The Cootie Report

I settled in last night with Travel & Leisure magazine's quarterly Family supplement, aimed at travelers with kids. The cover tease "Tropical 10: Best Caribbean resorts" caught my eye. All of them looked delectable. The only thing that wasn't were the prices. Just one was less than $370 a night, without airfare. The Westin St. John Resort & Villas was $759 a night. That was depressing enough. Then I flipped to another article, "The Truth About Hotel Rooms," dubbed "The Cootie Report."

The catchy intro: "It's 8 p.m., and you're all snug in your room - the kids are rolling on the carpet, gumming the remote, trying to knock each other out with pillows. What's wrong with this picture? According to a number of new germ studies, plenty. No matter how nice the establishment, chances are that some invisible guests have dodged the housekeeper."

The "guests" the article referred to included bacteria in sinks and toilets, bedbugs, dust mites, pet dander, athlete's foot fungus and cold viruses - which the article said can survive for 24 hours on lamp switches. It almost made me feel less bad about not being able to afford a pricey Caribbean resort.

The T&L Web site has a link to the Top 10 tropical resort piece, http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/the-tropical-10-the-best-caribbean-resorts, but not to the "Cootie Report." If you're queasy about dust mites and bedbugs, it's probably better that way.