[Bunnahabhain]

A duvet that isn’t apparently anchored to the bottom of the bed! Has anyone’s house got the bed linen made with such gravitational pull towards your feet? – I’ve certainly never stayed with any family or friends who have. Do hotels think we’re going to knock the quilt on departure? Or is it some kind of enforced nocturnal upper body exercise for those who went to the bar instead of the gym?

Housekeeping staff who don’t have a full volume conversation with each other right outside your room (or from opposite ends of the corridor) at 8am when you’ve got the do not disturb sign on, or insist on banging the vacuum cleaner and trolley against every door and wall.

A shower that you don’t have to “lean through” to adjust the force or temperature, especially if the shower head is fixed. Again home showers just don’t have these!! And some kind of shelf to put the shower gel on where there is none fixed – balancing even the individual small bottles on the edge of the shower head or tap is quite a skill. Look forward to starting my PhD in shower engineering.

[quercynomad]

Couple extras from me:

– Nespresso machine in the room (with enough coffee tabs) so I can have a quick espresso in the morning [common in good Asian hotels but not in Europe]

– a socket (and lead) so I can plug my laptop into the big LCD TV in the room so I can watch a movie I have stored on my laptop/bbc iplayer etc [Sheraton Edinburgh has just done this and is fantastic]

– a complementary bottle of water by the bed [not one that has a small note by it saying that if you open it they will charge you €7]

– a laptop safe you can fit a laptop in [preferably with plug in side in case I want to charge it][and sockets that don’t automatically switch off when you take your key out of the air-conditioning socket by the door forcing me to put a spare frequent flyer card in there to fool it]

[YorkshirePudding]

A clean room with no unpleasant odours
Choice of pillows
easy to use heating / cooling – quiet operation
Decent soundproofing
Free internet access
Proper Coffee – not instant garbage – its NOT difficult

Also I must agree with Jimbannerman (above) – how bloody ignorant it is to have this happen on a frequent basis & I must add that this also applies to insensitive hotel guests who also think its appropriate to hold a full volume conversation with a colleague or worse still, a mobile at crazy times of day or night!!

[rollerskates]

A bed ?

[Tom Otley]

A pet?

http://www.businesstraveller.com/discussion/topic/What-do-dogs-want-from-a-hotel

[alamyfly]

Without a doubt:

1.Free wi-fi
2.Free wi-fi that is actually available.

Everything else is an also-ran. No, I lie:

1.An absolute ban, preferably involving shooting, on multiple guests leaving their room doors open so that they can communicate with each other down the corridor . This is done by shouting, a function of distance and the fact that, invariably, they all have their individual televisions on at full volume. If this should not be the subject of an all-time ban, then , at least early morning and late at night.

2. A ban on hotel cleaning staff shouting to each other while cleaning in the early hours. For reasons for the shouting, see above. Craziest example I ever came upon was in Bangkok. The room was cleaned immediately on the departure of any client, whatever the time of that departure! Vacuuming at 3am is not a good experience, especially when the vacuum also has to be shouted over!

3. Extra toilet rolls. I get really tired of buying these. Let’s be completely transparent here – Delhi belly is a fact of travelling life. That applies the world over, not just Delhi! Why don’t hoteliers realise this?

[CathayLoyalist]

A hotel cashier when you check out DOES NOT robotically ask “did you use the mini bar” or “did you have breakfast” and then picks up the phone to ask housekeeping to sprint Olympian like to your recently vacated room to check you are nor lieing!! – now that would make a pleasant change wouldn’t it?

[alamyfly]

Cathayloyalist, I forgot that one. It’s so annoying!

[AMcWhirter]

alamfly, re your room in BKK.

It could have been that you were given a room on an airline crew floor.

I have known airlines to book crew rooms on a “back-to-back” basis so as one lot of crew check-out, cleaning staff make the accommodation ready for the incoming crew.

It happened to me once upon a time when staying at a hotel near Dubai airport. It took me a couple of days to fathom it out.

[alamyfly]

Given the particular hotel, it was more likely that it was also available on a by-the-hour basis! No hour to be wasted!!

[Cedric_Statherby]

This is very timely as I have just come back from a road trip in the States (not my usual stamping ground), and in 5 nights in five different hotels not ONE got things right – and they were all 4 or 5 star hotels.

There was the hotel that did not know the meaning of a quick breakfast. I still do not know why US hotels do not follow the universal custom that everywhere else in the world finds works perfectly of buffet breakfasts. No, you sit down, have menu and waiter service, and wait and wait. And then when it comes the helpings are so huge that you either have a one-dish monotone breakfast to try to stay under 30 dollars on the bill and 30 stone in size, or you order three dishes (at great cost) to get some variety into the meal and nibble a quarter of each of them. Memo to US business hotels: try offering buffet breakfasts.

Then there was the hotel where the shower was an in-the-bath type and the shower curtain wraps itself around you. It is not difficult to design a shower where this does not happen.

The next hotel had the sort of fancy electronic command box (lights, air con, curtains, alarm) by the bedside which would have graced the control deck of the Starship Enterprise. It took me 15 minutes to work out how to turn the lights off.

The next one had hidden away the safe in a piece of faux furniture. It looked grand as furniture but it was useless as a safe if you could not find it (I did only by chance). Still, at least that safe was at a usable height – in one hotel it was at the top of the wardrobe, well over 6 ft off the ground. I am not short and had to stand on a chair both to use it and to check I had not left anything in it.

Add in the hotel where the radio alarm went off at 5.15 am, courtesy of the previous occupant setting it. It should be absolutely standard that as part of preparing a room for a new guest the hotel staff turn the alarm off on these radio-clocks: at least they know how to do it, which is more than I do at 11.30 pm when I enter the room after a very long day. (In future I shall not risk it and shall just rip the plug of any such clock out of the wall …)

And finally the piece de resistance, a room with “movement sensitive” lights. Every time one moved the lights came on – I suppose it was in case you wanted to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. But it was too sensitive and rolling over in bed triggered illumination that Wembley Stadium would be proud to have. I tried every way I could to turn the light off permanently and eventually ended up unscrewing the bulbs.

There is a common thread here. Does anyone who designs a bedroom ever try to spend a night in their creation? They should, and moreover they should do so when tired, jet-lagged and unfamiliar with the clever gismos the room designer thought were so essential.

If they did that we might actually get what all travellers actually need: a simple, safe, comfortable home from home for the night.

[godspear88]

Kaicat75,

YES – that is always the case. To find the guidebooks when i am checking out. Dang…

[Grenada2000]

Main thing for me is for those hotels that have halogen LED bulbs in the bedside lights to make sure the light is not directed onto the bed.
Nothing worse than waking up and turning on the light and feeling like you are looking directly into the sun. Secondary complications of this is that you get starburst vision which makes it decidedly dodgy to aim properly when using the loo…

[stevescoots]

hot and cold running hookers?
no? must just be me

just kidding 🙂 🙂

Actually most of my gripes are already listed.

the big one is never enough coffee in the room!!!! I always end up popping out to the nearest 7-11 or similar to stock up as even the paltry amount most give you is dire!

Thsi is a thread that could run and run, i have a roadtrip stateside coming up, 7 hotels in total. I will make a running commentary

[Author]

Posts