Hotel Room Annoyances
 

In running a thread about what one hopes to find in a hotel or motel room, I got responses about what people don't want to find upon check-in. Can you add to this list?

 An unpleasant odor in the room.
 Low water pressure in the shower.
 A “credit card” room key programmed for fewer days than booked.
 A smoke alarm that goes off at night because the battery is low.
 A remote control that doesn’t work.
 A lumpy pillow.
 A flat bottom sheet that does not stay tucked in through the night.
 A slow draining tub or shower.
 A thick shower curtain that blocks light, making the shower dark.
 No local telephone book.
 No make-up mirror.
 Drapes that don’t black out all light.
 A coffee maker with no tea bags.
 No pool for the kids.

This reminded me that my all time greatest annoyance is to find myself booked into a motel that is mostly occupied by kids on prom night or on spring break. It has happened to us more than once.

No guide for the local TV channels.

Comfortable chairs, but a TV that can't be seen from them.


And the number one complaint: outrageous telephone charges, like $2.00 for each local call!

Ooops. I forgot one. Maids who don't turn off the radio alarm when they clean the room, so that I will be awakened at 5 AM on my first morning there!

Most of mine are in your list, although I'd state a few of them differently:

- Poor hotel construction and/or insulation, so one can hear every peep (and every other bodily function) from adjacent rooms.

- Use of deodorant room sprays and/or carpet cleaners. I'm so sensitive to these chemicals (they're one of my biggest triggers for migraine headaches) we usually request smoking rooms instead of non-smoking -- because ironically the smoking rooms almost always smell a LOT better, or at least more neutral.

- A strong second for low water pressure. Hate it.

- Another strong second for flat bottom sheets on beds. Major pet peeve, and I'm finding this practice now even at some 4 and 5-star resorts. What are they thinking?

I'm not too terribly picky, but one hotel that I frequent has one, and only one, wash cloth in the room no matter how many guests are occupying it. Even when we have a suite that sleeps five! No matter how many requests I make for more, they are sent up that night, yet only one is left when the room is cleaned the following day.

As I said, I'm not too picky, but I do draw the line at using the same wash cloth of others, so we always end up using hand towels to bathe with. :(

Otherwise, I like the hotel so I overlook it. Maybe I should start bringing my own?

I'd add mold in the shower grout and paper thin towels to the list...

That my mother-in-law is checked into the same place.

I absolutely hate those hangers with no hooks. Also TVs that are locked into place with no consideration for how you can view them. Windows that you can't open even a tiny bit, yuck. Poor bathroom lighting and poor water pressure.

Oh, windows that don't open is another of mine. I live in the tropics and I'm used to fresh air and being outside. If the windows don't open I feel like a prisoner. I always ask about that when booking a room.

Dirty carpets or dirty bedspreads (I've had both even in very nice hotels) Even though I remove the bedspread upon arrival, it still skeeves me out.

Coffee that comes with the in-room coffee maker is usually weak and tasteless - very annoying!

Here's big pet peeve.

Not having the entire bathroom, vanity area enclosed.

Lots of times, the vanity area is in an open space. Only the toilet, bathtub/shower is enclosed in a separate room.

So if I'm sleeping in and my wife is up early to get ready and has the hair blower going.....I'M NO LONGER SLEEPING IN!!!

Margie, We carry our own coffee and filters for hotel-sized coffee pots. Lovingheart

That's one of the things that I found a little strange at the new Mandarin Oriental in Miami. A great property overall - the service is incredible - but two things were very odd.

The TV system doesn;t have pay movies. If you want to watch one they bring you a VCR and send the bellman out to the video store to get whatever you want. They offered to do it for free - but if I have a few hours free at a meeting I like to just veg out with whatever there is - not think, plan, pick and wait for someone to run get a tape.

The other thing that's kind of odd is the bathroom configuration. It's all beautifully done - hand carved marble (or whatever) everywhere and the stall shower is really beautiful - unlike the tiny, icky ones they usually give you.

But the side of the tub area is open to the bedroom. Naturally there's a ledge a little higher than the tub between it and the bedroom - and its lovely if you want to do the romantic candles and wine in the tub thing - but if you're actually trying to get out at a resaonable time in the morning - its's very hard for one to sleep while the other gets ready (my beau sometimes comes along for weekend meetings - and why should he have to get up at 7 am too?) There is a sort of venetian blind you can let down - but it barely keeps out light - and definitely not shower sounds.

So I'll vote for either fixing this problem - or having a more normal bath configuration - when they're promoting a hotel as a business (vs honeymoon/romantic weekend) venue.

