We hate hotels when…

  1. The doormen would rather chat among themselves than greet you.
  2. There’s a long queue at reception for check-in…
  3. And an even longer one for check-out, when you have a plane to catch…
  4. And the reception staff don’t think it sensible to fast-track you past the 50-strong crew of conference delegates ahead of you…
  5. And when you finally reach the front, they are stroppy.
  6. You’ve arrived in the evening but your room’s not ready…
  7. Or just before the official check-in time but they can’t accommodate you.
  8. The electronic room key doesn’t work first time, or at all, so you have to traipse back downstairs to get it activated.
  9. Once inside, you quickly discover that the room bears no resemblance to the pictures on the website…
  10. And you can’t swing a kitten, let alone a cat…
  11. And everything is beige, or fussy pink with velvet lampshades that attract dust.
  12. You’ve booked a non-smoking room but discover it’s a smoking one that’s been doused with air freshener.
  13. Turning on your laptop, you discover you need to go back down to reception to get a scratch card to access the wifi…
  14. And then you have to pay through the nose for it…
  15. And having paid for it in the room, you find you need to pay another provider to use it in the meeting rooms and lobby…
  16. And every time your computer goes to sleep, you have to log back on.
  17. There’s only wired internet access but no cable is provided.
  18. It takes half an hour for your bags to make it up to the room, and then the bell boy wants a tip, having previously refused to take no for an answer when you said you wanted to carry your bag yourself.
  19. No one answers the telephone at room service, housekeeping or reception…
  20. And after finally getting through, the food arrives cold, and you have to stand around looking busy while the room service guy slowly lays out the items.
  21. What is really meant by “24-hour room service” is a stale sandwich after 11pm…
  22. Which will cost double the advertised cost once you’ve added on all the charges to deliver it.
  23. You lie back on the bed, turn on the TV and find the previous occupant’s movie choice is still there, and it is a porn movie.
  24. Style is put before function, so it all looks nice but nothing works logically…
  25. And all the furniture has hard corners that you bang into every time you get up in the middle of the night.
  26. The curtains don’t keep out the light.
  27. The walls don’t keep out the noise.
  28. The bed is so soft that you disappear into the middle…
  29. Or is a “double” composed of two singles…
  30. Dressed with nasty, bouncy foam pillows, polyester bedding, scratchy blankets and a plastic undersheet…
  31. And the duvet or top sheet is so tightly folded over the corners of the mattress that when you try to pull it out, you accidentally punch your own face.
  32. The coat hangers are chained to the rail.
  33. The room doesn’t have enough light (what are they trying to hide?).
  34. There is no laptop safe, or the laptop safe is too small for a laptop.
  35. The chair is uncomfortable and not set to the same height as the desk…
  36. Or there is no desk at all, only a tiny table.
  37. There are no tea- and coffee-making facilities in the room, as they want to fleece you for it via room service.
  38. You have to call down for an iron and ironing board…
  39. And when it arrives, the iron is attached to the board and doesn’t have a steam setting, so you still can’t get the creases out of your clothes.
  40. The key card powers the room so that the air con turns off whenever you leave…
  41. And since your laptop and iPod were being charged by the same power, you return to find they have flat batteries…
  42. Yet every time you come back to the room, the TV is on, very loudly, showing the corporate video.
  43. The phone flashes that you have a message but you can’t work out how to pick it up…
  44. And it costs the GDP of a small nation to make a call.
  45. Someone knocks on the door while you’re naked, and even after you’ve shouted “In a minute”, they walk straight in.
  46. The staff ring to tell you they’d like to clean the room when your privacy light is on.
  47. You return to the room in the middle of the day to find the maid hasn’t been, or has tidied so over-zealously that you can’t find your shoes.
