Saturday, August 23, 2008

Guest Blogger

My guest blogger never did sit down to tell our story, so you're getting it from me.

We left our home in suburban Las Vegas on Friday morning, August 8th, headed for Orange County. An uneventful drive, for sure.

We checked into our hotel at around two in the afternoon and were given warm chocolate chip cookies at check-in. We went about our afternoon activities; shopping, movie, dinner, watched the Olympics on TV and turned in early. We were in bed at 9:00pm and asleep by 9:15pm.

Just after 11:00pm, the fire alarm in our room went off. Ana slept right through it. I woke her up and she was annoyed at the loud noise. She thought I was crazy when I asked her if she was wearing pants. (Not everyone wears pants to bed and I didn't know which camp she was in.) She was, indeed, wearing pants. I told her to get up and put her shoes on and grab a sweatshirt.

We followed all the proper protocols for escaping from a hotel fire. We're from Las Vegas, so this is kind of a big deal based on this fire and this one only three months later.

We evacuated the hotel by walking down seven flights of stairs. I found it ironic that I actually paid extra to stay on a higher floor! We spent about 15 minutes out in the parking lot before we were given the 'all clear' to re-enter the building.

It turns out someone on the 7th floor (ours!) decided to have a romantic evening. They had scattered rose petals all over their hotel room and lit many, many candles. The many, many candles resulted in lots and lots of smoke, which set off the fire alarm AND the sprinklers in their room.

Guests on other floors were able to return to their rooms and head back to bed. Because our floor was involved in 'the incident', it was the last to be cleared, so we spent almost an hour out of our room hanging out in the lobby.

I heard the front desk clerk say the responsible party would be billed for this!!

How much does it cost to evacuate the top three floors of a hotel, anyway?

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