Good morning and welcome back for the second entry into this series. Today is going to be a great blog because I'm writing about one of my personal favorite hotels and it's my birthday. Yep I'm now somewhere between eight-teen and a hundred. Moving on, today I will proceed with my alternate Halloween activities idea, but still on the same path as yesterday.
Next on the list, the Adolphus. Allow me to make some things clear about the Adolphus, it's one of my favorite hotels in the world. It to me is up there with my precious Augustine in Prague. It is a classic, gorgeous piece of Dallas history, that has stood the test of time and came out as the ultimate luxurious hotel in downtown Dallas. It's one of those places where you feel you should wear black tie to walk through the lobby, but the staff is so kind that they treat you like royalty even when you're slumming it in flip flops and cargo shorts (I was there to look for ghost so I dressed comfortably!). When I started doing research for this project I felt my heart skip a beat because it meant that I had a valid reason to go stay at one of my dream hotels (there may have been a moment where I squealed and did a little spin in my chair).
Onto the Halloween spooky stuff, we'll start with a brief history lesson. Once upon a time there was a girl getting married, so excited about her wedding she decided to have it on her birthday and not just anywhere, no it had to be the perfect place, so she planned her wedding at the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas Texas. She waited for her husband to be, but sadly realized that he had left her jilted at the alter. Lost in her despair and her heart riddled with pain, the bride took her own life hanging herself in the ballroom where she was meant to marry the man she loved. The grand ballroom where the sad bride took her life is now a shell tucked away hidden on the 19th floor of the Adolphus, it's rumored that the bride is still there that she walks the hallways waiting for her groom to finally arrive, but never finding peace for her restless soul.
Of course after hearing about this Faustian story, I knew that I had to stay at the Adolphus on the 19th floor, I needed to see if a grief stricken girl did roam around looking for the man who clearly sucked because he bailed on her wedding day. There's a lot of documented creepiness that I was looking to see if I could encounter:
- Phantom big band music playing
- Bride walking around
- Sounds of a woman crying echoing through the hallways
Those were all the clues to look for, or so I thought. I found that the elevators on the 19th floor were also a draw for those who wish to see the proof of the bride. The videos I have seen were all the same, at a random point in the night (maybe day) the elevators on the 19th floor begin to randomly open and close at the same time over and over again while the phone in the waiting area rings. Should you pick up the phone it will either call down to the lobby, or you will hear the sobs of a mystery woman.
I unfortunately did not get a room on the 19th floor of the hotel, which is fine because the research wasn't meant to be done in my room, it was in the hallways of the floor, so it didn't matter where my decadent room was (on a side note, if I could have stolen my bed and taken it home with me, I would have, it was the best bed I have been on). My partner in crime came with me, and she was ready to shoot pictures but the moment she put fresh batteries in her camera (twice!) the power from them was drained, a classic tell tale sign that we were not alone.
We decided that we needed to go down to the gift shop and try our luck with some newer batteries, we went down the stairwell from our 20th floor room and came across the entrance to the now sealed off ballroom, the look of it made the hairs on my neck stand on end and then of course I tried to look into the open hole in it. All I saw was the blocking of the door keeping us out of the infamous ballroom. While my friend got her batteries in order, I spoke to one of the staff about the ballroom and the bride, I asked him to show me the ballroom and he declined so back to the 19th floor I went. We sat for a while, I jumped a little every time someone came up to the floor, but there was no dance of the elevators. However there was some sense of unease while we sat there, and the middle elevator did this odd thing. It would trigger the light indicating it was going to open and even heard it dock at the floor, but it didn't open. It did this several times and each time was just as hair raising as the first.
All in all my findings were, that this is a magnificent beauty of a hotel and if you're looking for ghost or not, it's the Adolphus. Few hotels in the world match up to it when it comes to elegance and luxury, as for the ghost hunt, it's fun there. You can hunt around all night, the staff is happy to talk to you about all the spooky legends. It's a wonderful stay, oh and if you plan on doing the elevator door stake out, make sure you bring a drink and snack.
You would think, yamming about how amazing you are and letting the world know that you are the best for whatever their needs would be cake walk. But you're wrong. There is a huge obstacle facing you in a challenge like this because as you begin to type you start realizing that all your short comings are not short or meek they're these skyscraper size hurdles that you can never conquer and all those people who said you'd never amount to anything are right! Oh the humanity! Ok, so maybe not so intense but it is a big unforgiving mirror being shown to you. 
