The 10 Most Irritating and the 10 Best Things About Hotels
Over the years of staying at a myriad of hotels all over the world, Mark and I have developed a list of things that irritate us and things that we love about hotels. Most of these things are minor and some of them are somewhat amusing but taken together, that is to say, if there is a high percentage of one or the other, they can have a high impact on a guests experience. So listen up hoteliers, here is the list.
THE 10 MOST IRRITATING THING ABOUT HOTELS
LIGHT SWITCHES
Hotels are masters at hiding light switches; and the axiom to this is that one will always be tired and exhausted when trying to find said light switches. They can never be where one would have them at home, say under the shade near the lightbulb, oh no, they must be sleekly hidden on the floor or the wall or even perhaps on some mod pod. Needless to say, all hotels have tons of dummy switches to further exacerbate the irritation. Cool and hip hotels have taken the switch game to a new level with choices of ambient or full on or party lighting; all which is usually impossible to figure out. Some places are downright devious in hiding their light switches. At one five star resort hotel we stayed at recently, hid the light switch for all the lighting in the fitness center, which was in a pretty palapa, outside behind the shrubbery!
TOWEL BARS
Almost every hotel in the world these days has a card or cards somewhere in the room that request that “to save the planet” we can all do our bit by re-hanging our towels (and increasingly now not by changing sheets sheets or even having the room cleaned). Of course they never bother to mention that this will also be beneficial to their bottom line. But this aside, despite the request, hotels always seem to provide one miniscule towel bar! So there one is, with a moral dilemma and the feeling of angst that you are destroying the planet. On the other hand maybe hotels could stop printing all these morality cards (we all got the memo already) and start installing some towel bars!
FURNITURE PLACEMENT
One of the Ten Commandments for hotels must be that: “Thou shall not place furniture where any normal human being would want it”. If say one has checked into a beautiful beachside resort with a view of the ocean and one has a lovely terrace complete with a comfortable couch, where one asks will this couch face the ocean? Oh no! It will face the wall of the terrace. Moreover, said couch will weigh five tons and be impossible to move. So, during your stay you will acquire a nice crick in the neck trying to sit side saddle on the coach or even pull your back out trying to move the two ton Tessie! We can go on and on about furniture facing walls instead of gorgeous views and beds that one trips over when one enters the room providing zero privacy when room service arrives, but you get the point. Are you listening, hotel folks????
CLOSETS
Closets have become the new dinosaurs for hotels. Now let’s review a bit of history. When Cesar Ritz opened his eponymous hotel on The Place Vendome in 1898 one of his most innovative modernizations was the installation of closets. During World War Two these closets even protected many a valuable from the Nazi. But lately hotel people have decided that they are somehow passé. Marriott assembled a focus group (God only knows from where) who insisted they didn’t want closets. I guess said focus group liked having their clothes strewn all over the room and their ugly bags sitting about. Again, funny how this conclusion aligns with the corporate bottom line: hmmm. Well we don’t like looking at our things stuffed helter skelter about our hotel room just as we don’t at home! Why anyone would is beyond me. And I’m here to say, I still like moving into a hotel room, and putting our clothing away on hangers, shelves and drawers! Guess that’s why we weren’t invited to be part of the focus group.
THE TELEPHONE
In virtually every high end hotel, the rooms sport at least two and sometimes three phones. But beware, I think they are actually a plot to drive unsuspecting guests insane if they haven’t already been pushed over the edge by the towel bars. How so you ask? Well there is usually only one corded phone, the rest are not, and here is the plot; none of the uncorded phones will ever connect or pick up. So if you’re expecting a call and grab that hand held phone forget it! On a side note, as an extra added torture, at some point during your stay a message will be left on your phone causing ones phone to constantly blink a flashing red light. And in reality even a technician from M.I.T. will be unable to turn it off.
