~ Canterlot Castle, Canterlot – July 29-31, 984 ~
To be frank, I personally believe that we would benefit greatly from striking the word "vintage" from every single dictionary in the nation.
Do away with it. Cast it to the hounds. Truly, I assert that it is holding us back as a species!
Such a term was bounced about to no end in every description of Canterlot Castle that I had come across as I planned my visit to the great city. Or, rather, I was visiting the city anyways, and I decided I'd treat myself to a very well-reputed place while I was there.
In those days I was not travelling to Canterlot on Equestria Games-related business. I was instead a starry-eyed young mare in the middle of an arduous college program. During the summers I was an intern for the advertising commitee of the Equestria Games, where I lived in the filthy city of filth known as Manehattan. Not very often do I travel merely to see sights—such things can be gleaned off a photograph at 100% less of the cost, but I was quite anxious to get out of the filthy city to see one with a higher reputation. Besides, time after time in every measured response given to my past hotel reviews, it is asserted to me that all of them would be instantly nullified by the staggering majesty of such a prestigious and everlasting fragment of historical revelation.
See all those weighty words? Did you enjoy how explicitly pretentious they sounded?
What's that? You didn't?
Then by all means do not consider Canterlot Castle as a lodging option. It is the hotel-equivalent of an old stallion at a family reunion desperately attempting to prove his flickering relevance while being too stubborn to let go of how much of an archaic and dated old fart he truly is.
Canterlot Castle is "vintage" in the same sense as the bathroom drawer full of mothballs at your grandmother's house is "vintage."
I checked in alone. I was traveling alone, too—something that I did not quite enjoy at the time but would later come to see as tradition.
Anyways, immediately upon checking in I arrived to a fluster of activity as, lo and behold, the great Princess Celestia was presently gracing them with their presence!
Now, since I know it will crop up in some future letter to the editor (not that I have an editor, being a freelance hotel reviewer writing for extra bits), I will address the issue right here and now.
"But Florina!" you may cry, "We can't accept your reviews as fact! Everypony knows you already hate the monarchy!"
Earnestly, I am tempted to simply refuse to even acknowledge the ludicrous claims many of my so-called-'dear-readers' posit: that my verdicts are skewed by personal bias. That's ridiculous. Personal bias is for idiots who can't think enough to prove things factually.
Besides, I don't hate the monarchy. I hate that it under-funds the Equestria Games while simultaneously making ludicrous requests that raise the expenses. I hate the fact that I need to write hotel reviews to fund the personal expenses associated with managing the Equestria Games. You'd think such an important job would have a bit more security.
I digress. Celestia had appeared and it was apparently a big deal. As though it were some oddity that Princess Celestia was walking through her bloody house. I don't recall her uttering a single word to the concierge as she crossed the hallway to get to some far-off point in the overly elaborate building, but nonetheless he saw fit to immediately abandon any efforts to provide me with my room key and instead cater to the needs of a Princess whose tail was practically in the other room and she evidently had no interest in conversing with him.
After growing tired of watching a potted plant bloom, wither, and promptly die whilst waiting for his return, I took to leafing through the brochure of the hotel left on the front desk, reviewing all the boisterous assertions that had drawn me to the building in the first place. Many were indeed quite intriguing—for example, it boasted original paintings dating back to the early 400s in every room. Not reproductions, either, rather the original canvas that some ancient delusional had spattered paint all over and declared it worth a million bits a few years in the marginal future.
I was finally led to my room sometime in the next century, whereupon I was immediately greeted with a glaring rendition of Princess Celestia herself. For a moment I was shocked as I stared into the rather annoyed-looking face of Princess Celestia, hung directly across from a bed which reeked of... oldness. True to the brochure's claims, I could see the original indentations of paint indicating it was indeed authentic, but still I was temporarily confused as to why such an unflattering picture would be hung—directly in front of the bed, no less, and lit by a lamp to add to the image of some ghostly apparition silently informing me of my poor decisions in the art of hotel selection.
It was only until I requested another room—having decided such a terrifying image would prove impossible to sleep beneath—that I fully understood the reason for the pictured Celestia's apparent irritation.
For above the bed was an identical image—equally authentic—although in this particular one Celestia looked even more irritated. I can only imagine her sitting still for some ungodly length of time as some mousy little painter captures her image one hundred and forty-seven times, in exactly the same rendition, the whole while barking at her to remain still, damn it!
I was partly curious to see if some of the paintings further down the hall had flecks of the painter's blood splattered across the canvas.
To fit with the intentionally archaic nature of the castle, the hotel was lacking in anything even resembling an object from the most recent century—no television, no alarm clock, a toilet with an alarmingly questionable flush-to-clog ratio... it was especially bewildering because the debit machine at the restaurant was most certainly real, as were the insanely high prices it commanded.
With the overtly haughty, 'holier-than-thou' atmosphere of the hotel properly established for you dear readers, I now feel justified in moving onto the room itself.
Now, if you are fond of rococo style design and furniture—I understand many are—I recommend you close your eyes upon entering, stumble your way over to your bed and sit upon it, and only then open your eyes to behold the room. I don't wish for any of my readers to have a rococo-induced heart-attack. I myself am relatively indifferent to the style when it's in the context of something like Canterlot Castle, where the entire purpose is intended archaism. It looks somewhat rich old-mareish—giving the impression that one is sleeping in a private assisted living home or something, but nonetheless it isn't exactly unpleasant to the eyes in moderation.
My largest problem with Canterlot Castle, though, is the lack of consistency.
The problem with having an inn that is in operation for literal centuries is that after awhile it simply becomes an odd amalgamation of eras. One rococo vanity in an otherwise gothic bathroom, for example, creates a sort of cognitive dissonance that is difficult to articulate here, so I won't bother. I'm well aware that such problems would likely not be observed by a typical tourist anyways.
Another problem with this sort of furniture design is that, frankly, such furniture isn't always pleasant. The beds, for example, are the old sorts with the noisy springs and the overly-fluffy-mattresses, where one wakes up in the middle of the night in sheer terror, feeling as though they are sinking into quicksand.
As such, given the alarming price for both a room and a meal, the lack of attention towards any sense of consistent design, and the quality of my sleep itself, I don't really recommend Canterlot Castle to anypony who isn't particularly interested in the niche architecture it boasts. If you have no interest in such, sleep somewhere less pretentious.
★★ - Published in the Canterlot Herald, Issue 158, on May 12th, 993