The HotelTonight Dream Team

   
We’re a hard-working, ambitious and fun crew with a big vision and a huge goal of making the world more spontaneous and exciting. We’re the kind of group that shares our awkward/dated childhood photos for a laugh. Meet the team:
 

Sam

Role: CEO

Favorite hotel amenity: Free WiFi

Travel fail: Showing up at JFK for a flight a full month early. Rolled in on Wed, Feb 7, when I booked the ticket I fat-fingered the month and booked for March, 7.

Travel win: Five-day road trip from SF to Chicago. Rule 1: Eat only fast food. Rule 2: Never eat at the same place twice. I had to dig deep, but I won.

Jared

Role: I’d be a Panda bear because they’re so cute and also so ferocious — sorry, what was the question?

Favorite hotel amenity: Breakfast buffet

Travel fail: Renting a van from the “off-airport” brand for a road trip through Chile. A tire blew out within half a mile of picking it up, several parts needed replacing at various locations and at various times of day and night throughout the trip, but the culmination was having to siphon out the oil/water mixture they had used to fill our oil tank (that means sucking it out, by the way). I rent at Hertz now.

Travel win: Flying home from Miami early in the morning, the woman next to me introduced herself and asked why I’d been traveling. After I told her, she said she had been in Miami for a Playboy test shoot on the beach. This woke me up, but not as much as later in the flight, when she asked if I would mind critiquing her portfolio. I politely agreed to help her out.

Chris

Role: CTO

Favorite hotel amenity: Free WiFi

Travel fail: Driving in circles around Florence for two hours trying to find our hotel. Then getting directions from a nice older gentleman, all in incomprehensible, rapid-fire Italian. Upon finally finding the street, we saw that there was construction all around the hotel. We eventually got checked in, only to find our room’s bathroom ceiling was caving in, among other issues in this supposedly nice hotel. We spent the next day in Pisa.

Travel win: After asking an Australian bus driver how to get to a certain beach, he told us to hop in, took us halfway, then radioed another bus to take us the rest of the way, right to the sand.

Adam

Role: Director, Mobile Marketing

Favorite hotel amenity: TVs in the bathroom!

Travel fail: Moving home from Australia, we found a great deal if we flew through Honolulu instead of LA or SF … then ATA filed chapter 11. What resulted was a 30 hour trip from Adelaide to Sydney to Honolulu to Seattle to Portland to Chicago in which neither my wife or I slept. To top it off, new US bag fees unknowingly went into affect that week resulting in an unexpected $300 just to get our stuff home.

Travel win: 5 pan-fried pork dumplings for $1! We found an amazing hole in the wall dumpling place in the lower east side of NYC. For my wife and I to be stuffed cost us only $4 and the dumplings were the best we’ve had on this side of the globe. So good, we made a completely out of the way second trip in pouring rain before heading to the airport.

Adam R.

Role: Production Coordinator 

Favorite hotel amenity: Breakfast buffet

Travel fail: Getting stuck in a gnarly Nebraska blizzard in the middle of the night while driving cross-country. After sliding off the road twice we decided to get a motel room. Turns out options in rural Nebraska are quite limited. The only place we could find was a truck stop motel, which the health inspector must have skipped town. Also found out my best friend had knowingly been using my toothbrush since Cleveland.

Travel win: Ballin’ on a budget while studying in Paris, especially my holiday break trip: Barcelona > Rome > Florence > Milan > Amsterdam > back to Paris for under €100 (Thank you, Ryanair and EasyJet).

Alisha

Role: Supply Analytics Manager

Favorite hotel amenity: Free bath products (the good stuff)

Travel fail: After spending the weekend in sunny Madrid, having my flight, train and tube line into London all delayed so that I reached my apartment almost 12 hours after I was supposed to. Worst part: Walking the last leg of the journey in the pouring rain with a one-wheel, gimpy roll-on.

Travel win: Talking our way into a luxury-suite upgrade on my first trip to Vegas, thanks to the maid who overflowed the toilet in our original room while cleaning.

