First of all: thanks for posting your trials and tribulations at that Crowne Plaza. You are a more patient person then i am and i would have screamed the first 10minutes and then laughed it off as bad luck. But my goodness you really had a "fawlty towers" experience!

Second: i fully understand your view of "ahhh an upgrade but if you compare the upgraded room with the standard room, there is no real visible/intagible difference" . It has happened to me several times, then i scratch my head and think am i an idiot or missing out on something? Usually i am to settled/lazy to complain so i forgo going to the front desk and ask what is the difference?

Third: AC/heating
Although my marriage is good, we have one thing we can argue about: fixing the heat/cold in a hotel room. Sometimes the thermostat is quite user friendly/intuative but more often totally broken/needs advanced physics degree/housekeeping fumbles with it.
Tips:
- if you are shown to your room ask the assiciate to show how the thermostat works
-if you see somemone of houskeeping ask them to set it up for you
-put a post-it paper on it asking houskeeping to not touch it all if the desired temperature has been found