Debilitating Drive to Dillard

Saturday morning, my daughter called wondering where we were on the journey. This waked us up. She was driving all the way down in one day. Bob brought me breakfast up from the breakfast buffet. It was a good breakfast, an omlet, a bagel with cream cheese, a banana and some very nice bread.

Breakfast Bob brought me

And apple juice, although I would have preferred cranberry

Drinks bar at the Hampton Inn

We left the Hampton Inn fairly early (for us) about 8:30.

Leaving the Hampton Inn

We have a seven hour drive today to get to Dillard Georgia. It was fairly peaceful driving along US 64. But when we picked up I40 around Durham, there was more traffic

When we got to the Greensboro, Winston Salem area we ran into construction, plus the lighted flashing highway signs said there was an accident. Traffic was almost at a standstill, so we got off at the next exit (#182) and took a US 158 which runs parallel to I-40. This was also bumper to bumper as it was noon on Saturday, but at least the traffic did move.

We came to a place where we could have gone back to I-40 but it didn't look like it would be any better, so Bob stopped to get gas at the BP station that was at the intersection of US 158 and NC 801. And then since it was lunchtime, we went to the Wendys that was right next to the gas station and had lunch.

Wendy's

Wendy's drink cup - Lemonade $1.99

I had a

Single bacon mozzerella burger $4.99

and Bob had a cheese burger. We left about 1:00. Traffic still looked bad, so we continued on US 158 - traffic thinned out as we went into the country. When US 158 turned away from I-40, we got back on at exit 174. Here the traffic was OK on our side, but was backed up for miles on I-40 going east.

Dillard House cat

Finally four hours later, we arrived in Dillard after a 7 hour drive. Bob unpacked the car. He was exhausted - the other members of the family were going out to a Mexican place to dinner.

Our daughter came to our room when we arrived

Bob was too tired to go. So we ordered chicken dinners from Dillard House. - a four piece chicken dinner with sides was $6.75. Bob said KFC chicken was better and he doesn't like KFC that well.
-----------------------------------------------------
Dillard is primarily known as the location of Dillard House.

Our children had tried to pick a place where everyone could stay relatively inexpensively and where we could go and do our own thing during the day and meet at night for meals and to socialize. My second daughter had a vacation house in the mountains over the NC border and she thought Dillard House would fill the bill because they had family style meals.

In a hotel, I want
-free parking
-level access to the room
-clean and comfortable
-air conditioning
-good internet

I got the free parking and the level access to the room.

Starting with the reservation system which is totally inefficient and unprofessional. We were a family group of over 20 people and we wanted to reserve a block of rooms together. This was something that took a long time to arrange. First, they would not give us the prices until January because they had not figured out what they would be. So in January we reserved a block of ten rooms all together in the Meadows. Most of the room have steps, but the Meadows has the level access. I was sent a pdf file which said what the room rates would be, with a long list of penalties if we should cancel, but didn't actually say where we would be staying.

And even though we made the reservations in January for June --- we didn't get those rooms - they gave three of those rooms to some unrelated people in the middle of our rooms and made some of us stay in another section. And those people couldn't get into their rooms until 6 pm because the maids had not made them up.

Double bed - one side near the wall

The rooms were OK, but they were not cleaned daily. The maids came in and emptied the trash and replaced towels - that was all. And they didn't get to our room until late in the afternoon.

Sink

Separate toilet

Microwave and fridge

The rooms have a small fridge and microwave, and also a coffee pot. We brought our own breakfast food.

The infrastructure in this place is aging and not maintained well. The handle on our room sliding door was missing. There was no information in the room on how to work the TV (which of the three remotes to use) or where the ice was. The ice machine did not work (there was a cooler with ice in it if we wanted ice). The A/C in my room would not work. It took 5 phone calls before they sent someone to fix it on the afternoon of the second day.

The internet was spotty and kept dropping the signal. When I could get the internet it was so slow that pages timed out.

The grounds are nice, but dogs are allowed to poop and it is not cleaned up. So if you want to throw a frisbee around, you have to be careful where you step. There was a pool, but my husband said we should not swim in it. The tennis courts were under construction. Fences are falling down. There was a petting zoo and a stables, but the personnel did not seem to know how to take care of a horse that had colic.

Riding Stables

The setting is pretty. They have rocking chairs on the porch outside the rooms