Aloft-y Expectation of No Kids At My Boutique Hotel Unfulfilled-- But This is Still A Very Positive Review

How the Internet Markets the Arlington, TX Hotel as "Family Friendly" with its photos, Which Changed My Experience and Feelings about a Known Chain

The Notorious Banker is on vacation for the first real time in years. Pre-Covid to be exact. Yes, I was in Tucson, AZ a few months ago for my wife’s work trip, I don’t consider that a vacation, because I could pound a red bull in Tucson, and not even have to pee it out until I am comfortably at home 3h 30m away in Las Cruces, NM. It is not far from home.

I went to Vegas in 2021 for WWE Summerslam, and I preceded to get Covid in a building where mask wearing is mandatory, and got into a verbal altercation with security at the Wynn for brining a steel chair into the casino like a wrestling heel. A chair gifted to us by the WWE, mind you.

But this is the first time I am packing 10 pairs of undies and all my cargo shorts in a long time. The Notorious Banker is in DFW for a few days of fun and pool time. My wife has to work some of the time, but I have to do absolutely nothing but enjoy myself, and find ways to scam food in this town.

Aside from being mandated to stay in Dallas by Bank of America for training on how to sell you 10 accounts that you don’t need, I have never been here before in a personal capacity. Fun fact, Bank of America refused to pay for my cab rides and a rental car, so I had to walk everywhere, which if you know Dallas, is not normal. It is crazy over here at times with traffic.

We left New Mexico at 7am on Saturday in the hopes we get to our first hotel by 6pm, which we did. (I have a blog about the second hotel coming)

We decided on the Aloft Arlington South, which according to the internet, was just built in 2022. I was excited. Because knowing what I know about Aloft Hotels, I was pumped. My wife and I stayed in many Alofts in Arizona over the years, and they are fabulous, chic, and very unique. Boutique Hotel is not really the thing to call it, because it is owned by a gigantic corporation (Marriott), but it is small, and intimate, and fun.

They have a bar at all locations called the WXYZ Bar where you can have a drink, and they usually have a pool table in the area as well.

The pool is small, but usually very awesome. I was looking forward to getting into there to tan my pale skin, which although I am a Hispanic man, has not been bronzed since 2020. I need some sun in my life. Although time constraints likely meant I would not be going in the pool at that hotel, I figured it might be in the cards, since it closes late.

We check into the hotel, and while my wife is filling out the forms, I take a panoramic view of the hotel. There’s no one at the bar. Sweet, more room for me. The Qatar/Panama Gold Cup Soccer Game is playing on the flat TV. The little sundries store is empty of people as well. The complimentary fruit water carafe is empty, which is rare to see. I would not normally complain about something that is free not being there, but I wondered why it was empty. It was then I hear the sound of billiard balls breaking

(CRACK!)

I turn around, and there are two kids in swimsuits playing pool. Now, I am not one to say, WTF, Get those kids out of here. Maybe in my 20s and Early 30s yes, but this hard-ass has softened since the birth of 10 nieces and nephews among my siblings and in-laws. I am the fun uncle, so I don’t mind kids.

…It was weird to see that visual though.

I always knew Aloft Hotels to be an “adult hotel”…I know that sounds dirty, but I mean, I don’t think it’s meant for kids.

Think about it. Say you are in your late 20s, and you are in town on business and you pick Aloft, because the cool colors and amenities speak to you as a younger person.

You settle in and you go and have a drink at the bar, maybe you meet a woman, you take your drink to the pool table area, set it at one of the booths by the table, and have a fun game of billiards with some mysterious woman, and one thing after another, you are in your bedroom on the comfy bed, with a bottle of booze in the fridge provided and… yeah, a solo work trip becomes a fun trip if you get my drift.

That’s the dream for young business professionals, men or women. You don’t believe me? Well, you must be a parent or not a white collar worker who travels.

