to his daughter, but I but it didn't seem realistic, so I figured I heard it wrong. Then, when the fathers Maybach ($380,000 car) rolled up, I realized I did hear him right. He was wondering when she was going to have a chance to take the jet out again. I can't believe people actually live this way.

Over the 2 days we spent the $100 on dinner, lunch, and a trip to the local zoo. The room credit went towards a $74 room service breakfast the first day (crazy, I know) and a $23 tab at the bar the second afternoon. We had $103 left. More on that later.

The company had a nice dinner with an open bar, 5 course dinner with venison, pinot noir grapes, and a bunch of other really good food that I can't remember. They even had Flamenco dancers to entertain us. Vanessa and I sat with one of the top guys from Daphnes Greek Cafe. Great night.

So the next morning we had $103 of room credit and nothing to spend it on. So we decided to have a $105 room service breakfast. How many times in your life do you get to stay in a $2,040 hotel room and eat a $100 breakfast? What do you get for $105 you ask? an omelet, fresh fruit, pancakes, and hot chocolate. Yep, that's it. The whole weekend cost us $2 plus gas. Not bad.