We check out the room if we are walk-ins and the place isn't made up of standardized rooms. My wife checks it out while I stay with the luggage. This usually happens at rural places, 2-star places, and the like. If we have made a reservation, we just ask for the kind of room we want and go up, as we have researched the place. We have never had to reject a room so I think asking before committing to stay at a place gets them to show you an attractive room.

We don't bother asking if rooms are tight and you will have to take anything anyway.

We haven't asked to see the room before we've checked in, but we have learned the benefits of saying, very politely, that we'd like to see another room, and that the room offered is disappointing in some way or another.

This tactic has been so successful that we've made a vow to always be polite but assertive in asking to be moved to a more pleasing room. The hotels have always been accommodating and only once did we have to "insist." My sister and I are both non-assertive types, so it was a delight to learn that we could pleasantly but firmly insist on the best accomodations possible.

I must admit I've never looked at a room before checking in - and have only a couple of times been escorted to a room that was not acceptable (right next to the elevator or a noisy ice machine) and have never had trouble being switched immediately to an acceptable room.

The one exception was an incredibly mangy Holiday Inn in Maryland that I was stuck in due to a government meeting the next day. I did ask for a better room - but they were sold out - however the following AM I did change - to another hotel. (It wasn;t the giant [blood?] stain on the carpet and wall - it was the overflowing toilet that they never came to fix.)

I think now I would ask to see the room in any other hotel that was obviously dicey.

We also live in Europe and I don't think *everybody* does it. On our travels this year (Angers, Amboise, Bourges, Baden-Baden, Frankfurt, Milan, Bellagio, Vienna, London, Paris), other people were usually checking in to hotels about the same time as we were and don't recall any of them asking to see their rooms beforehand. I'm sure many Europeans may do this but it's not done by all of them and probably not on every trip.

You often have more leverage if you ask to see the room before you've checked in. If it is not what you had booked, let them know. Or if it's technically correct but has some other issue, let them know what disturbs you and ask if they can show you another room.

How is this handled at small hotels that are usually fully booked? For example, I'm thinking of the Hotel Florence in Bellagio. I was there in May, staying in the last room available...my only choice was taking the room assigned or going elsewhere (not likely on a holiday weekend). And when I checked out (as I was very happy with my room), I rebooked for a long week-end in October. The woman at the front desk and I went over the specific rooms still available (only 4) for that date and I selected the room I wanted. I would be very upset if someone else who didn't like *their* room got to have *my* room that I had pre-selected. It's been my experience that at some places, particularly smaller, independently owned places, you are assigned a specific room as soon as you make the reservation and it would be difficult to change unless the hotel was half empty. And, as detailed in the Ombudsman section of the current issue of Traveller, not liking the room assigned is not a suitable excuse for canceling a reservation (a couple didn't like their room, found another hotel, but the original hotel was still able to bill them for 3 nights).
To each his own, but we find it works better to determine what kind of room we want when we make the reservation.

We have done this on road trips in Italy and Spain. Since we stopped for the night when we were tired of driving, sometimes the hotels looked a little suspicious. Thankfullly we have only had to refuse a room two times. One was in Rome, the room had windows facing the street and looked pretty insecure. The other time the room was plain dirty.

Sometimes I ask to see the room and sometimes I don't. It depends on gut feelings about the hotel when I arrive and also on what time of the day we're checking in.

If I have any possible reason to be worried I leave Pete in the lobby with the luggage and skip up to have a look. Sometimes, on asking if I can see the room before finalising assignment, I have been given keys to 2 or 3 rooms and encouraged to select my preferred on.

It helps that we check in early and often travel out of high season.

Once in Rome (Hotel Internazionale) we checked in and the man clearly told us we had "one of the best rooms in the hotel". We got to the room with luggage and it was deplorable -- dirty, broken down, a rusty lawn chair as furniture, mold growing in the tub, you name it! We spent hours looking for another hotel, thinking we'd pay for the one night, but meanwhile find another place, but there were NO rooms to be found. We returned to the hotel and expressed our great displeasure. The clerk said we should have said so originally, and gave us another room that was impossible to believe was in the same hotel! Why should we have suspected this when he clearly said we were being given one of the best rooms in the hotel. Duh! Another time, I was standing next to a couple checking in who asked to see the room first, and noticed that the clerk clearly put back the key to the room he was going to give them and gave them a different room key. It's not hard to figure out that he had automatically "upgraded" their room.
So I say, go for it. Ask to see the room if you have any doubts, or certainly if you get to the room and are not happy, return and ask to see another one.

