September 17, 2009
GH: MacNeil House
I have to thank Stephen for writing this review I was just getting around to watch this and last week's episodes, and I will comment on them in this post after Stephen's review below. – Logisti
Ghost Hunters MacNeil House Investigation Review
by Stephen
Here's an episode review. Please note that I'm reviewing the episode, not commenting on the actual haunted/not haunted state of the house, nor on Leigh MacNeil's own comments here or elsewhere. I've never visited the MacNeil house and so have no idea if it's haunted, nor would I necessarily know if I had!
This is a long post. Review begins.
The MacNeil house was presented as one of GH's standard "reassure the family with children" episodes. This is part of a pattern that long-time GH viewers will recognize. When a case has children involved, TAPS usually goes out of its way to debunk anything paranormal.
Renee MacNeil came across to me as pleasant and intelligent. She described a variety of mysterious happenings: a couch that moved away from the wall on its own, a shaking bed, a door that apparently opened in response to a dog's bark, and a crawling rug. She also told of a CD player that went off mysteriously at least twice: once when they first moved in, and again four or five days before the episode filming. Finally, she and her husband Leigh described coming home and seeing the upstairs bedroom light on through the windows of their house, then finding the lights turned off when they got upstairs.
Jay lay down on the bed with his shoes on, which startled me when I saw it the first time. At the same time, Grant opened the door and let it swing inward on its own. He theorized that the dog "finally hit the door with its paw and popped it open." Of course, that's a bit different from the story they were told, but in general I'm with them on that– sometimes details get misreported. Human beings are, well, human.
Then, we see Steve and Tango investigate the Case of the Crawling Rug. Grumpily, I thought to myself, "Those idiots! They should have stuck tape down to see if the rug moved." Then, it turned out that they had. One point for Gryffindor (or Slytherin. Actually, I'm putting Steve and Tango in Hufflepuff for now.) They demonstrated that the rug could easily get kicked out of place. I have no idea what the facts of the case are, but as the owner of a kitchen mat that regularly tries to escape into the garage, I find this idea plausible enough.
Kris and Amy started to investigate the first floor bedroom, and immediately racked up the Quote of the Evening: "There's no sofa in here. That's kind of hard to figure out what would make it move if it isn't even here to begin with." They set up the geophone to try to measure the vibrations on the bed caused when someone walked nearby. I thought that they were somehow going to relate this to the bed-shaking experience, but instead they were after the sliding couch, saying that the sofa and other moving furniture might have been caused by the combination of an uneven hardwood floor and people walking over time. I'm of two minds about this. On one hand, it sounds plausible (unlike EMF sensitivity and other unproven daydreams… ahem… I mean "original research"). On the other hand, it doesn't quite match the report, which described a couch that moved when no one was around.
Then we come to the Dubious Moment in the episode– the radio turning itself on at 2AM, interrupting Kris and Amy's debunk. Was this a staged event to liven things up– did TAPS or the crew set up the alarm to make this case an airtight debunk? I have absolutely no idea. After years of moving lamps, chairs, and collars, I've got outrage fatigue. It could even have been an innocent mistake. I'll get back to the radio later.
Then I see that Kris has managed to teleport herself five hundred miles away! Oh, it's Monday already. Kris is talking to Diane Noserale, an "Information Specialist"at the USGS in Reston, VA. Now, here we come to the dark heart of my raging ambivalence. You see, in a thousand cases in the past (perhaps I exaggerate) I've been screaming at the screen, "Check the seismic records! Check the seismic records!" (This has caused my wife some confusion, but we deal.) Since I live in seismically-active California, it seems very natural to me that mysteriously moving or falling objects or strange sounds might be the result of tremors. A quick check on Google Earth shows me that indeed there was a tremor within fifty miles of the MacNeil house just last Tuesday. Unfortunately, the same quick check doesn't show me anything else nearby since the eighties. That certainly doesn't rule earthquakes out, but doesn't give any confirming evidence. So, I give them a point for education, but then take it away.
We jump straight from "Research" to the Reveal, which is good– I can stand the faked "Review" sections less and less each time. Jay and Grant started out well, I thought. Rather than suggesting definite explanations, they were suggesting "things to think about next time," which I found refreshing. I'm not a paranormal investigator, but I've spoken to a couple on the skeptic side, and they emphasize that the most important thing to do is to try to give the client some help in figuring things out themselves. For a while, it seemed like they were doing that.
