Cal

I am sick and tired of checking into hotels and listening to noise all day and night. If it is not slamming doors, barking dogs, then it is loud TV's, voices from the hall or next room, or traffic from the street. I hate all this noise.

As a person in the building trades, I know that effective soundproofing can eliminate 90 percent of the noise from coming into the room but most hotel chains try to save money and have no soundproofing.

What hotels actually do have soundproofing? I want to stay there!

Anne

The Four Seasons or Ritz are the only chains that care about soundproofing.

OO

Very, very few hotels are owned or built by the companies that manage them. A commercial real estate developer builds the hotel and finds a chain to manage it (if they are the owners), or an ownership group like GE Capital will contract to have the hotel built, then find a company to run it. Ergo, Hyatts aren't built by Hyatt, but by a large number of different developers often with differing standards. Of course the developer isn't "married" to one chain, either, thus, for instance, Woodbine Development, which built Hyatt Regency Hill Country in San Antonio, also built Westin La Cantera Resort there. The quality of construction depends on the developer, rather than the chain that eventually ends up running that particular property.

To say that only Ritz and 4 Seasons care about soundproofing is ludicrous. They do go into primarily high end developments though, because that's what their chains are about, and high end construciton is more apt to have better soundproofing. But high end isn't restricted to those two chains, nor is quality soundproofing restricted to that level of development. They don't have a corner on that market, and to say they are the only ones to care about it, really is laughable!

I have yet to stay in any hotel at any level that has totally blocked out corridor noise (that may be more a factor of the type of guest, though door slamming idiots aren't confined to certain chains either), but rarely notice a problem with side to side noise.

Don

Both the Ritz Carlton in Palm Beach and Maui have LOUSY soundproofing!!!

lisa

I always travel with earplugs, just in case. I realize that doesn't answer your question, but it has solved my problem!