One night at the Ashland Springs Hotel, they put is on the fifth floor, right next to the ice machine, that thing went off every five minutes all night long! We didn't mind too much, the room was only $59/night and it was a large suite. Luckily, I had my ear plugs with me! ***kim*** ((f))

My biggest one... hotels that do NOT provide you with coffee making facilities.

Another one is rude loud people at all hours outside in the hallway, or a loud TV next door when it is 6am if I'm sleeping in, or 1am if I have fallen asleep and get awakened suddenly when it is turned on loud. Some people have no respect for their hotel/motel neighbors.

What about all the hotels that don't have a working bathroom fan. This happens a lot and can be real unpleasant!

Dark room, I need lots of light.
Soft pillows.
Too few towels, or towels that are thin.
Remote controls that don't have a sleep feature-I fall asleep to the sound of tv.
Rooms that are too warm in spite of individual room thermostats.

Checking into a hotel room for just one night and finding an envelope on the nightstand telling the name of the maid.

Spending a week at a hotel on Fisherman's Wharf and never being able the entire week to get housekeeping to understand that each of the three of us would like our own towel and wash cloth.

The room next to the ice machine or elevator.

Flat bottom sheets are a major pain!
Rooms that are only vaccumed in the middle, leaving the edges dusty.
Stained sheets.
Dirty bedspreads.

Not sure why you're running this again (did they delete the other one?), but one thing I consider essential is access to the Weather Channel.

I hate it when I'm walking down the hall to my room and notice that there are rooms with their doors open so that the party (hockey team, family reunion, etc.) can travel from room to room as though they are in adjoining suites. I also notice this happens on overseas flights sometimes so people mill about and hang over your seat back and clog up the aisles like it's a cocktail party!

I can deal with most of the foregoing issues---EXCEPT windows that do not open....even2-3 inches is O.K......
I have found some rooms have heavy curtains to block out the light EXCEPT they won't pull together in the middle--so you are awakened when the sun comes up with a shaft of light right in your face....
i carry 2 clothes pins to deal with this problem--usually works..
Of course, even all the named complaints will not keep me from traveling !!!!

Tip for Dealing With Weak, Tasteless In-Room Coffee: Double the coffee for the recommended amount of water.

This usually means putting in 2 packs of coffee (reg, decaf, whatever's there). It MAY make it drinkable.

Patrick, I just had an alarm wake me at 6am at an expensive lodge/spa. I was very annoyed. Seems to me it should be on the housekeeping checklist for making up the room to be sure the alarm is off.

Windows that don't open and slow-draining showers are 2 of the worst for me.

Broken furniture. I just stayed at a hotel last week where the armchair had a broken leg. In general, I hate a room without some kind of comfortable seating.

I hate having the hotel version of the Weather Channel which does not include the "Local on the 8's" portion of programming. They substitute a look at weather across the nation with regional radars but nothing relevant to local weather. I don't give a rip about the weather radar map of Boston when I'm sitting in Dallas and think I see a tornado out the window--that happened at a Marriott at DFW in a room with no radio! Called the front desk to inquire about weather conditions and they were clueless.

Also, now that you've got me started---what's with all the 25 watt bulbs in the lamps????

lovingheart, kids on prom night? How about this. A high school football team who has just won the state championship and all of them are staying on the same floor as you. We were innocently relaxing in our room when the Visigoths (still in their football uniforms) came screaming down the hall and banging against the walls just like in that Capital One commercial. We were the only ones on that floor who were not on the football team. Someone at the front desk came up the stairwell (elevators were clogged with rampaging visigoths) to "rescue" us and got us on a different floor. Top that!!!

Light bulbs too dim to read. The door to the adjoining room unlocked (was once visited by teenagers next door--now know to check the adjoining door when entering the room). Exploding light bulb in the bathroom (THAT was fun). Bugs in the room--dead or alive. Heat or airconditioning with only two choices--full blast or none at all. My all-time personal favorite was a TV in the room that, when you had it turned on would vary the sound from very very loud to so low it couldn't be heard. Why I loved it so much? I was in a full hotel, with partying lunatics next door who wouldn't shut up until 2:00 am (and started harassing me when I complained). When I departed the hotel at 5:00 am, I turned on said TV and left it to do its thing. Sweet revenge!

Hotel room lighting where lamps are plugged into outlets controlled by the wallswitch. You enter a room at night, flick the switch, and nothing happens, because someone turned off the lamp by the switch on the lamp itself.

Either "hotwire" the lamp, bypassing its internal switch, or train housekeeping to make sure the lamp is on. Better yet, use permenant lighting fixtures connected to the door switch.