Then Grant got to the Mysterious Self-Activating Stereo. Grant: "My suggestion is to read the manual on the device, and figure how to turn that thing off, or get a new radio." I remember thinking, on the first watch, "Ooh, that sounded harsh."
Thanks to The Doctor's technical intel work and a quick web search, I have now read the manual for that radio (assuming that it's a JVC FS-SD1000 CD Shelf System or similar). Yes, it has a timer, but nowhere in the manual does it say anything about the alarm automatically defaulting to 2AM. Instead, it says that "[i]f the System is unplugged, or a power failure occurs, the timer setting will be lost. You will need to reset the clock first, then the timer." If Pilgrim had done a close-up on the display on the initial walk-through, we'd be able to tell, since a small clock icon would appear in the lower-right corner. No luck. Not to say that the manual is right– they can be wrong.
So basically I'm stuck. On one hand, unlike many episodes, there's no strong evidence that they faked anything, and they did what I often wish them to do– applied their minds to coming up with plausible explanations. On the other hand, some of the explanations presented on the show are iffy, and Jay and Grant might have tried reading the manual on the alarm clock themselves.
(Particularly page 8, but that's for another day.)
[Logisti's review/Comments below]
Thanks again to Stephen for writing this up, I've got only a few things to add but here they are:
Sometimes you hear a story that has only a few possible explanations — such as a woman who says she felt someone grab her wrist while she was walking up a staircase. I'm sure there are other possibilities but the big-three possible explanations are: (1) This was a paranormal event, (2) She made it up, or (3) Something happened internally in her brain: i.e. she hallucinated it or her brain otherwise got its wires crossed.
Most, if not all of the reports coming out of the MacNeil home, do not fit into this category. For instance, one of the incidents Renee MacNeil described was her dog barking at a door, which then opened (uphill) and let the dog in. Now, without knowing any additional details there are tons of completely non-supernatural explanations that could fit the facts. Everything from "the door might not have been properly latched and the dog nudged it open with it's snout while it was barking" to "the dog jumped up on the door and managed to turn the knob enough to unlatch it". Maybe knowing some more facts could rule those two possibilities in or out, but there are plenty more. Heck, soundwaves are just like little shockwaves through the air. In an enclosed space a loud bark aimed straight at a door might be enough to nudge it open if it wasn't properly latched and the dog wouldn't have had to go anywhere near it.
As it turned out though, even the assertion that the door opened "uphill" seems to have been incorrect because Grant repeatedly tested the door by unlatching it and letting go, which demonstrated the door's natural tendency once unlatched was to swing open.
…and most of the reports fit this same or similar mold. For this reason, were I Jay or Grant I might start off the investigation with the expectation that maybe the family is reading too much into mundane things and this place needs a debunk more than it needs hours of EVP and K-II sessions. And maybe that's the wrong attitude going into an investigation — it's certainly wrong from a fundamental perspective that they go into any investigation with preconceived notion of what to look for or expect, but realistically they are only going to be there once and they have limited time so they need to narrow down their approach to any given investigation. It's certainly criticism-worthy, in some cases more than others, but it's also largely unavoidable. Besides, no one ever accused TAPS of being scientific. Except for that one time — but they were clearly up late smoking something illegal the night before.
Just as an aside, does Jay really think it's appropriate to lay on people's beds with his shoes on? I'm pretty sure that's a big no-no in most households. Not than anyone ever accused Jay of being pleasant and well-cultured.
Steve & Tango also had what seemed to be an incredibly solid debunk about a rug moving. They demonstrated that during the normal motion of taking the baby to the changing table, they could accidentally make the rug move (by walking on it) in the manner similar to what the client described. Kris & Amy didn't have as solid an explanation for reports of a bed shaking, but they did lay a flashlight down on the floor and noted that it rolled all over the place because the wood floor was completely uneven — I'm not sure what that proves, if anything, but it shows the TAPS team was thinking on their feet and coming up with results one might expect the homeowners to find interesting to say the least.