But with that thwack of the billiard balls, turning around and seeing kids playing what is essentially an adults game at a pool table near the bar, where literally someone could be shit-faced 5 feet away from them was a bad look and vibe in my Uncle James eyes. Fuck all the picking up women and drinking stuff. I am 40, sober, and married. I am good, fam.

We go up into the room, and my wife and I love it. It is so modern and chic. The shower is nice, the soaps are from Drybar, which I know from my Vegas experiences, are really expensive shit, and the wallpaper, lighting and design all speak to me. The fridge is awesome. Old James now puts water bottles in there. There’s a little modern couch thing that I like and my wife loves as she ponders about having something like that in our house. There is a bluetooth speaker which resembles an amp from Ritchie Valens’ times, which runs a couple hundred bucks, and the TV has 60 channels.

By the way, I like that it is by the airport, and the area behind the hotel is cordoned off with barbed wire and no trespassing signs, that means a lot of riffraff won’t loiter there.

Now there are some things to point out, which also by the way tells you this hotel is meant for adults usually and no kids. There is no tub. No bathtub whatsoever. You get a shower which can fit 3 people semi-comfortably (2 if they just ate at Golden Corral) and that’s it. Knowing some kids still bathe up until age 10 tells me that would be an issue for families. You don’t want kids slipping in the shower, the first shower they likely ever took.

Plus the shower is not in a part of the room with a separate door. It was right behind the bed, and if someone walks in from the hallway, they will be able to see your naked body relatively easy. Even for some married couples, that is weird.

(Fun Fact) I remember my first shower ever being at a Carlsbad, NM hotel. My mom and dad took me and my toddler-aged brother to the Caverns, and the only fucking thing I remember is my 5 year old ass slipping in the shower and screaming like a little girl for my mom.

The other thing? The toilet is located in its own little room with city landscape wallpaper. The toilet room is the size of my closet back home and there are two sliding doors that are supposed to close, except they don’t really close all the way. My wife and I knew this from past Alofts. There are no locks, no knobs on some of these toilet rooms, and it will leave a gap where you can see into the toilet room, which means people will be able to see you #1 or #2.

I know 99 percent of people don’t want people watching them pee or poo. You basically have to go honor system to make sure no one walks past you if you are popping a squat. I guarantee you some people possibly hold it in until they leave the hotel because of their bashfulness with that. Some spouses will pee in front of each other, but to have a gap in the door while dropping a deuce is not fun.. especially if you have a weird stance or do something weird like take your shirt off like George Costanza.

Let’s say a family of 4 is staying in the room… that would be difficult. No bullshit here, I get it. It would not be comfortable for them. Like I said, TO ME THIS IS AN ADULT HOTEL…OR AT LEAST SUPPOSED TO BE MARKETED TO ADULTS WITHOUT KIDS.

I remember 15 years ago, I stumbled into my first Dave and Busters in Arizona and was blown away by how much fun it was with my then-girlfriend, who is now my wife. We were much younger and we valued the adult arcade room with good food and drinks of D&B. It was a mature audience crowd in a chain restauarant.

Look at this commercial from 15 years ago. Not one fucking kid in sight! Crazy!

Right around the time El Paso got one, I started seeing kids birthday parties at D&B on the regular by my social media friends and it grossed me out.

She’s a cutie pie. Reminds me of my niece, but I would tell my niece to go to McDonalds for her party.

Even in Las Cruces, we have a retro arcade called RAD which is a very loud, sociable “nightclub” if you will most nights. You hear of fights and people drinking too much and all the things that come with a successful bar. But before 7pm? It is open to kids, and it pretends to be Chuck-E-Cheese with cleavage showing bartenders and waitresses (Not that I am complaining, but it’s a whole other alter ego)

But this long blog is going to be a positive review of this place for the staff, I promise you. Stay with me.

My wife and I discovered there was a Japanese Goods store named Daiso Japan in the mall about a mile from us, and it was near closing time, so we decided to hightail it out of the hotel and go to the mall. We did just that, and stopped for some ice cream and cobbler on the way back to the room.

