Quickie Questions

What's the difference between a motel and a hotel?

Usually, motels are cheaper and less fancy.

So, generally, you won't find motels with indoor lobbies, indoor hallways, and stuff.

Motels are usually smaller and are designed for a night or two stay, a place you'd stop during a roadtrip. A hotel can be a destination in of itself and offers far more ammenities and nicer rooms, but will almost always cost more.

And hotels are haunted where as motels are where you'll find axe-murderers.

So there's no formal difference? One is just the fancier, nicer version of the other?

More or less. Try doing a google image search of the two seperatly. Motels usually have a standard layout.

Something rectangularish◊, right? And hotels are in actual multistory buildings.

So what's a common motel chain in NY? One that would have plenty of locations near NYC.

edited 21st Mar '11 11:40:14 AM by melloncollie

No idea. You may want to check major lower-grade hotel/motel/inn chains anyway, such as Holiday Inn (though this one has been trending upscale in recent years), Holiday Inn Express, Red Roof Inns, Days Inn, Motel 6, Super 8, Howard Johnson, La Quinta Inn, Comfort Inn, Econo Lodge, and others. However, around NYC I wouldn't expect prices to be cheap; expect to pay at least $80 a night.

Er, I suppose $80 isn't too bad.

I tried googling "ny motel chain", and got a bunch of stuff in NJ or CT. Weird.

Originally, motels were "motor-hotels", less elaborate places along the highway to stop at over night, while a hotel was likely to be in a city and have more services available, like a restaurant (or at least a coffeeshop) and perhaps a bar in the building, room service, bellboys, and such. Motels didn't usually have any of that — there might be vending machines for soda or snacks, and you carried your own luggage to and from the room. The rooms would be smaller and simpler, and might even be in individual cabins. The prices were correspondingly lower. Most motels started out as individually-operated business along tourist routes.

Here's a decent overview of the history of the "motel".

...Ramada, Comfort Inn, Rodeway Inn, Travelodge, Knights Inn, Best Western, America's Best Value Inn, Red Carpet Inn,...

They have continental breakfasts sometimes, though, yes?

Thanks for the info, everyone.

...Fairfield Inn, Hampton Inn...

Yes, motels may provide breakfast, but for these cheaper hotels, it's an inconsistent feature that depends on the motel you're at, and if they do it's what's called a "continental" breakfast, which usually means a selection of bagels, bread, basic fruits (apples, oranges, and bananas), cereals, coffee, one or more juices, and milk if you're lucky. Pancakes or waffles are possible but they'd be make-your-own; eggs of any sort are rare and if provided are usually hard-boiled or scrambled en masse.

edited 21st Mar '11 12:35:32 PM by GlennMagusHarvey

I know, I was just checking on the food differences.

Gee, I don't think I've ever stayed in an actual hotel...

There may be toasters; I've seen both household-style and conveyor-belt-style toasters. The latter kind is fun.

They also usually provide little packets of fruit jelly/preserves and butter. And maybe sour cream for bagels.

Generally they also provide plastic utensils and styrofoam or paper plates and plastic cups.

... conveyor belt toaster? Huh?

I stayed in a Holiday Inn in Shanghai.

It had four stars. I was crying when we left.

^You know, it has a conveyor belt that carries your item past the heating element than drops down a shoot.

edited 21st Mar '11 12:48:18 PM by HungryJoe

Toaster housed in a metal box whose front exposes a "conveyor belt" of thin metal bars. You put your toast on the bars on the outside and it gets toasted as it moves in. At the end of the belt, it just falls onto a slide that brings it back out to a tray beneath the belt, where you can retrieve your now-toasted toast bread toast.

The "how dark your toast is" adjuster in this case is the speed of the belt.

This machine, which operates basically as a continuous process (unlike the typical household toaster, which operates as a batch process) is rather inefficient unless you have a lot of people toasting stuff in a large span of time.

edited 21st Mar '11 12:49:29 PM by GlennMagusHarvey

Motels do that now. They didn't used to. Like I said, maybe a couple of vending machines. More likely is that there was a mom-and-pop restaurant or greasy spoon nearby. I can recall when having "continental breakfast available" was a huge selling point for motels.

edited 21st Mar '11 2:30:36 PM by Madrugada

Is malt liquor just strong beer? Or is it something different?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malt_liquor

Google. Wikipedia. They're great sources of answers.

Does anyone know of a legitimate, legal concert ticket-selling site that isn't too popular and doesn't inflate ticket prices? I'm getting all frustrated over trying to find last minute tickets that aren't being sold for 3 times the original price.

I know there's a service that specificly does NYC that's supposed to be pretty good.

I thought lower-end motels usually don't serve breakfast but mid-range and upper-end motels (motels, not hotels) might, and it's usually in a common room near or in the lobby.

Now motels typically don't have an associated restaurant, while hotels usually do, and sometimes several too.

Oh.