Yes, but... may I play devil's advocate for a moment?

- I accept that you made friends for life. But you are obviously a lovely, gregarious person - has that not happened to you far more often in other circumstances? Was it the hotel that afforded the "life changing experience" or was it merely the coincidental backdrop?
- The people you met in those circumstances: were they not actually pretty much "in the same mould" as you - people with the same tastes and interests as you - and hence "life enhancing" rather than really "life changing"?

Not trying to be argumentative - just trying to explore what "life changing experience" means in the context of this thread. Maybe I'm wanting it to be more like Kage's "epiphanies". Some flash of light... a deep insight... an realisation or awakening of some sort.

Making life-long friends is obviously fantastic. I even rate brief, but meaningful, interactions with strangers as among the great boons of travel. But they have never seemed to me to be specific to the hotel where they happened.