Of course, it's almost insulting that Kris Williams drove all the way from New Hampshire to the US Geological Survey headquarters in Virginia in order to explore the possibility that earthquakes might be to blame for some of the reports at the MacNeil house (such as the bed shaking, objects moving) and all she did was basically ask, "Is it possible to have an earthquake in New Hampshire?" but completely failed to ask if there was any record of such an earthquake that might coincide with the report. I mean, it's such a basic question I can't believe they drove 500 miles and forgot to ask it. I'm more likely to believe they drove 500 miles, asked the question, didn't like the answer they got ('no, there were no such earthquakes, we would have recorded it if there had been') and decided to leave it out of the show. That could just as easily be the producers though, and not necessarily the fault of Kris Williams or TAPS.
Also, while as a techie I appreciated Grant's toned down RTFM during the reveal, but it certainly was worded a tad insensitively for something you're saying to a client.
Filed under Ghost Hunters, Posts by Logisti
Comments on GH: MacNeil House
The Doctor @ 9:01 pm
They SUSPECT the radio might be set to turn on in the middle of the night and suggest to the client that they RTFM ??
How about their tech experts take five minutes and figure it out and PROVE that it was set to go off ?
Realdeal @ 12:24 pm
Leigh Macneil had a few things to say about the investigation over in the Syfy fourms. http://forums.syfy.com/index.php?showtopic=2337564
Leigh Macneil @ 6:20 pm
Realdeal, thanks for mention my response thread..
Leigh
camile @ 7:12 pm
Hi Leigh,
Welcome! I'm glad to see you found us. Would you consider bringing folks here up to speed on your experiences with your house and GH's investigation?
alicat @ 8:35 pm
Welcome Leigh,
As Camile has expressed above, we would like to hear your experiences posted on this board. While I appreciate your posting on the Syfy forum, that is a totally different forum and, in order for us to be clear on your experiences and the sequence of events, we need to have the information posted here for discussion purposes. Your response would be greatly appreciated.
Leigh Macneil @ 9:59 pm
My wife and I spent a long time trying to find a home. I wanted the old house with a story and she wanted some modern conveniences. The house had been empty for 2 years and needed a little work which we were perfectly fine with. The house has a great history dating back to 1856, it was built by John Brockway and sold to Eli Boutwell in 1865. Eli Boutwell whose house is located next door had transferred ownership of this house to his son Arthur in 1898. They owned a sawmill that was once located down the street and were local politicians both serving as NH state senators. That’s the brief history of our home, now to the experiences:
1: We occasionally hear what seems to be whispering throughout the house. The only way I can describe it is to try and imagine a conversation going on in another room and not really understanding what’s being said but you know people are talking. This tends to happen late at night and sometimes early in the AM (A few of our guests have heard these strange sounds as well.) We have since given up on these kinds of experiences simply because we are now just use to it and it doesn’t really bother us. These kinds of occurrence have happened a lot, too much to really give you a number.
2: It was around Christmas time and I was making some pizza one night and the flour made me sneeze and I thought I heard a voice coming from the center of the house. Somehow I made out the sound to be “bless you” although I still think that was in my head. I went to investigate and I heard what sounded like walking from one end of the house to the other. The dogs were outside so I knew it was not them. I went upstairs to the second floor only to discover all the electric candle lights in six of the upstairs windows were on the floor as if someone had taken them off the window and placed them there.
3: I came home from work one day around 3:30pm. My wife was still at school and had not been home yet. I put my stuff down in my office and heard what sounded like chime music echoing through the house. I walked around the house to try and find out where the music was coming from and ended up on the second floor. It led me to the spare room and it turned out that an old music box that I didn’t even know we had was playing on its own at full crank. Nobody had been home so there was no explanation as to how it was playing on its own.
4: I was on the first floor at the foot of the stairs talking to my wife who was standing at the top of the stairs. All of a sudden the door to my left at the foot of the stairs slammed shut.
5: My wife was in the bathroom and the dog started barking at the door to the spare room across the hall and the door unlatched and opened for the dog. Could have been the way Jay and Grant said, however my wife’s account is different.
6: I was in the basement putting away Christmas decorations and I heard what sounded like a brick dragging across the floor. I walked over to the area of the basement where the sound came from. There were a few old bricks already on the floor, so I kick one of the bricks across the floor and it made the exact sound.
7: We came home from a long weekend in VT and noticed that the third floor light was on. This was before the attic was finished, I went upstairs and discovered the light was off. Now I did everything I could to debunk this myself and could not explain how we both saw the light clearly on (Which by the way my wife made it a point to slap my shoulder telling me that I forgot to shut it off) to go upstairs and find the light switch in the off position and nothing wrong with the fixture.