Andrea

Role: Partner Development Manager

Favorite hotel amenity: I love it when my shoes are taken from me, only to be returned at the end of my stay, a la Soneva Gili in the Maldives

Travel fail: Spending eight hours in an immigration “jail” at London’s Gatwick Airport. Thank goodness they served tea and biscuits.

Travel win: Being upgraded from a lovely resort on Bora Bora to an even lovelier one on the island of Taha’a via a free private helicopter transfer from one island to the other.

Annie

Role: Manager, Market Strategy & Supply

Favorite hotel amenity: Free wireless

Travel fail: Waking up to a SWAT team raiding our hostel in New Zealand and discovering that we had just supported the largest drug-trafficking operation in the country.

Travel win: Visiting Bird Island in the Seychelles on a budget.

Antonin

Role: Country Market Manager

Favorite hotel amenity: Big sound system with mini jack connector… and good noise isolation!

Travel fail: Missing 2 planes in 1 day. I had a birthday party finishing very late, and an early plane the day after. Did the mistake to sleep ‘just’ for 2 hours and of course, I didn’t hear the alarm. I decided to stay in bed and to take another plane in the evening but I was stuck in a traffic jam on my way to the airport and I arrived 1 minute after they closed the check-in! It was the last plane of the day and I had to sleep in the airport. Since then, never missed a plane again.

Travel win: Road trip in campervan through Morocco & Sahara desert, end up fishing close by the Mauritanian border with some Bedouin kids who invited me to share a Saharan tea in their traditional tent. Amazing experience.

Barbara

Role: Strategic Partnerships

Favorite hotel amenity: Amazing gym and a plush robe

Travel fail: While suntanning in my bikini on the deck of a cruise ship in the Caribbean, a flock of seagulls sprayed me with white gooey stuff. I broke a speed record running for the shower.

Travel win: Successfully joining the polar bear club after a quick dip in the Arctic near the North Pole.

Beatriz

Role: Manager, Market Strategy & Supply

Favorite hotel amenity: Free happy hour with snacks and drinks

Travel fail: Ahhh… my first time in a US airport… Being totally lost in LAX, waiting in a long line to check in and when I finally got to check-in they told me “you have missed your plane.” It actually left two days before… Note: I should have double-checked the date.

Travel win: Booking a last minute holiday to Kenya only four days before departure, I got an amazing deal! I was, however, short in time to put all the mandatory vaccinations together…  After calling many doctors that refused to do it, I did manage to find a cheeky doctor that faked the vaccination dates so I could do a great safari!

Bryan

Role: Multilingual QA Localization Engineer

Favorite hotel amenity: Large bathrooms with multi-person showers

Travel fail: Eating a sketchy greasy enchilada from a rural Mexican restaurant before getting into a Jeep with no shock absorbers and driving for hours up a bumpy mountain road.

Travel win: I’m very tall and often find my knees jammed into the seat in front of me on planes. I was fortunate to have a friendly airport gate agent take pity on me and upgrade me to first class from Kansai, Japan to Canada. That would have been an expensive ticket!

Cameron

Role: Manager, Market Strategy & Supply

Favorite hotel amenity: Jacuzzi (aka The Cooz)

Travel fail: While traveling from Madrid to Barcelona for our 7am flight, my friends and I decided to take the subway at 2am instead of a taxi just before our flight. As it turned out, you couldn’t pass into any terminal until 5am, so we had to sleep on the cold, hard, tile floor for over 2 hours. Then when we were finally let into the terminal I found a booth in a closed restaurant, snuck in, curled up, and had some of the most relatively comfortable sleep I’ve ever gotten in my life!

Travel win: Taking a train from the Swiss town of Interlaken to the top of the highest railway station in Europe at the Jungfraujoch. The peak of the mountain had spectacular views of all of Switzerland, clouds that rolled in on a moment’s notice, and dizzying altitude!

Charles

Role: Head of Support

Favorite hotel amenity: Room service and king-size beds

Travel fail: Getting stopped on a train at the Latvian/Russian border with a visa that was not valid for another hour. We had set the visa to the arrival date, not the border-crossing date. The border patrol (at least 12 of them) took our passports and disappeared for nearly an hour — and threatened to throw us off the train! Luckily, they took so long that by the end of their debate our visas were valid and we were allowed to continue.