The check-in clerk with the awesome mustache told us there was plenty of parking in the rear when we checked in, which didn’t make sense at first because we noticed not a lot of cars at 5pm. When we got back from our mall/food trip at 9:30pm, the front parking lot was PACKED. We drove to the back of the hotel, where the pool is located and parked there.

By the way, their pools are known as “Splash”. Cute, right?

We open the doors to the car and walk to the hotel and discover 2 things: The humidity in this damn area is killer, and THERE ARE SO MANY DAMN KIDS IN THE POOL.

My god, it was like a city pool on the days they charge free admission. There was a palpable chatter of kids screaming, hooting, and hollering in the pool. There were at least 30 kids. At least… along with their parents sitting on the lounge chairs.

We open the door with our key card into the hallway, and there are windows looking out to the pool in the hallway. I see all the kids again, and I see a trash can overfilled with soda empties, food bags from Taco Bell and Jack in the Box, and just garbage galore.

It gave me Vietnam flashbacks of Wet and Wild Waterworld in El Paso, a water park that is riddled with garbage on the ground, usually half-eaten McDonalds food. Some families take in 5 Little Caesars Pizzas into the park, and leave the cheese and grease-filled boxes all over the pool area. It is gross.

I was freaking out a little by it, but I wasn’t planning on going to the pool. I had a big day ahead of me the next day, so I was just going to chill in the room the rest of the night. By the way, the bar was totally empty, which meant no young adult professionals. It was all families. So weird.

I went to do research on this hotel and its location after I retired to my room. I didn’t get how my experience at this Aloft is like 10000 times different than the dozen or so nights I have stayed at others. It all was answered when I first searched on Google

On the photos provided of the hotel on Google, and through hotels.com, there were some interesting things. First off, one of the pics is of a goddamn water slide, and an awesome one at that.

Look at that thing.

But this water slide photo is tied to the photos of Aloft Arlington South hotel, when it is really a photo of Hurricane Harbor, a well-known LARGE LARGE LARGE water park chain (16 total) which includes Lazy Rivers, speed slides (like the one shown), and wave pools. It is literally a photo of the water park where a photo of the room should be.

Now do I think the general public is dumb enough to book a room at this hotel thinking that big-ass water slide is at the hotel? Yes, I do, because I worked in Customer Service, and when I worked in a bank and we ran out of money on a busy Friday, I have had people imply that “Why don’t we just go get more money from the vault?” as if there is some unlimited money shooting tree in there we can pick fruit off of as needed.

But seeing that photo of Hurricane Harbor tied to Aloft Arlington South almost implies that this hotel is the direct hotel to stay at if you go to Hurricane Harbor where the wild water fun continues! To be fair, there is a photo of AT&T Stadium as well in the photos, and I don’t think people are dumb enough to think you are more of a Cowboys fan if you stay here, although I wouldn’t be shocked by that notion.

Now, here’s what I want to know, because this hotel was opened in 2022, after COVID restrictions were long gone, not that they ever were here in Texas… Did the hotel submit those photos? If so, did they know the indirect consequence of a giant water slide photo on their hotel page was a shit-ton of kids would be here that won’t be buying drinks at the bar, won’t be spending any discretionary income there, or utilizing their Bonvoy cards?

If they didn’t are they now burdened with an identifier of being kid-friendly? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Is it nice to have a built in clientele of hotel guests to your establishment, even if it is not the intended demographic? Did Covid really impact business so much that any business is good, even if it is square peg/round hole? Does that suck for them? If I know big business, I know some Aloft Regional Manager is likely giving the hotel manager shit about “Damn it, Jones (I don’t know the manager’s real name”, liquor sales are 18% of what Aloft Scottsdale is doing.

Scottsdale is where all the hipster Arizonans drink, party, and hook up.

“But, sir, it’s all families. They are here for Six Flags and Hurricane Harbor and—”

“I don’t want to fucking here it, Jones. You are on thin ice here. Pick up your numbers.”