8: During the two years the house was empty there was a woman and her child living there short term because they were displaced due to hurricane Katrina. My other neighbor told me that the woman came over a view times pretty scared. She had experienced voices coming from the baby monitor on a few occasions. Now this can very easily be explained 99% of the time, however we live in a rural area. Our house is on 4 acres and there is an additional 100 acres of conservation land beyond my property line. My neighbor directly across the street is on a 17 acre lot and my neighbor to the other side is also on a large lot. Quite a bit of space for a baby monitor to pick anything up.
9: I have a neighbor that lives across the street whose grandfather owned my house in the 40's and 50's. We had discovered that his mother died in what is now our dining room. For years his brother believed that his mother haunted the attic, that’s where they stored all her cloths and I guess the brother had experiences in the attic too. My neighbor never experienced anything and believed his brother was a raging booze hound.
10: My wife’s grandmother was visiting us one day with her parents and asked us who the children were playing next to the deck outside. My wife explained to her that there were no children outside and our neighbors don’t have any little kids. Her grandmother argued with my wife insisting that she saw little kids playing in the yard. Now her grandmother passed away shortly after and it’s possible she could have been hallucinating or whatever. I got to say this woman was sharp as a tack and boy was she mad that we insisted that there were no kids outside.
Theres a lot of small stuff like kids toys going off on there own and stuff like that but that could be anything
alicat @ 10:25 pm
Thanks Leigh. It's getting rather late here in EST but can you also post either tonight or tomorrow your experiences with GH/TAPS and where you feel this all went wrong from your point of view, your observations about your first hand experiences, who contacted who so we are clear, and the process of the approach, the paperwork and your overall impressions of experience before the show aired. We know you were unhappy by the experience but other than editing, which no one other than the production company/producers are privy to, were you promised anything we're not aware of by GH/TAPS or the production company? Other questions are:
When did they film (date wise)?
How long did they film (days/hours)?
Did they stay in the area (if you know) or leave and return?
How long it was between the time they wrapped up filming/left and then returned to do your "reveal"?
Did anyone connected with the show (not another paranormal group) contact you or your wife to do any one-on-one history/research?
I know these are a lot of questions but the information is important to understand the operations.
Thank you for responding.
Realdeal @ 2:06 am
Your welcome Leigh,
Im not a regular on this site but I have posted a few things. I have found the regulars to be very open minded and have real, intelligent conversations without a lot of bashing. It is one of my favorite sites to read the lasted GH episode review. Hope they can answer your questions or give you a fourm to speak about you experiences.
Leigh Macneil @ 7:10 am
When did they film (date wise)? How long did they film (days/hours)?
The production dates were April 20th through the 24th. How it works is they show up on DAY 1 for the initial equipment setup and filming of the tour along with the "talent"(cast words not mine) in the investigation. The field producer showed up early, really nice guy named Seth gave us the low down on what they were going to do etc. We had to leave around 7pm so they could start doing there thing. They told us that the house would be in production till 4am. After pushing a few time they finally caved and put us up in a hotel in Concord. DAY 1(Investigation) and DAY 4(Reveal) are the only days the guys come to the house for there part of the filming. It was a circus there was a crew of like 20 people that showed up and pretty much took over the house. I have pictures on my FACEBOOK page if you want to check out the behind the scenes photos of the crew just search my name.
DAY 2: "B Roll" This is when its the crew only. They showed up at the same time and are there till 4am. What they do is they retrace the steps of the guys during the tour and the investigation to film all the creepy stuff. When you watch the show and someone is doing a tour and they point to a certain area and you see some creepy shot of that area, thats from the "B Roll". Same thing with all the house images thats all from the "B Roll". I ask a question of the crew over a sandwich that struck me. If all these guys are at the house during the "B Roll" has any of the crew ever experienced anything and I got a bunch of giggles and a "No dude". I felt a little embarrassed at first but just brushed it off.
DAY 3: We were told that they shoot off site to film the analysis footage and interview with the director of the antiquarian society in Hopkinton.
DAY 4: They come back in full force around the same time to set up shop in the attic(interviews) and our sunroom(Reveal) with me,my mother in-law,my neighbor and a few memebers of the New Hampshire Paranormal group that did the first investigation. They filmed us describing our individual experiences.
