Judge a Hotel by its Pillows

I have slept in quite a few hotels and hostels this last year… 16 to be precise. I have decided that while you can’t judge a book by its cover, you can judge a hotel by its pillow(s). At the low end, I stayed in a hostel in Rome that crammed ten beds into a space smaller than my parent’s master bath. The mattresses were about four inches thick, and the blankets and tiny pillow looked frighteningly likely to contain lice. I feel somewhat guilty for calling that small wad of cloth a pillow. It wasn’t much more than 18 ‘’ long or a foot wide, I put my sweatshirt underneath it to make it a little more substantial.

I am currently writing from the Crown Plaza in Foster City, CA. If pillows really are a proxy for hotel quality, this place would rival that seven star hotel in Dubai. There are no less than 11 pillows on my bed. No it isn’t a king size, and yes the pillows do take up half of the bed space. To be able to get in bed, I have to throw half of them on the floor, which is a shame because each one is uniquely fluffy. The beds themselves here have no peers. The mattress & box spring combo looks to be about three and a half feet thick, and may be the most comfortable bed that I have ever slept in.

If I ever open a hotel, which I won’t, I will be sure to find out where Crown Plaza gets theirs!