That’s the reality of the business world. It took me 15 years of being there to know how irrational it can get.

Again, this is a positive review, here’s why.

We check out at 9am on Sunday. It was rainy in Arlington, and we are headed out to go tour the Cowboys stadium, as I am a big fan.

We walk out to kids playing pool (AGAIN!!!)

(THWACK)

Now, I am not going to hate on the kids playing pool, but if you put something “leisurely” in front of them, they are going to fuck with it? Why? Because I used to fuck with things too.. That was annoying little James in a nutshell.

It was fine.

Fun fact: I used to hustle pool with my cousin back home in Socorro. We used to play at this video store owned by Leo Rosas, who had an illegal slot machine racket in the back of his store (which I reported to the authorities in hopes of a reward). When he would go check on the slot players, we would look in his big binder of porno movies (we were 15) that he would rent to adults, and he would sell us CDs that weren’t released in stores yet. I had the Limp Bizkit CD that had “Break Stuff” a full 3 weeks before anyone because he got them in early and said “Fuck it”… Yep, felonies galore at Leo’s… Nice guy though. RIP

Anyway, we check out and I get some photos of the layout for this blog I wanted to write in my head, and as I walk out of the hotel for the last time at 9am, I notice a dad and his two girls walking out too. The little ones had their own “wheely bag” each, and it was so cute. The Uncle James in me had his heart melt.

Then I turned left to the pool. Yes, the pool that had a trash can that was full of Jumbo Jack shards and Taco Bell tortilla segments crammed into the trash can with bottles of Fanta and it was not only totally empty, but the whole area was clean, and honestly, if you told me that not one kid was in that area the whole time, I would have believed you, and then the consumer advocate in me had his heart melt. That was good customer service.

You could easily make this hotel look like a goddamn Great Wolf Lodge in two seconds if you are not on top of that… Because guess what? A new guest sees that and he/she will leave a bad review even if they don’t go to the pool. That was top-notch awareness on their part.

I have heard horror stories of the Great Wolf Lodges in the US, and they freak me out. One podcaster I listened to said, “One thing you will notice in GW Lodge is that the bathrooms are bizarrely empty despite thousands of people being there” and that just grosses me out and makes me never want to go if and when I have a kid.

Aloft Arlington South is aware of their large amount of kid guests, and they are on top of it, which gives me the desire to give them an excellent review in my eyes. You can’t control some things, but you can control others. The workers there can’t help what kind of guests pay for a room, but on the corporate level, Aloft and its parent company Marriott have to wonder about how a stock photo of a water slide gets inserted into its chic, trendy hotel chain that I love so much and can that and will that affect its mission statement for that hotel?

Who knows.

Because at the end of the day, we are back to people being on vacation in droves, and a hotel like this loves its occupancy rate, but can it afford to lose its status as a trendy place for young adults by selling itself as a place to crash after the water park trip? A water park that’s 10 miles away, and likely a hundred hotels more accommodating to the needs of kids and their parents… That’s why I wrote this.

But in true Consumer Beast form, I writ e a long-winded thing like this to commend the Arlington South Aloft for a great stay, and know that while I am fine with what I noticed, I want to make sure that any reviews that are negative that are as a result of not having kid friendly amenities are negated by my positive review. They deserve it.

I saw some of the reviews, and a lot of it is shit that sounds like moms complaining.. There needs to be context as to why they are mad for parents sake, and the awareness of where you are going to stay at, and hotels to coordinate with guests that their needs will or won’t be met at that establishment. It is important for the sake of customer service, customer experience, and frankly, comfort. But these reviews have nothing to do with this blog.. just showing you how irrational people can be without understanding why they are mad at the hotel.

Good Job Again, Aloft. 5 Stars

Aloft Dallas Arlington South

Phone: (682) 321-7575

You can give me free rooms if you want.. I won’t be mad and I will spend money at your bar and other stuff hahahaha :)

James