Did they stay in the area (if you know) or leave and return? I guess they stayed in a Hotel nearby
Did anyone connected with the show (not another paranormal group) contact you or your wife to do any one-on-one history/research? We were contacted first by New Hampshire Paranormal first because I guess the producer in LA contacted them looking to do a NH residence. Apparently out of all of the NHP's investigations only two homes produced real evidence for them my house and some house in Dover. They called us first because our house was a lot nicer than the other and I guess fit the narrative. I said "Sure, no problem" and 20 minutes later I get a phone call from a Patrick Powell at Pilgrim Productions about the show. They did a lot of interviews over the phone with everyone involved including my neighbors. Then they "pitch" the show idea to some big wigs and then a week later we got a call saying they were a go to come to our house. Then we had to fill out all kinds of paper work including backround check stuff. After all that back and forth e-mails with forms and releases, we did not hear from them until a week prior to filming.
alicat @ 8:58 am
Thanks Leigh,
As far as your perception of production being a "circus", yes, that pretty much sums it up and is really not an unusual claim by anyone witnessing the arrival, set up and breakdown including cast/crew.
You haven't yet mentioned your experiences with GH/TAPS and where you feel this all went wrong from your point of view as well as your overall impressions of the experience before the show aired. We know you were unhappy but were you promised anything we're not aware of by GH/TAPS or the production company?
I'm also curious about how you knew "They called us first because our house was a lot nicer than the other and I guess fit the narrative." Did they tell you this directly? I'm also confused about what you mean by "I guess fit the narrative". Can you explain exactly what you mean by that?
Also, you say they contacted your neighbors. How did they ascertain their names and telephone numbers? Did you supply that information?
At what time did the "talent" arrive on the first day to film the tour? They show the "tour" at 5:43 p.m. with Jason, Grant and Steve. What time did they return for the set up to shoot the interviews and reveal? Did the entire "talent" return or just Jason & Grant?
Leigh Macneil @ 10:06 am
Basically Seth told us on DAY 4 after the reveal that they shot a "really cool episode". He told us not to worry about the fact that they did not catch anything during the investigation because the episode shot really well and we would be really please when it airs. He did mention in no real detail about the clock going off and scaring the girls and how funny it was. I didn't think anything of it because I have seen episodes where they did not find anything and still managed to maintain the respect of the client with the story still pretty interesting. Thats pretty much what I was expecting from these guys, I figured they would tell our story and talk about what they really said in the reveal about needing an ongoing investigation and to get NHP back in here to try and come up with some answers. Instead it was a "read the directions or buy a new radio". The experience of them being here was pretty positive, everyone was nice. My neighbor made them cookies which a huge hit for the crew.
Why our house was picked? NHP was approached by Pilgrim looking for a NH residence and my house was the only case they put forward. NHP made the choice to recommend my house and they relayed that to me
Fit the Narrative: Spooky looking house plenty of space to film, cool story etc.. That was my choice of word not theres, NHP felt my case was a better case to offer up.
Contacting Neighbors: They requested as much information as I could come up with. I got there consent first and gave Patrick there info to contact them directly for there take on the house and there experiences.
DAY 1: The entourage showed up around 3:30 to set everything up, so the time of the tour was probably right
DAY 4: A handfull of crew showed up and just Jason and Grant for the reveal. They were probably here for 3 hours I would say. That was the day that NHP gave him some of the evidence they had saved on a USB drive. That communication after that was from grant saying that he could not put his head around the photo image that my wifes student caught on her camera phone.
We went up to visit there Inn in whitefield because the day they shot our reveal they were all excited about getting there liquor license and wanted us to come visit the place. About mid summer we brought 3 families with us to stay there and take the kids to Santas Village and didn't even get a thank you for bringing people up to his business to spend money. We ended up all checking out after the first night because the place was horrible. We checked in down the street at the http://www.mountainviewgrand.com/ its about a half mile down the street from the Spaulding Inn. I highly recommend this place!!
camile @ 11:21 am
Hi Leigh,
I've been reading over your posts and I just wanted to say thank you for your candor and honesty in your posts here! I really appreciate it!
I do have a question or two for you and probably more later as the day wears on and I get more caffeine in my system.. In the releases and forms they had you sign- what were the non-disclosures like? The reason I ask is we have found so few people willing to talk to us about their experiences with GH, I've come to assume that the non-disclosure agreements must be filled with hell fire, brimstone and threatened legal action to keep folks hushed up. What were yours like?