  48. You leave out some laundry and it still hasn’t been returned three days later.
  49. The air conditioning is noisy but too complicated to work out how to switch off…
  50. Or it is set by reception and is too hot or cold…
  51. And you can’t open the windows to let some proper air in.
  52. There is a stereo provided but no iPod dock…
  53. And there are 100 TV channels but only one in English, and you have to scroll through all the others to get to it.
  54. The hotel information can only be accessed via the TV and it takes an age to go through the ridiculously complicated menus.
  55. The headboard in the neighbouring room is back to back with yours, and your neighbours are an amorous couple.
  56. The windows sound like they are going to blow in when you are on a high floor.
  57. There’s no complimentary bottle of water.
  58. The robe is older than you, and starched like cardboard.
  59. You get into bed at night and have to get back up to turn all the lights off, then go all around the room flicking switches.
  60. In the middle of the night, the phone rings, but there’s no one there…
  61. Then the fire alarm goes off, and stops just as you step out into the corridor.
  62. The lift pings every few minutes all night.
  63. The minibar hums all night, doesn’t keep anything cold and charges you for things you never had (and let’s not even mention the price).
  64. The red power light on the TV illuminates the whole room…
  65. As does the display on the clock radio…
  66. And the smoke alarm located directly above the bed, except it flashes.
  67. The clock is located on the far side of the room, and was set to go off at 4am by the previous occupant.
  68. The wake-up call you’ve requested doesn’t come.
  69. The hot water is only tepid at best.
  70. There’s no plug in the bath, or when you run one, the hair of the previous occupant rises to the surface.
  71. The bath has no showerhead, so you have to transfer to the shower to wash your hair…
  72. To find they’ve given you a mini-bottle of shampoo but no conditioner…
  73. And having used only half the bottle, they replace it the next day, despite declaring themselves to be a “green” hotel.
  74. The shower is impossible to work out and, when you’ve got it started, the water either comes out in a useless trickle or floods the bathroom.
  75. The shower curtain smells of mildew.
  76. You are supplied with every toiletry you could ever feasibly need – but never toothpaste.
  77. The bathroom mirror steams up whenever you turn on the hot tap.
  78. A note says to hang up your towel to save on washing, but there are no hooks.
  79. The towels won’t wrap around your head, let alone your backside.
  80. The soap has a cellophane wrapper you can’t remove.
  81. There is no mirror for shaving or doing your make-up, and no full-length mirror anywhere in the room.
  82. The hairdryer is stuck to the bathroom wall and only works when you hold the button down, offering the blast power of a child’s toy.
  83. There is no socket next to the dressing table or mirror to plug your own in…
  84. Or there is only one free socket in the whole room, and it’s so close to the floor you can’t get the plug into it.
  85. The lift is slow in coming, then stops on every floor on the way down, but no one gets in.
  86. The business centre doesn’t operate 24 hours, and has only one computer, which is always taken…
  87. And when you finally get on to it, you are charged an extortionate rate to print a single sheet of paper.
  88. The gym is a box with one cycling machine and no air conditioning or ventilation.
  89. The so-called “spa” complex consists of one treatment room and a sauna.
  90. The “lap” pool is a lap pool for midgets.
  91. There are no changing facilities so you have to do the walk of shame back to your room in your running gear, red-faced and still sweating.
  92. The corridors are never-ending and so dark you can barely make your way down them.
  93. There is hardly any signage in the hotel so you end up walking around in circles.
  94. You only want to grab toast and tea but they charge you for a whole continental breakfast…
  95. Or there’s only dregs left at the buffet, even though it’s due to go on for another half-hour.
  96. At dinner, the staff pounce on you as soon as you sit down, then don’t come back at all when you ask for a few more minutes to look at the menu, which consists solely of bland “international” dishes.
  97. The only thing to eat in the executive lounge are some dodgy-looking hors d’oeuvres that have been sitting there all day.
  98. The meeting rooms are drab and have no daylight.
  99. You are offered a choice of currencies in which to pay your bill, or are automatically charged in your local currency.
  100. You book a cab to take you to the airport but find a pricey limo waiting instead.
  101. Your points aren’t credited to your loyalty programme account.