ORLANDO, Florida. – I’ve been in this hotel room for 40 consecutive days. It is the longest time spent in a space that was not my home, long enough for me to forget how that house feels and what it looks like.
It might seem like an eternity, 40 days. And without a doubt, that’s a good amount of time. But this is the life I chose, not just in July, when I first checked in, but decades ago when I first started working.
There’s a link on most major hotel websites that reveals how many nights you’ve spent at their hotels, and I’ve done some research to find this sobering statistic: I’ve spent nearly 13 years of my life in a hotel room. hotel.
This is because I have traveled extensively over the past 30 years, going to basketball games, baseball games, hockey games, tennis tournaments, golf tournaments, Winter Olympics, Summer Olympics, and other journalism assignments. For many of those years I traveled with an NBA team, which meant 41 street games, then the playoffs and finals.
And that doesn’t include leisure trips to visit family, friends and vacations, basketball tournaments and track matches with my daughter.
Prior to this NBA trip to Walt Disney World, the longest time I spent in a room away from home was 28 days in Sydney, Australia for the 2000 Olympics. I stayed there in a dorm, which for me counts as a hotel room.
So, I’m a hotel expert. I know when to book, how to get the right price, where to stay in any American city and in some international cities. I know the beds and can tell immediately if one will make for a long or comfortable night.
I have stayed in one star and five star hotels. We stayed in a hotel that had a mouse (Philadelphia) and a suite with a sweeping view of the city (Las Vegas). I stayed in a hotel overlooking a stadium and saw a home run (Toronto) and one looking out onto a golf course and saw a little bird (St. Andrews, Scotland) and another looking out over a drinking trough and saw a leopard (Kenya).
My shortest stay in a hotel was four hours and it was in San Francisco this year. I went to see Luka Doncic play the Golden State Warriors and it just happened to be on a big convention night. Every decent hotel in town was solidly booked. The crappy ones also made $ 300 a night, if you could find one.
I wandered around the city after the game, desperate and tired, and eventually stumbled upon a room near the airport that cost $ 450 (normally $ 100). I checked in at 2am … and my return flight was at 7am
Here at Coronado Springs Resort, inside room 2184, there is a desk, bed, shower, sink, and closet, meaning the basics are covered. The small refrigerator is a plus. The view is on the parking lot. It’s a motel style room, which means your door opens to the elements. It’s on the first floor, normally a strict no-no to me, but I’ve learned to accept it. There is no complain about restarting basketball.
After all these years (around 13, actually), most of these rooms tend to look alike and feel the same. Some are obviously better than others. No one can replace the comforts of home. Someday soon I’ll be back there.
But now there is someone knocking on the door. It’s housekeeping. Yet. I’ve already forgotten what it’s like to make a bed.
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Shaun Powell has covered the NBA for more than 25 years. You can send him an email here, find his archive here and follow it Twitter .
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