Travel win: Scoring four rooms at a $99 rate on New Years Eve one block from Central Park. My room had roof access through the window that the hotel attempted, but failed, to nail down, so we moved our party to the roof ‘til the early morning.

Chas

Role: Senior Product Developer

Favorite hotel amenity: Really hot shower

Travel fail: Thinking I was touching a nice hand-made alpaca blanket in a small market in Quito, Ecuador, then realizing I was actually rubbing the little old lady who was bent over folding some socks at her booth. Whoops.

Travel win: Hiking 12 miles in the Yosemite wilderness with 80+ pounds of kayak and overnight gear strapped to my back to spend 3 days kayaking some of the best whitewater the world has to offer.

Chris C.

Role: Manager, Market Strategy & Supply

Favorite hotel amenity: Free breakfast

Travel fail: I fell asleep on a bus and got my passport stolen on the second-to-last day of my trip in Ecuador. I spent my last morning in Quito racing from one jam packed bureaucracy to the next, pleading in Spanglish for officials to give me the necessary paperwork for the Consulate. I made my flight, but the stress probably cost me years of my life.

Travel win: Getting a guided tour from my grandparents of their hometowns in Sicily and Naples - delicious home-cooked meals included.

Cliff

Role: Manager, Market Strategy & Supply

Favorite hotel amenity: An awesome, hearty breakfast (with double/rainfall shower heads a close second)

Travel fail: Inability to fully communicate with our driver in Thailand resulted in us ending up at the wrong kind of “massage” parlor. Very awkward.

Travel win: The entire “study” abroad experience in Hong Kong— visiting 8 countries over the course of the semester and just being fully immersed in the local culture. Also, my dad came by to visit and I was able to see the streets and bus route he used to take to get to class as a child. I miss you, Mong Kok!!!

Colin

Role: Head of Data Science

Favorite hotel amenity: Casinos count as amenities, right?

Travel fail: On a weekend winter trip to Amsterdam from London, after our midnight arrival, a buddy and I figured we could save some money and stay out in the bars until sun-up without a hotel room.  Unfortunately, all the bars we found shut down around 4am, leaving us on the cold, sketchy streets of Amsterdam.  We decided on a quick nap in the train station (open air and cold), before waking up with the sun to wander the city.  If only there was an app for that…

Travel win: After a long bumpy ride to tent camp at Everest in Tibet, we arrived to a completely clouded over peak.  Thankfully the clouds parted right at sunset, revealing the glowing summit in all its glory.  The weather held out until the next morning for more daytime photo ops.

Dan

Role: Manager, Market Strategy & Supply

Favorite hotel amenity: Refreshing towels at check-in (hot in winter, cool in summer)

Travel fail: Risked it couch-surfing and ended up at an eccentric artist’s cozy studio, cramped with two others and over 50 of his abstract paintings. On the last night we went a bit overcapacity when his long-lost brother showed up (supposedly unexpectedly) at his doorstep with two friends.

Travel win: After a three-day stint in Vegas, my friends and I found ourselves on the opposite end of the travel spectrum — camping and kayaking down the Colorado River. Walking along a stream quickly turned into running through knee-high water. Suddenly, a series of natural obstacles appeared before us. Ledges and climbs beckoned us upward. After hoisting ourselves up a tough climb, we were met by a 20-foot wall with a rope hanging down. Reaching the top, an even more challenging, overhanging rock wall taunted us to go on. If the sun hadn’t set, we were pretty sure El Dorado was waiting for us.

Emily

Role: Product Designer

Favorite hotel amenity: 24 hour hot tub/pool

Travel fail: Missing a flight to Miami for a festival because we were at the mall shopping for said festival…and then driving down shortly after (it was a 22 hour trip) since no more flights were available.

