St Pete’s - Naples

Reader discretion advised – adult content.

We spent three coldish days sightseeing and on Friday we drove down south to Naples, when we left St Pete’s it was 50 degrees at 11am as we drove the 120 miles south you could see the temperature on the car outside temp gauge rising to 68 degrees by the time we arrived 2.30pm. The News was saying the cold spell was on its way out bit it was still chilly as we checked into La Quinta Hotel for two nights.

We were struggling to get a room in Naples but our agent managed to get the last room in this hotel. When we got there we were given the key card and sent round to room 117 and found the bed had not been made up, no drama, the receptionist was very apologetic and said they had not let that room last night it should have been ready for occupancy. We had a bit of a wait until housekeeping sorted it but no problems - but this would feature again later during our short stay.

Naples is said to be the finest place in Florida and this is where the exceptionally wealthy live and come for the winter, it’s like living a scene from the movie Cocoon. The restaurants are jammed packed at 5.30pm and the main street, 5th Avenue had elderly men cruising the strip in red Ferraris and/or noisy Harley Davidson bikes, the shops carry all the designer labels and your nobody unless you have a personal trainer/therapist or have had cosmetic surgery. It’s a feast for people watchers - the people are so old here - I must have looked like a new kid in town, I was asked for photo ID to buy a drink !!

We were about 20 mins walk from 5th but after the long drive from St Pete’s down we decided just on a pizza and a bottle of wine in the Olive Garden Pizza restaurant adjacent to the hotel.

Fast food fast service

The restaurant service has been very fast here, in almost every restaurant we have been to this trip, after you had a starter and a main course, the waiter will come back and ask about dessert and coffee etc (as you would expect). We don’t usually take coffee (and I don’t eat sweet stuff) so if you decline, he says ‘Ok I’ll get you the check’, and a minute later the bill arrives, even though you may have half a bottle of wine left and want to sit there a bit longer and the restaurant is half empty. Sometimes this comes across like ‘If your not gonna buy anything else you can pay and p*** off.

I’m sure its never intended that way but several times we have booked a table for 8pm and be on the way out at nine. Same at this pizza place, nice pizza, nice staff - arrived 8.30pm waddled off - fully loaded and in bed just before 10 o’clock, which was just was well because our room with the disabled facilities was right next to the hotel services/maintenance room.

0730 Saturday morning – we learned that industrial sized hotel washing machines were housed in the services/maintenance room, and were fixed to the adjoining wall. They switched on and it was like trying to sleep on a production line, and we had a rare early start to our day. Theresa was not amused and had a moan at the receptionist who assured us there were no housekeeping staff in the building at that time and those machines could not possibly have come on without human interaction – so a mystery.

It’s still too cold for sitting around in the half sun, we re-visited a few places we had been on our last visit, McCabe’s Irish Bar where I remember asking the singer to sing ‘Whiskey In The Jar’ - and helping him with the words, and the Yabba restaurant where a waitress had a sense of humour bypass in relation to my George Bush joke. . . . . not this time though. Loads of ‘Open House’ (For Sale) signs went up on Saturday morning it appears even the mega rich may be struggling to stay afloat.

Saturday night was very pleasant, just meal in an Italian restaurant called Vergina on 5th Avenue, we managed to stretch to an hour and a half.

Sunday 0530 - Our neighbours in the next room were of African/American descent who came from Saint Louis, they had an early start on their trip to Fort Myers, they also had to get gas and make sure they had change for the tolls - why they ever needed to have a conversation at that time of day is beyond me - but then they were American, and we heard it all through the paper-thin walls when their booming voices woke us up, we also heard the early morning ABC and CNN news and ten minutes of rap shit on MTV.

We hoped they would get themselves ready and bugger off sharpish and we’d get back to sleep but after 15 or so minutes they were still at it so I called the night porter to sort it out. Ring ring - no answer, 5 minutes later ring ring - no answer – and again no answer. At 630am they left their room but left their telly on and blasting through the walls.

Enough is enough, where’s that f***ing night porter, still no answer. I conducted a fast time dynamic risk assessment, what’s worse the telly next door, or a violent death at the hands of the bro’ from da ‘hood in room 119. Praying he wouldn’t kill me, I got dressed and went and found him in the breakfast room, using the microwave as cover I politely asked him if he would mind turning the TV down in his room - I was committed now this would go one of two ways.

His wife was gobbing loudly on her mobile phone but thankfully he was half reasonable and I got out alive – he turned his telly off and they pissed off to Fort Myers – I went back to bed hoping he’d get a puncture.

We half dozed off back to sleep but then at 7.30am the bloody washing machines kicked in again . . . . this time Mr Angry called the Reception Desk and the Early Turn manager who had just arrived for work answered, I had a serious whinge and told him the saga of yesterday’s 7.30 washing machines, today’s early morning confrontation with the neighbours from hell that I had to deal with myself because your night porter was on the missing, and then the machines have just come on again – by magic.

He was also very customer service orientated customer is always right grovellingly apologising, but he too said the machines were not on a timer and no-one was here at that time, must have been that fucking tooth fairy then . . . the end result was we got the $130 off the bill.

We checked out extra early and made our way to Miami for the ship; on the way it dawned on me why the bed in our room, which they said had not been let the night before, had been slept in - and I sussed where the night porter was when he didn’t answer his phone forcing me to take on Iron Mike Tyson on me own - he was gonking in some other empty room - bastard. I thought about calling the manager to grass him up but I didn’t

Remember the name La Quinta Hotel, 1555 5th Avenue, Naples 33771 – room 117 - don’t stay in that room. This is going straight on TripAdvisor when we get home.