Surprise, Surprise

Looking forward to that indoor pool!

January 11th- 13th, 2019 – Peterborough, Ontario

SUPER 8

Another winter, another hockey tournament. If you read my piece last year “Hockey and Power” you will get the gist of hockey tournaments. A short recap – a chance for moms and dads to spend a bonding weekend with their sons and daughters while schlepping them to rinks and schlepping their gear and encouraging (yelling) at them to play better and a lot of “c’mons”! Why is this different from hockey in the city? It is an out of city location so we get to spend even more time in the car for all of the above – yay! This year was not quite as exquisite as Niagara Falls, in a town called Peterborough about an hour and fifteen minute jaunt from Toronto and has about 85,000 inhabitants. The usual went down, a party room at the hotel, kids running around like idiots, in the pool, out of the pool, in the hallways, out of the hallways and parents enjoying some adult juice somewhat controllably. The boy and I changed to a new team this year, so for us, new teammates, new parents, new coaches and new surprises – the first being winning. What a pleasure it is to win. The second surprise was that it took way too long for the other parents to realize I was really the idiot dad on the team, and for the final SURPRISE – you gotta scroll down.

SET UP

Me in a king and the boy on a pull out sofa in the “living area” of the Jr Suite that I upgraded to for an extra 10$ per night. He probably could have slept with me, but his head was in a place of having his own bed. Good size room for a family of 2. Fridge to place our Gatorade and left over Turtles from Christmas.

MATTRESS

SURPRISE – Look what I found! Hypnos***, by appointment to her majesty the Queen, this really is what the queen of England sleeps on. I have no doubt Windsor Castle and Super 8 have their similarities like the staff and service, and of course the HP sauce. I mean, this shocked me.

A double sided pillow top that still had some good cushion left in it, although the mattress was 10 years old. What didn’t shock me was a really nice floaty feel with good support. It was an on top feel, with no sinking in, but sensitive to one’s needy parts, shoulder and hips. Sunken in low can cause back tension and not enough conform ability can cause stiffness from lack of pressure relief. The real burning questions is how does a Super 8 get a quality hospitality mattress like this? Not sure. What I do know is that the hotel is part of a larger chain of Wyndham Hotels, Ramadas, Days Inn and the like, so it is possible they did a large buy at one point and Super 8 in Peterborough got lucky or got the leftovers.

***Side note – when we got back, one mom told me she checked her mattress and it was a Simmons Beautyrest. Surprise, Surprise. I guess I was the only one who got lucky that weekend, for sleeping anyways.

SLEEP

While the mattress was incredibly comfortable, there were a lot of other factors at play that led to my not so good sleeps. The room was way to hot and overly dry, so sleep did not come easy for me, about 6 hrs the first night and snuck in 7 the next. Other reasons for poor sleep MAY have included the location of our room – overlooking the parking lot, over the kitchen and under a family who had very loud feet. This led to wake ups at 5:30, 6 and 6:30 AM.

LINENS AND MORE

The linens and pillows were passable, nothing to complain about and nothing to write home about, although I did love that both the pillows and mattress were completely encased with protectors. Not just the fitted kind, but full protection. Even the box spring was in full armor. Good practice for hotels and a bit of a pain for the cleaning staff, who may or may not launder those. In any event, nice to know that they are taking care of their wares.

OVERALL

The thing about expectations is that you never know, and I suppose we like the emotions that result from it or else we wouldn’t have them. Sometimes we set them high and disappointment, sometimes we set them low and elation! I have come to expect not much from hotel mattresses and have been pleasantly surprised by a lot of them, including this slap in the face. Well done Super 8, well done. 🏒✔🎮🏊‍♂️

GREAT RELATED LINKS

https://www.wyndhamhotels.com/en-ca

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Sauce

https://hypnoscanada.com/

https://www.tripadvisor.ca/Attractions-g155008-Activities-Peterborough_Ontario.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/hard-kill-germs-may-be-lurking-your-hotel-pool-cdc-n875101