KEY CARDS
We’ve all been there; it’s late, you’ve traveled all day, the check in was slow, your room’s half a mile from the desk and when you finally arrive there, the pesky key card doesn’t work! Then one trudges back down to the desk where the front desk clerk admonishes you not to place the card next to your phone, duh! Or then there’s the times when one’s marooned in front of the gym or club door, desperately hoping for someone whose key is working to come along. Okay, key cards are convenient but some hotels seem to elavate saving them and their ancient receptacles to a fetish level just to save a nickel and perhaps fiendishly to torture their guests. Occasionally a trendy hotel goes retro and uses old fashioned keys that one turns in at the desk. What a simple concept that always works.
THE IN ROOM GUIDE
There was, once upon a time, long long ago, in a far better world a physical guide to the hotel in every hotel room in the world. Mind you, sometimes these guides were out of date or inevitably left out crucial information, such as exactly on which floor the barber shop is. But most of the time, they were easy to access, find and use. Just like real books, they had their issues, but by and large they WORKED. Now though, in an ongoing effort to be needlessly trendy and mod, hotels have decided that the tired traveler must be subjected to frequently confusing technology displayed on the T.V. In order to simply find out where the fitness center is. No doubt the dreaded “focus groups” have been brought in to assure hoteliers that this new technology is what guests want. But then again I’ve never met a focus group that didn’t need it’s collective head examined!
SERVICE
Lets get serious here for a moment: great service is what really makes a hotel a great place to stay. We all know that you can have all the same luxurious bells and whistles from hotel to hotel, but what really matters is how one is treated. It’s as simple as that, really. And what do we know in our hearts, after being in the service industry for over forty years is the key to great service? It’s simple, great service starts with a GENUINE desire to take care of the guest. We all know what I’m talking about, we know when we’re being “handled”, (are you listening Hotel people?) all the words and phrases may be right, but you can tell that the front desk manager or the spa attendant or the bartender wouldn’t give two blanks whether you dropped dead then and there or not. Training is great, but you can’t beat a real smile to make one feel relaxed and at home.
SINKS THAT WONT STOP DRAINING
There must be a secret covenant somewhere for hotels that you will never be able to fill the basin of your sink to shave because the stopper is always loose. You may be staying at a thousand dollar a night per person jungle camp south of Timbuktu, or a $49 dollar a night, breakfast included Motel Six in Kansas, it doesn’t matter you will NOT be able to stop the water from draining, trickling, leaking out. It’s another plot to drive the guest (that’s us) insane. Please, please please, Hotel engineers of the world unite and regularly check into this!
IN ROOM COFFEE
One of the more pleasant changes in hotels in the last decade or so has been the advent of the in room coffee service. Nifty machines like Kurig, have allowed guests to get up and make their own coffee. This happily has ended the need to call room service in the morning and wait and wait. It has also eliminated having your first moments of the day spent with your hair sideways in some skimpy robe talking to the room service dude about the weather while your spouse waits patiently in the bathroom for the attendants departure! But of course, there is a caveat! Half the time the maid has left two decaf pods (fate almost worse than death) or no milk or maybe sweetener. Nothing can turn a perfectly pleasant morning sour faster than discovering these deficiencies when one can barely see straight. It’s a losing battle with the maids. So we’ve learned to check the night before and rectify the situation while you are still wearing clothes and have ones hair combed!
THE TEN BEST THINGS ABOUT HOTELS
LAUNDRY
For most of us doing laundry is an ever present drudgery of daily life. Some folks like to let it build up (a recent poll found that on average Americans change their bed sheets once a month; yuck!) and some of us do it everyday, but no matter what, you’re not off the hook, that is until you stay at a hotel! At a hotel there is happily no laundry basket to lug, no soap to buy at the supermarket, no wrestling with those fitted sheets that will never fold right, just clean sheets and towels that magically appear.
THE SQUEEGEE
If you have any sort of glass shower enclosure at your home as we do, then you know the routine. You finish that warm relaxing shower and before you can even get out of the damn thing you have to start scraping it down. Hotels erase this niggling chore. Let’s put it this way; the water spots are the maids problem!