It sounds as if your list of experiences entailed sooo much more than rugs moving and an alarm going off. How disappointing and frustrating to have them only show things that could be explained away. What more can you tell us about that alarm? Was it possible to see what time the alarm was set for after they had been there? When I set my alarm I can see what time it was previously set for before I change it. (I hope that makes sense..) Does yours work likewise and could you tell that they had purposely (or not) set it for 2am?
Thank you again, Leigh for your candor and willingness to answer our questions- I really appreciate it!
Camile
(MeelyCLC on the SyFy boards)
Leigh Macneil @ 12:33 pm
I don't know, I've never used that radio for anything other than listing to it on occasion when preparing for work. I honestly haven't even checked it since they left. Prior to them coming to the house, I didn't even know it had a timer thats how often it gets used. I would probably have to play around with it to see how its preset. I did go through the paperwork we signed, no problems there. The only document were two 11 page questionaires for the backround check and a release for the use of my daughters image because her picture on the wall was in the backround. I still have the string of e-mail communications between my wife and the producer in LA.
PS: I checked it and couldn't figure out the alarm only the clock part, it was set for 12:00AM. Bottom line is it hasn't gone off at all
Elphie @ 12:50 pm
I too want to express my concerns over the way you and your family were treated by the TAPS production team. I do have a question I would like to ask you about your home. I went to the New Hampshire Paranormal website to look for more information and they're showing a picture of your house, plus the selling price and your realtor's name.
It's a beautiful home and you have stated that this house was exactly what you were looking for. May I ask why you are moving .. is it due to the paranormal activity? I apologize if my question is too personal.
Elphie
Leigh Macneil @ 1:16 pm
No, my daughter is 18 months now and my wife wants to be in a neighborhood where there are other kids to play with. Im kind of dragging my feet a little so maybe this story will slow it down hahahaha Plus, the house is not exactly baby safe. We are beginning to figure that out the hard way.. Im probably going to take it off the market and re-list it in the spring.
The Doctor @ 2:05 pm
The picture of four seasoned Ghost Hunters crouched around trying to figure out how a clock radio works is priceless.
Whoever on their team unplugged the radio to begin with, someone finally realized that it was an artifact to be investigated, and figures the best thing to do is plug it back in and stick it in the middle of the room.
Amy suggests that it might have defaulted to alarm set mode when unplugged – well, why did she not simply unplug it again and see ?
Why did she not find out who actually plugged it back in and find out if they screwed around with it trying to get the time set ?
… and why does Jason think its OK to lie down on someones bed with his sneakers on ? ( I hope you kept your shoes on when you visited the SPIN
Stephen @ 2:35 am
Leigh, welcome to the site. I really appreciate your insights and the view behind the scenes you offer. If it makes you feel any better, I actually thought that you and your wife seemed intelligent and engaging despite the production tricks that TAPS and Pilgrim played.
Leigh Macneil @ 6:00 am
Im not mad about them not finding anything, Im mad about the twisting of the story. Nothing about the history of the house, nothing about the claims from the locals and no real investigation regardless of there findings. It makes you think twice when you watch these reality shows and wonder what the real story is of the person they are portraying. I will tell you this much when I cast judgement on someone that is on one of these shows I will think twice of whats real and whats percieved
HollyDolly @ 9:20 am
Leigh I'm curious, what went wrong with your stay at the Spaudling Inn?
You mentioned you and the other families only stayed there one night.
Leigh Macneil @ 10:35 am
It was not a good place to stay.
1: No AC
2: No TV in the rooms
3: The service was terrible in the restaurant all around
4: They charged my credit card for the entire visit when I made the reservation and had to call twice to get them to credit me back on the second night
5: Two tiny old twin beds pushed together to call it a king
6: Old nappy pillows that had a strange oder under new pillow cases
7: You needed to run the water for a good two minutes to get all the rust out
I got the same complaints from my friends in the rooms they stayed in. I stayed in the carriage house and they stayed in the main house. I wanted to check out right away because we had a bunch of kids with us to keep entertained and the other place had a pool,play area etc.. We were stuck that first night because if we check out right away they would have still charged us for the rooms. Im guessing its just a tourist trap for the hard core TAPS followers who don't really care about those kinds of things. I travel a lot and if Im paying 149.00 a night I expect certain things to be standard.