I’m staying at what many consider to be a very fine hotel: the Marriott Coronado Island Resort. The room overlooks a beautifully-landscaped courtyard, the opposite site overlooks Glorietta Bay, and the rates are as high as an F/A-18 from neighboring NAS Coronado. In spite of its pretentiousness, the hotel insists on nickel-and-diming its guests. It drives me crazy!

Marriotts seem to cater to guests who like to spend money for the sake of spending money. For instance, the Internet service in the rooms of most hotels is as free as air. Marriott gives you the privilege (and I do mean privilege) of connecting to it for the low, low price of $10/day (or $3 per 15 minutes, if you prefer. A quarter/min. afterward). The $17/day for hotel parking is also quite steep, even for parking-space-challenged Coronado.

The real kicker is the bottled water in the room. Exquisite bottled water, shipped from Fiji (I kid you not), sits ready to be consumed at the low, low, price of $3 per liter. The label actually says “Why travel to the South Pacific islands of Fiji for a drink of water?” I’ll take a hunch and say its because Fiji is not only far more beautiful than Coronado, it has free water!

Its true some things have changed for me. I have greater financial means than what my former meager salary of an E-5 provided fourteen years ago. Still, that doesn’t keep this hotel from feeling like a shakedown.