I always check any alarm clocks, clock-radios, or clock-tvs myself ... if housekeeping doesn't check lamps, they're not gonna check alarms.

I couldn't care less about televisions, but wish more hotels would offer a decent radio, maybe even with CD player.

"Checking into a hotel room for just one night and finding an envelope on the nightstand telling the name of the maid."

Actually this is not a peeve of mine. I would prefer in all hotels did this so that I could assure that my gratuity went to the right housekeeper.

My only honest peeve is a room with no coffee maker. I don't want to dress and go to the lobby to get my fist caffiene jolt in the morning.

Jimmy, I think the point about the envelope was for "A ONE NIGHT STAY". Some of us don't understand the idea of tipping a maid for a one night stay. You arrive at a hotel and pay for a room with a made bed, clean linens, and a cleaned room. If there is no evening turn down servie, I can't imagine what a tip is for. Why would you not also tip the janitor who sweeps the parking lot or the the person who empties the trash? A tip is for service, and is totally understandable for a maid cleaning your room around your stuff and straightening up behind you to make your stay more pleasant, but not just providing you with the expected room that was cleaned before you arrived.

All of the above, PLUS:

A sink drain that doesn't seal properly.

I know I'm guy tough, but dry shaving doesn't do it for me...

Housekeepers that barely knock and walk right in while I am asleep!!! Really, it's happened to me at The Ritz In Atlanta, and at a Marriott in CT and one in Orlando. Yikes, scared me to no end. Even with a chain on.

Management apologized at all, but made tons of excuses for housekeeping needing to get their work done. I will not stay at these places again. I used to travel for business and NEVER had this happen. Seems too common now. Scarry.

crys, Oh yes. Sweet Revenge! That was pricesless. I will remember that next time it happens to me.

canda, can't you put the latch and Do Not Disturb sign on?

I'm back to say 1. that if Canda's experience is like mine, there are some maids that ignore the Do Not Disturb sign if it's past some moment when they think you should be up -- ca. 9 or 10 am. They knock anyway and then apologize, hollowly.

2. Ooh, Patrick, you disappoint me. All those other people you list are not paid according to a scale that assumes tipping; chambermaids are. They get some minimal amount but are reported to be among staff expected to receive tips, which lets the hotel off the hook for paying them a decent or sometimes even minimum wage. Most people don't seem to understand that, which is why the envelopes started to appear -- to at least give a name to the service personnel you don't see (vs. the waiters, who can intimidate the heck out of you but at least make good money in ALMOST guaranteed tips). Janitors, etc. may not be paid much but only parking valets, etc., are listed a employees likely to be tipped.

If you arrived to a clean room with clean sheets, you can afford the nod of thanks with a buck or two. For all you know, the previous guests left garbage everywhere and undoubtedly did not tip her. She's going to have to do the same thing for the next guest that she did for you after the previous guest, regardless of the number of nights. Tip her. She's at the very bottom of the remunerative scale, and no message you send by NOT tipping her reaches anyone other than her. A buck or two can make her day, or at least her hour or two.

Returned from a 50th birthday party (in Denver) somewhere around 2 a.m.'ish (or thereabouts), after many many cocktails. The housekeeping staffed knocked on the door at 7 a.m. I'm not kidding. If I had been decent, I would have answered the door and given them a short course on all the bad words I have learned over the years, but the cobwebs in my brain and the fact that we had only been asleep for 5 hours could not compute. We didn't leave a tip....

Cassandra, "If you arrived to a clean room with clean sheets, you can afford the nod of thanks with a buck or two. For all you know, the previous guests left garbage everywhere and undoubtedly did not tip her."

If I arrive in a clean room it is because I Paid for it. If the prievios occupant left a mess that is not my problem and it should not matter if they left a tip or not. I already left a "buck or two" for that one hundred dollar room. Its not my job to subsidize the maids to do their job which the hotel is already supposedly paying them for.

If anyone is concerned that the maids are not paid enough by the hotel or they don't want to be pressured into leaving a tip for services they already paid for they should talk to the hotel's manager or general manager about the hotel's problem of underpaid, guest subsidized maids.

If the alarm wakes you up at the wee hour - is this houskeeping fault not to turn it off after the last guest? Or should I've pre-tipped?

Are any of these "annoyances" somehow related to the QUALITY of the hotel people stay in or is that just in my wildest imagination?

Not always related to quality, intrepid. I just stayed in an expensive lodge/spa, and forgot to check the nightstand clock before I went to sleep. It went off at 6am. My own fault, I know, but it would have been nice if the maid had checked it and turned it off when she made up the room.