Where should I start?

Two different friends suggested that we stay at the 21c Museum Hotel in downtown Kansas City. The hotel is a historic hotel, formerly called the Savoy, originally opened in 1888, and renovated a few times, most recently in 2018. It has received very good reviews and signs on the door say that Conde Nast has said this is one of the 15 best hotels in the world. The hotel is relatively pricey.

We drove to the hotel about 5:30 yesterday afternoon. The hotel is an 8 story brick building. The outside door is not very elegant. There is a sign on the block that says no parking. But you have no choice, but to park. There is no doorman, and you soon learn there is no bellman or woman to help you unload your car. There is also no curb cut, so you can’t simply roll your bags in. You are told you can remain parked for about 15 minutes.

The hotel provides no parking. There is no valet service. You are told there are two lots, one open a block up the street, one enclosed across the street. The open lot is a bit less expensive and you are told you pay by scanning a QR code at the lot, giving them the requested information and everything else is handled automatically. I read the code and get a request for credit card info. I try four times and the card is declined four times. I leave the lot and go to the garage where I take a normal ticket from a machine.

Meanwhile, Edie checks in, using a different card. The card is rejected at the desk several times before going through. Edie gets a fraud alert from Citibank, but after she answers a few questions, all seems ok. I get a fraud alert from Barclays telling me that there look to be four instances of fraud on my card. They tell me four different vendors with strange names have each charged my card $1. I can only associate this with the QR code. Barclays tells me they are going to cancel my card and send me a new one. I tell them I am out of town and need my card. They tell me if I accept the 4 $1 charges, my account can stay open, but they believe these four entities will put large charges on my account and I will not be able to appeal them. That makes no sense to me, but they insist it and tell me that I should let them cancel the card. I do and will be without my usual card for a week or so. In the meantime, Edie has a secondary Barclays card with a different number and apparently she can still use hers. We are also assuming our Citi cards are going to be ok, although our two Citi cards have the same number.

What else? The hotel, in addition to our room fees, put another $100 on our card for each night as security for “incidentals”. I show my email confirmation showing nothing about a $100 hold and I am told it is on the website. I go back to the room, look at the website and see nothing. Oh, well, that’s a discussion for later, I guess.

Let’s see. What else? Maybe I should say that the people who stayed in our room before us had bad taste in snacks?. We know that because the hotel staff didn’t seem to clean out our refrigerator. And also, please be careful if you walk on the third floor of the hotel. There’s broken glass on our hall floor. Not much, but enough.

Is there anything good about this place? Yes!! The restaurant. The Savoy Grill. We had a first class (yes, very expensive) meal last night. I had swordfish again, this time in a spicy farro sauce, and Edie had a morel and pea risotto. We split a Caesar salad. And we sat in Booth #4 – the booth where Harry Truman and sometimes Bess used to sit.

The original plan was to tell you about our adventures in Hermann, Jefferson City and Sidelia, Missouri. Maybe tomorrow? Doubt it. My guess is this hotel stay will need more discussion. For instance, do you think our car will be where we left it?