Travel win: Deciding to go down to LA for a show…four hours before the show started. It was also sold out. We didn’t have tickets or flights booked. We called in to get flights as we drove to the airport, flew down, found tickets on Craigslist (somehow!) and had an absolute blast. Then we flew back- all in the time span of 21 fantastic hours. Travel karma was definitely on our side…

Erica

Role: Manager, Market Strategy & Supply

Favorite hotel amenity: Turn-down service

Travel fail: Hitching a ride from Munich Oktoberfest to Berlin in a rusty minivan from the 1990s, the driver locked his keys in the car during a McDonald’s stop and it took the car service two and a half hours to come and unlock the van. We didn’t get back to Berlin until 3am.

Travel win: Paying 9 euro a night for what we thought were beds in a 10-person dorm room in a hostel in Prague, only to arrive and be given the keys to two huge apartments, each with a full kitchen and a panoramic view of the Prague Castle from the balcony.
 

Gauthier

Role: Market Coordinator

Favorite hotel amenity: A minibar with Belgium beer and french fries with mayonnaise on the room service menu.

Travel fail: I once booked my flight ticket wrong. Oh and another one, during my recent vacation in Greece (cruise with friends on a sail boat) I spent the night out and they left the harbor early in the morning without me thinking I was sleeping. Do you remember Cast Away?

Travel win: n terms of inspiration, I first would like to quote a beautiful sentence I saw at the Park Hyatt Shanghai, “A man travels the world in search of what he needs, but returns home to find it.” (Moore). In terms of wins or great memories, I could say: watching the sunrise from the top of a temple in Bagan (Myanmar) and scuba diving in the red sea are certainly memories that will last forever.

Giana

Role: Production Coordinator

Favorite hotel amenity: Rooftop pools

Travel fail: Driving over 100 miles to pick up my friend from SFO, only to realize that I made the trip on the wrong day (24 hours too early).  Then learning that they had lost both their credit cards and needed someone to go in person to the Korean Air corporate office in Burlingame to pay a $200 fee on their behalf because they had switched their flight to come home early and were not allowed to board the plane until it was paid. And for some reason it could only be paid in cash.

Travel win: While studying abroad in Madrid I rented a car with some friends and drove to the Basque region during a long weekend. Not only were the cities and beaches absolutely beautiful, but it was hands-down some of the best food I’ve ever had in my life.

Heather

Role: Managing Director, Europe

Favorite hotel amenity: Outdoor shower

Travel fail: Showing up in Bali without any empty visa pages in my passport and then getting caught trying to smuggle in 4 bottles of wine….thankfully both issues magically disappeared with a handful of Jacksons.

Travel win: Discovering a secret entrance and and watching the sunrise over Angkor Wat with no one else around.

Jacob

Role: iOS Developer

Favorite hotel amenity: Scale in the bathroom that kindly lies about my weight

Travel fail: Flying from San Francisco to St. Louis with a layover in Philadelphia (just give me a parachute!)

Travel win: Cramming 10+ people in a small condo in Myrtle Beach for an awesome vacation.

Jamie

Role: Vice President, Product

Favorite hotel amenity: Great hotel bar

Travel fail: 26 hour delay in the Athens airport flying to my honeymoon.

Travel win: Arriving at the Astra Suites on Santorini after the 26 hour delay.

Janet

Role: Head of Editorial

Favorite hotel amenity: Chocolates on my pillow

Travel fail: On a spring break trip to Mexico, this guy kept trying to get my attention at an outdoor bar. I rolled my eyes and ignored him (hey, I was 19) until he finally said, “hey, your hair’s on fire.” Apparently I’d sat down a little too close to a tiki lamp. I had to run to the beach and roll in the sand to put it out, and my hair smelled like fire for days.

Travel win: While enjoying a rijsttafel at an Indonesian restaurant in Amsterdam, my friend and I struck up a conversation with the older couple at the table next to us. The guy turned out to be a famous Dutch soap star on a show called Good Times, Bad Times, and they invited us back to their house (yes, we know we shouldn’t have gone) for wine, gorgeous canal views and a dramatic reading of the tabloids detailing their scandalous love affair.

Jason

Role: Manager, Market Strategy & Supply

Favorite hotel amenity: Slippers

Travel fail: While visiting the Iguazu Falls in Argentina, I decided to take a boat trip up the river to get an “up close” look at the falls. While admiring the scenery and enjoying the sunshine, I failed to notice that we were heading straight into the waterfall. Once I realized what was happening and saw that the rest of the boat was wearing ponchos, it was already too late – and I got drenched. 

