The new Front Desk.

I think I'm alone in this: But I detest hotel reservations services. When I book a hotel room I want to talk to someone at the hotel, someone on site who is familiar with the hotel's amenities and surroundings, not some stranger in Pocatello, Idaho, who one can only reach after jumping through various hoops and pushing buttons. The very fact that the hotel is eager for me to have to deal with these annoying services suggests they have no real interest in their potential guests. I realize that today it is almost impossible to speak with someone at the front desk of a hotel. More often than not you are connected with some overly cheerful boiler room clerk who instantly turns sour when you suggest that $400.00 a night is a high price to sleep in a bed and watch tv.Traveling used to be exciting, romantic, adventurous, and affordable. Today it is cold, clinical, computerized, obscenely overpriced and, I suspect, destined for a downfall as more and more travelers feel as put upon as I do.