THE BATHROOM
Okay admit it, most of us don’t have the sort of bathroom at home that a real luxury hotel spoils us with. Floor to ceiling Carrera marble? Freestanding tubs in windows overlooking parks? Heated towel bars and floors? A T.V. in the mirror? A separate shower and tub surrounded by a mosaic? Okay maybe you’re lucky enough to have some of this stuff at your place, but regardless, isn’t it fun to live like a movie star for a moment!
BLACK OUT CURTAINS
A bird flew into the engine of the plane, they canceled your flight, they didn’t have a gate for the plane, the baggage folks are on strike, you got strip searched by TSA….hey it’s all part of traveling! So isn’t it great when you finally fall asleep in that comfortable king size bed, after closing those heavy curtains, secure in the knowledge that you can sleep in as long as you like!
YOU DON'T HAVE TO LEAVE!
During January one year, Mark and I traveled in Eastern Europe. The people were great, the sites were impressive and the food was delicious, but it was just down right bone chilling wherever we went. Many of the places we stayed were pretty chilly and for some reason they have an aversion to heating bathrooms in this region; in fact they like to leave their bathroom windows open even in the dead of winter! You ask why? Who the hell knows! Anyway, when we left the area and headed to Rome we were tired and tired of freezing our behinds off! When we arrived in Rome’s delightful (not) Fumiccino International Airport on a freezing cold, dark and rainy night, got into a cab headed to the landmark Grand Hotel, I said to Mark, “When we get to the hotel I’m going to take a hot bath and then go to the hotel bar and have a real Martini (Did I mention they don’t know how to make cocktails in Eastern Europe?) and then have dinner at the bar! I don’t care if it’s Rome and there are a ton of great restaurants here. That can wait until tomorrow!” And that is exactly what can be especially great about a hotel: being cosseted in a warm hug of luxury and comfort, where one doesn’t even need to leave the place to have a wonderful time!
ROOM SERVICE
Properly and strategically used, room service in a good hotel, is truly one of life’s great indulgences. Plan carefully though, room service is notoriously slow and sometimes one wonders if they forgot you! But this aside, there’s nothing like a bottle of champagne and treats brought in to celebrate or a beautiful breakfast table wheeled into your room complete with linen and a rose.
TURN DOWN
Okay, it’s a little thing, but turn down service, well done that is, makes the hotel “experience” even more special. After a long day and night it feels like you’re really being pampered when you arrive back at your room and find the black out curtains closed, a carpet and slippers by your bedside, a pleasant poem or chocolate on your pillow and the linen folded down just asking you to slip in and have sweet dreams...Just like home only not!
THE CONCIERGE
Millennials don’t like closets and they don’t like concierge service. Even tired old Baby Boomers are wrapped up in their technology to the point of forgetting that a real human might be even better than the latest app. hey everyone, wake up, you don’t know what you are missing! While some are trying to figure out how to get to the souk on their smartphone map, you're already there. When some are trying to buy tickets by themselves on line, you’ve already got your front row center tickets to the sold out performance. While some are calling an Uber, you’re in the complimentary house Rolls headed to lunch. That’s because you’ve established a relationship with the concierge instead of the smartphone. Found only at hotels, the concierge, better than a computer!
NOT HAVING TO PAY
Okay, you have to pay eventually, but during your stay, there is something a bit liberating about just charging things to your room. Once in a while, it’s fun just to slip on your shorts and head down to the bar or pool and not have to even worry about bringing your wallet. Just be prepared, all those little charges and generous tips always end up on that bill at the end.
THE BED
I don’t know why, but no matter what kind of sheets you buy or what sort of hand made mattress you have or what sort of pillows you have at home, they’re just not as good as a five star hotel’s! Call me crazy, but I feel as if they have secret access to the silky sheets and soft perfectly firm mattresses of the world that we are just denied at home! Oh well, it’s just another reason to enjoy a great hotel.