Travel win: Traveling to Thailand for 2 weeks with no agenda, we ended up island hopping and spent 4 nights on the small island of Koh Tao. We passed the days drinking fresh coconut water, SCUBA diving and sampling delicious Thai dishes before ringing in the New Year in Bangkok with an unforgettable firework show.

Jessica

Role: Country Market Manager

Favorite hotel amenity: Swimming pool bar

Travel fail: On a quick weekend trip to Santiago, Chile from Buenos Aires, I failed to declare the two apples which were in my backpack. After being held in customs for over three hours, I was told I had committed a severe crime, and that I would have to pay for the chemical destruction of said apples. At a cost of $250. Needless to say, this was more expensive than my budget airline tickets.

Travel win: Four-day hike up the Inca Trail finishing with Machu Picchu.

Jonathan

Role: Product Developer

Favorite hotel amenity: Fast Wifi

Travel fail: I was sleeping on a hostel in Marseille in a room filled with bunk beds and strangers with my water bottle wedged between my top bunk and the wall.  Sometime during the middle of the night, I woke up to a dripping-wet stranger screaming at me in an unknown language because my water bottle had somehow opened and fallen into his bed, soaking him and his sheets. 

Travel win: At the same hostel we met a British painter who asked us for a ride to a spot that was “on our way”, but turned out to be about an hour off the road on an extremely uneven dirt road.  At the end of a steadily growing suspicion that we shouldn’t have trusted this man, we ended up at a normal-enough looking hotel on the coast of the Mediterranean and our fears were put to rest.  To thank us for the ride, he offered to take us on a hike to his favorite spot in the world.  It ended up being an extremely isolated and beautiful beach cove surrounded by huge rock cliffs, and is now my favorite spot in the world, too!

Jordan

Role: Manager, Market Strategy & Supply

Favorite hotel amenity: Complimentary water bottle at check-in

Travel fail: Camping overnight in the Amazon Jungle under a mosquito net with a hole. Woke up with over 30+ mosquito bites.

Travel win: While backpacking Japan, we decided to spontaneously hike Mt. Fuji. Although we didn’t have any of the right gear or clothing, it was an awesome experience. After hiking 12 hours straight in the pitch black, we were able to reach the summit by morning and we watched the sunset over the clouds. Then we slept a lot.

Jovan

Role: Head of Accounting

Favorite hotel amenity: Hotel Happy Hour and snacks

Travel fail: Getting on a train in Paris on my way to Rome and getting confused by the stops and missing my connection. After looking at the map I had gone totally out of my way and had only needed to go one stop. I frantically had to figure out where to stay that night and fix all my travel plans in Rome. On the bright side got to hang out in Nice for a day on my connection to Rome.

Travel win: Planned to stay with a family friend in Stockholm and when he picked my friend and me up from the bus station he said he was running late for a party and that we would need to come with him. We ended up getting to go to a Swedish fashion industry party for photographers, make-up artists, and designers. It was a pretty entertaining and posh event.

Justin

Role: Senior Product Developer

Favorite hotel amenity: Free Wireless Internet!

Travel fail: Our travel services coordinator was terrible at geography and booked me on a flight from Minneapolis to Des Moines with layovers in Chicago and Atlanta. The itinerary was over 11 hours, but Des Moines is a 3.5 hour drive from Minneapolis.

Travel win: Taught a Java class at the FAA headquarters in Chicago in 2005. On my return flight form O’Hare to Minneapolis, the pilot said over the intercom: “Our friends at the FAA would like to say hello to Justin in seat 13F.” Was very tempted to fabricate a ridiculous back-story for inquiring passengers. Another time I was the only passenger on a flight from PDX to Bend, OR. After the standard safety announcement, the first officer closed with “sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight… Justin.”

Kate

Role: Country Market Manager

Favorite hotel amenity: Cookies at the front desk

Travel fail: Arriving in Venice only to discover we booked the hostel for the wrong night. It was the night before the Venice Marathon; needless to say, the entire city was sold out. We slept in a park.

