Atlanta: The Rest of It

I've been putting this off entirely too long. I've lacked motivation, and [insert excuses about work and jury duty and so on here]. You know how it goes. Anyway, now that we've been home so long that even Scott is back to work, it's time to finish up the trip report.

World of Coca-Cola: I have to give the people at Coke props. They really try to make something magical and fun out of what was once just a factory tour. Sadly, for me, the entire experience felt a little - ahem - flat. The best example I can give is of the "4-D" movie (and don't even get me started on how squirting me with water does not add a fourth dimension to your movie!). They obviously spent big bucks on the film, the theater, the effects (and the water), but it was painful to sit through. They should have hired someone from Universal or Disney to teach them about making a story people want to see again and again. Of course, if we wanted to see it again and again, we could... because we got to keep our 3-D glasses. (And check out those sexy double chins!)

Coke as a brand has a built-in nostalgia that rivals Mickey Mouse. It's everywhere, and has been that way for our entire lives. The bottles are an iconic shape, you recognize the logo on sight, you know at least one jingle, and I bet most people can name at least one important life event in which Coke was a supporting player. And to their credit, W.O.C. really gets that. Much of the experience was museum space broken into different rooms full of memorabilia.

But umm... you know how I said that Coke was a major supporting player in American life? It turns out that I'm not interested enough to see Coke take the starring role. While Coke is more interesting than ketchup or mashed potatoes, I don't think it has the entertainment chops to stand up to an aquarium or theme park.

W.O.C. did have two major highlights (and one minor one): The introduction movie cracked both me and Scott up. Some of Coke's more recent advertising has been this goofy animated look at what happens inside the Coke machine when you put your money in, and how your Coke gets to you. The "Happiness Factory Theater" shows a "documentary" on all of the little people in the commercials. I couldn't begin to explain why this was funny, or why the documentary is so much funnier than the actual commercials, but it was a home run.

And of course, the real reason to visit W.O.C. is the tasting area. Here you can sample 70 different Coca-Cola products from around the world. (yes, they have Beverly!) Of course, I can't remember a single one now, but there were some real winners and some major losers. Neither of us actually spit anything out, but the last set of fountains we hit were all pretty bad. I think we left an entire fountain unchecked. Fanta, my friends, has some evil step-sisters on other continents! And set apart from the wacky flavors, there was a section devoted to the different American flavors of Coke. Scott took a moment to stop and enjoy the vanilla!

And the tour ends when you exit into the gift shop. But before you go, you get to take a souvenir bottle of Coke "right off the line" to take home. Of course, our bottles were stamped with a date 3 days before our visit, but the bottles are still cool. We drank the Coke in the hotel, since we were still bound by that 3 oz. airplane rule, and brought one empty bottle back. We bought some postcards and a 3-pack of coke-flavored chap sticks (cherry coke, root beer and something else... maybe cherry vanilla? the cherry is already in my purse. I love it!).

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures from the CNN Tour. Of course, that's because you're not allowed to take pictures. I wasn't really sure how I'd react to being in the mecca of cable news. I mean, there was a time that I really thought I'd be working there... or at least somewhere similar. Alas, I never really had the drive for journalism. I became a control room junkie in high school and college, but I didn't have the blood lust to make it in that industry on camera or producing.

The tour was cool. It didn't make me yearn for the path not taken, which I suppose is a good thing. I wanted to linger in the mock control room (which shows about 40(?) different feeds from the actual control room), and got a kick out of seeing the CNN and Headline News anchors doing their thing.

And this tour also ended in the gift shop. Here I bought myself a shiny(!) orange(!) travel mug with the CNN logo on it, and Scott got a mug for work that says "You Look Guilty." Had we been buying souvenirs for other people, we totally would have bought the red state/blue state US puzzle for Janette. Election party, anyone??

I believe this leaves us with the Glenn Hotel still to cover. I mentioned before we left how cool the hotel seemed from the website. And they delivered everything they promised: comfy beds, trendy everything, orange(!) accents... but when all is said and done, I just might prefer a chain hotel.

To be fair, we booked the room at a steep discount, and I'm sure what we got was their most basic accommodation. The only request I made in advance was for a queen bed and we got it. However...

* The room was small. What you see in that picture above is just about it. The closet was literally 18" wide and came with about 6 hangers.

* Our bathroom had a shower and no tub (and no peek-a-boo window to watch TV). There was literally one hook to hang a towel on, so we had no choice but to get new towels every day (I'm a fan of re-using towels to save water and detergent). And the counter around the sink was barely big enough for our minimal toiletries.

* There was no clock. Again, I didn't call to ask/complain about this, so I'm not sure whether that's intentional. We got by on wake up calls and the clock on the TV.

* Speaking of wake up calls, the first morning we used the service, I answered the phone. Since I had to talk to a human being to set up the call, I assumed a human being would be calling in the morning. Instead, I was greeted by an automated wake up (fine with me!) by what I can only imagine was a part-time phone sex operator. She used her seductive velvety voice to tell me good morning and that she hoped I had a wonderful night in my luxurious bed (or something like that). And then I promptly took a shower to wash the "ick!" off! Sadly for Scott, the second wake up call was just a hotel employee. lol

* I already mentioned the $10 cocktails at the rooftop lounge. What I didn't mention then was that the two waitresses up there were dressed like hookers. In their defense, they were hookers in matching dresses, so obviously that was an actual uniform. I felt terribly out of place there. The hotel/lounge/restaurant are owned by Maxim, and obviously tailor the experience to a demographic that I am most certainly not!

* Housekeeping was not great. We had issues one day getting to our room at 4:00 and housekeeping being 1 room away from our room, so we hurried right back out. The next day, we got back at noon and housekeeping was 1 room away again, so we went to lunch WAY earlier than we wanted to, and they still hadn't been there when we got back (must've been their lunch time too). We ended up staying in the room because I needed a nap, and I was rather surprised there was no courtesy call offering to make up the bed or bring fresh towels. You get that any level Disney hotel.

* The view was great... if you looked above the parking garage! We were on the fourth floor, and the garage went up to the fourth floor. The bonus was we had a corner room with almost two solid walls of window.

So obviously the hotel focused a lot on the details... just not on the details we would have preferred! Here's two pictures of the hallway between the elevators and our room:

"What am I looking at?" Two glass heads filled with glass beads. Why? No clue! The second picture turned out poorly. The hallway was basically lined with these "planters" of fake grass. Again, don't ask me why. I thought it was pretty cool though!

So that's the end of the Atlanta Story. I recommend everything we did (but not everywhere we ate), and if you can get it for a good price, I even recommend where we stayed.

We're already looking ahead to our next vacation. Most likely, we'll be doing yet another el-cheapo stay in Vero Beach for our anniversary, but since it's our 5th, perhaps we'll splurge on something a little more special.