We travel in Germany frequently and have asked many times to see the room first as we usually stay in zimmers or small hotels. Only 2 times have we decided to go elsewhere, and it is uncomfortable saying "no thank you" but the end result is always better than staying in something that doesn't suit you.
Susan

Patrick and other respondants,
Thank you for the interesting tales of checking in and checking/ not feeling the need to check the room. It's interesting to hear someone got an auto-upgrade. Thanks for telling that story.

Many years ago, on our first trip to London, we checked into a small hotel that looked nice on the outside and had a decent lobby.

We went up two flights of stairs and it was as if we were in another world: worn carpet, torn curtains, stained bedspread, dust all over everything. To top it all off, there was a dead mouse in the bathroom.

Jerk clerk downstairs refused my request for our money back (foolish me paid in cash in advance). Got into a shouting match and I ended up jumping over the counter and cornering the guy who then threatened to call the police. I called his bluff and he quickly back off and gave me the cash back.

We walked outside into the rain, lost and angry, but turned the next corner and found a great place at 25% less than the dump hotel. Yes, I checked the room before registering!

We always joke now about checking the hotel bathroom for dead mice!

ABSOLUTELY, except of course at four/five star places where you know that they will make it right. You do not want to 'buy' a pig in a poke! Last time we were in Rio, we saw two rooms-the one we booked and a much larger upgrade facing the beach w/balcony. We agreed to stay only on condition that we got the upgrade gratis. They conceded.
We found it awkward at first to ask to see the room but now it is standard procedure. We check for cleanliness and flop down on the bed to see if it is comfortable. There have been a number of times where we were very thankful that we did-because the room was dirty, in a terrible location, or unacceptable in some other way.

The (always small) hotels we book are always filled but I always book a room not facing the street because even in a village there can be noise on the street late in the night.

and to think on other threads that it was sometimes questioned why posters always felt the need to include "clean" in their criteria for an acceptable hotel...

I have never done that, but as noted, it may pay off depending on where you are staying. I usually just use guidebooks or the internet to get ideas/reviews. So far, it has worked out well. I have never been kept awake by street noise, thin walls or wondering how come I paid so much for this place? (Love those B&B's)

To BTilke:

If the hotel is fully booked and everyone else has already been assigned their room, then you either take that room or leave. Sometimes leaving is the best option (as in the mouse room). But this is a good reason to check in as early as you can.

It's true that in many B and B's you book a specific room but that's not true in most hotels (outside of being a regular). And many make a point of saying that the rooms are assigned a day before or the day you arrive.

>To each his own, but we find it works better to >determine what kind of room we want when we >make the reservation.

Obviously this would be ideal but it just is not an option for most reservations. I have seen this happen at 5 star hotels, btw, where an oceanfront view was promised but the only room available was an "ocean view" which mean you had to lean against the wall to see the ocean. They then showed us a beautiful ocean front view but when the bellboy called downstairs they said they were putting in new carpets the next day. So the answer after about 30 minutes of confusion was an automatic upgrade to a suite (with a nice ocean view). It isn't always about making sure there's no mouse in your room.

I travel without reservations and normally stay in 1 or 2 star hotels and motels, plus B&Bs, pensions, and rooms in private homes -- can't waste money on a place to sleep. I always ask to see the room. Otherwise it's like buying a cat in a sack. I not only check the bed, plumbing, lock, heating, etc., but look out the window and in the hallway to see if there may be some noisy annoyances which will disturb my sleep. After inspecting the room and deciding I like it, I start negotiating to get the price reduced. That's another thing most Americans wouldn't think of doing but you can save 30% to 50% most of the time.

The funniest time I did this was with a hotel with a view, I asked to see the room and the deskman gave the bellboy a few keys. He started with a room with a view of the pool, then a room with a view of the ocean if you stood on a chair or the bed. Finally he showed me a beautiful corner room with fantastic views all around and with a wraparound porch to boot.

I guess that they thought I would accept one of the lesser rooms and they could save the best one but there was no hassle at all from the desk.