Travel win: Spending my birthday sipping champagne at the Moulin Rouge in Paris.

Lisa

Role: Head of Public Relations

Favorite hotel amenity: Late Check-Outs

Travel fail: Arrived in Amsterdam on Queen’s Day, which happens to be the biggest party day of the year in the Netherlands (unbeknownst to me or anyone I was traveling with). All the streets were blocked off, and filled with hundreds of thousands of drunk people. We lugged our overweight suitcases over 3 miles to reach the hotel. Once we got there, we were given our room key… to the attic. There was no elevator and we had to take a ladder to get in.

Travel win: It’s a tie – either riding a camel to the Great Pyramids in Egypt or traveling with my grandmother to her hometown in Greece to meet my extended family.

Luca

Role: Italy Country Manager

Favorite hotel amenity: Quality sound system / Free wi-fi

Travel fail:  I Drove along the Hana Road in Maui for more than two hours just to try to enjoy the waves in a beautiful spot at the end of it. Unfortunately, I got kicked out from the spot by angry local surfers just after I surfed the first wave. I then drove all the way back to Black Sand Beach where we realised we couldn’t even swim because of sharks and strange jellyfish. At least it was the best road trip I’ve ever done..

Travel win: being upgraded to a stunning Royal Suite in Paris - and I paid by redeeming membership points.

Marc

Role: Manager, Market Strategy & Supply

Favorite hotel amenity: Waffles at breakfast

Travel fail: On my way back to my hotel, a man on the street offered to trade me his poncho for my room for the night. While it was a tempting offer, I figured I would rather take my chances with potential bed bugs instead of whatever might have been in that jacket.

Travel win: We drove all the way to Toronto from Boston to watch a Red Sox weekend series. When we got to the border, my friend realized he forgot his passport. After a 10-hour drive, we were almost ready to just leave him, but we finally found a compassionate agent who loved Boston and let us through.

Marco

Role: Country Market Manager

Favorite hotel amenity: Fairmont’s hotel ‘concierge dog’ - Utterly useless but very friendly

Travel fail: Vegas for ten days, enough said really.

Travel win: Being picked up by my pilot brother on Christmas day to fly out to the rest of my family. Having never been in the cockpit with him before, he promptly tells me to ‘assume control’ whilst he goes and casually chats to the clients. After 10 terrifying minutes of sheer panic and trying to dodge big clouds he informs me the plane was on autopilot the entire flight. Still counts.

Michael

Role: Product Developer

Favorite hotel amenity: hot springs bath (in Japan)

Travel fail: My family was driving through Montana on our way to Canada — no vacancies at all along the way, we drove through the night.

Travel win: I’m a winner!

Pad

Role: Product Analyst

Favorite hotel amenity: Rooftop pools

Travel fail: Six-hour flight from SFO to LAX. Had to re-fuel in Long Beach before landing at LAX.

Travel win: Crossing a river in the jungle of Costa Rica in our rented micro-van, Oregon Trail-style.

 

Rachel

Role: Manager, Market Strategy & Supply

Favorite hotel amenity: Complimentary beverages other than the standard tea and coffee

Travel fail: Realizing my flight back to San Francisco from Tokyo was one day sooner than I originally planned (on the day of the flight), hauling it back to Tokyo from Kyoto, and missing out on one last day of eating ramen.

Travel win: When I was in Madrid, scoring a flight to Bilbao for 9 euro on an amazing Spanish airline that exclusively played episodes of “Friends.”

Rafiq

Role: Manager, Market Strategy & Supply

Favorite hotel amenity: Multi-setting shower heads (or better yet, multiple shower heads)

Travel fail: Getting detained at the Charleston, SC, airport after flying back from a trip to the Caribbean while airport officials waited for clearance from Homeland Security that I was not the “Rafiq Ahmed” they were looking for. Luckily, my connecting flight was delayed so I didn’t miss my flight home.

Travel win: Definitely anything that has involved trying new foods in new places: from black pepper crab at hawker stalls in Singapore to barbecued Nyama Choma in Mombasa, and most of all, everything on the menu (especially smoked ice cream!) at Etxebarri, a restaurant outside of San Sebastian.

