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.