5-star hotels are not all they are cracked up to be – Reflections from Sheraton Colonia, Uruguay

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I worked on cruise ships, so, uniformity scares me, Caribbean resorts scare me. I don´t like hotels that are all the same no matter where they are located. When we went to the Sheraton Colonia, the weather was terrible, and we were forced to stay indoors for most of our sejour.

I did find some beauty (see the two tiny poems at the bottom), but until I made those discoveries, the posh hotel might have been a prison to me. Just because I already knew all its smells, the carpets, the columns, the taste of the food. It was all mass-produced.

The other thing I should mention is that they charged us extra for everything, a fee per child per day, a fee to use the spa, a fee for drinking our tea in our room, and our Wifi access had a limit that we reached after the first day. In all earnest, my favorite part of the visit was having lunch twice at the fabulous Charco bistro and hotel; much more to my liking.

If you love five star hotels, the Sheraton will totally satisfy you. Don´t get me wrong. My reflection is mostly about international hotel chains and this type of hotels as a whole, rather than about the Sheraton. They treated us nice, the kids loved the kids club, of course, and after I made my discoveries, I really had a good time. The first poem below, though, is about feeling trapped in there.

My tip: if you go to this place, make sure it´s nice out. The views of the golf fields are said to be spectacular, and there is a whole side of the hotel that is made of glass.

La sheratonbeauté est ailleurs (Colonia, September 2015)

 

5-star hotel
is a trap

fake weather
fake landscapes
painted
on lifeproof windows

artificial smiles
plastic potted plants
claustrophobia
of unrenewed air

We are trapped in here
amid deserted golf fields
until sunshine breaks
the lifetight doors

like fish
in an aquarium

always the same carpets
always the same columns
the same chandeliers
the same sad employees
in happy clothes

the ocean outside
a menace
freedom
a terrifying unknown

we are safe in here
inside the fake
within the glass house

we are something
to be desired
the pillow mints
the fresh white towels
and comfortable mattresses
the white tulle windows
and the swift housekeepers

5-star hotel
an anchored cruise ship

your stuffy air
your overpriced water
and your annihilation
of the unexpected
your embalmed beauty

it cannot mar
my happiness

 

2.

An underwater tunnel

from the human fishtank

into the outdoor pool

is freedom

 

3.

Happiness
When bird shit

is an omen

of wings

 

 

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