Ray

Role: Senior Product Developer

Favorite hotel amenity: Wi-Fi that actually works

Travel fail: Missing a flight from Detroit to Miami because we were at the mall.

Travel win: Driving 22 hours straight, through a snow storm, from Detroit to Miami after missing our flight, and making it in time for Ultra Music Festival.

Russ

Role: Senior Director, Engineering

Favorite hotel amenity: Close proximity to a beach.

Travel fail: While admiring some crocodiles on the side of the road on a surf trip to Costa Rica, our car was broken into and our bags stolen. The most unfortunate part about that was that we lost a bulk of the pictures we took during the trip. Thankfully customs did not detain us as suspected drug mules.

Travel win: Driving a German car on the Autobahn in ze Motherland from Frankfurt to Munich.

Sam

Role: Manager, Market Strategy & Supply

Favorite hotel amenity: Complimentary airport shuttle

Travel fail: Breaking my arm on a family vacation when I did a Peter Pan out of a tree onto the ground. The picture is of my cast being removed three months later with a hacksaw by my uncle, who is not a doctor.

Travel win: Winning a raffle for a free round-trip flight to Barcelona, also an excuse to miss my 8,000-person university graduation.

Sean

Role: Manager, Market Strategy & Supply

Favorite hotel amenity: Free AND tasty coffee bar in the lobby

Travel fail: Having to finish Peru’s Salkantay Trek on a mule after a case of severe altitude sickness and/or food poisoning.

Travel win: A swim followed by lunch with friends on a hot day at the abbey at San Fruttuoso.

Shawn

Role: Senior Visual Designer

Favorite hotel amenity: Free WiFi and Fast Elevators

Travel fail: Getting to the airport at 5am for a flight then finding out that I had accidentally canceled my ticket the night before when I was making a completely separate flight reservation. I had to rebook for the next day at 5am, it cost me double the price and then I found out that no hotels had rooms. It’s a good thing I have great friends…great friends with cars and apartments.

Travel win: Flying to Seattle for a 1 week trip and I ended up staying for 3 months, staying at 15+ hotels and even sleeping in the game studio I was working at when I couldn’t get a hotel. ( Yes, they had a shower).  It was a blast.

Stephanie K.

Role: Manager, Market Strategy & Supply

Favorite hotel amenity: Free Wifi

Travel fail: Missing my international flight home from France after setting our travel clock to the wrong time zone.  Trying to explain to unsympathetic airline ticket counter.

Travel win: Getting engaged on a balcony overlooking the Amalfi Coast in Italy.  Hotels and restaurants were awesome about helping us celebrate the rest of our trip!

Terry

Role: Market Coordinator

Favorite hotel amenity: Room service & bathrobes

Travel fail: Paying 500 Euros in extra baggage charges while flying Easyjet from Nice to Paris.

Travel win: My friend and I were traveling around Italy, and when we got to our hotel room in Florence, we discovered that it had a giant bathroom (that was twice the size of the actual room) decked out floor to ceiling in marble with a shower that had 4 giant shower heads and an immense tub that looked like it came straight out of the prefects’ bathroom in Harry Potter.

Tine

Role: Market Coordinator

Favorite hotel amenity: Basically after India…toilet paper.

Travel fail: Once on a train from St. Petersburg to Moscow I was arrested for being .. well…ME. Didn’t do anything wrong though..they just wanted to make sure my plan wasn’t to immigrate to Russia permanently (that happens when you spend too much time backpacking around there apparently). I got to spend an evening in a very small station cell and was finally let go when the guard’s vodka bottle was empty and his interest in my passport was over.

Travel win: I can’t choose between seeing a whale from up close after one very cold day on a tiny boat in the North of Canada or practicing yoga with a thousand other people on a square at 6 in the morning in India..mmm..the dilemma of it all.

Todd

Role: Social Media Marketing Manager

Favorite hotel amenity: Bathrobes

Travel fail: ”Bribing” a cop in Tijuana to avoid Mexican jail. The way I see it, I had no choice.

Travel win: Catching a flight out of New Orleans on the Sunday before Katrina hit.

1 year ago  /  13 notes  /