I'm with you Jean Valjean on the internet charges. Once we checked in for a month and found the internet access was $12.95 per day -- that's almost $400 for the month. I asked about it, and they said they'd give me a 10% discount. Yea, right.

But I loved Wyndham and Summerfield Suites where you can join their "preferred" or whatever club and it is free as well as unlimited free phone calls anywhere in the US.

And how about the new gimmick of the "access to phone charge". They charge you a one time fee if you use the phone -- something like $12 or $15. So you go to a hotel where you're staying just one night, you want to make one local call to confirm a reservation, and it is supposed to cost you $15 for that one local call?

• Feather pillows
• Lots of electrical outlets

AND

• More than 10 tv channels, six of which are news/financial. Geeze, how expensive is full cable????

I'd like a variety of pillows. Too often there are 4 identical pillows on the bed. If you don't like thin pillow number 1 chances are you won't like thin pillow number 2 any better and you'll be really unhappy by the time you test #4.

I am with you on the electric outlets. When the kids or wife are in the bathroom using the only electic outlet for coffee & hair curler. it would be nice if I had a place to use my electric shaver at. The kids also need a place to plug in their electronic video equipment, or to recharge cell phones.
& what is with the weather channel at the hotels? Is there some special weather channel only at hotels that covers only national weather. Why can't they have the local weather channel on like at home? When I am in a hotel in Santa Monica, I want to know what the weather is like where ever I am at not in Boston? When I step out the door of my hotel, I will still be in Santa Monica, not in Boston.
I also agree with the alarm clocks, especially when the alarm is set there should be an indicator that it is set. I always try to check if somebody previously set the clock & turned the alarm on. Half the time I can't tell, & the alarm goes off at 3:30am. & then it takes an elctronic engineer to know how to turn it off. So I just pull the plug. I bring my own travel alarm anyways.

Dancing men :-D

The bells and whistles toilets (w/music, all different kinds of sprays w/diff. jets that move around, dryer, heated seat) like they have in good Japanese hotels.

emd, the Toto toilets? Bryant Gumbel recently raved about the new one he had installed at his home which has a washer, dryer, and automatic flusher!

a washer and dryer? Did it have a skid resistant lid?

JA--YOu just made me almost waste a beer as I came close to spitting it across the desk...skidproof lid, my @ss :)

What sort of loon would attach clothes or anything to a sprinkler head? Have you never been away from home?

My requirements are simple: 2 towels (count 'em) per person. What is the big deal with being stingy with towels? Light bulbs for each and EVERY lamp. Is this truly too much to ask?

A clean room. Period. With clean linens. Period.

AnnMArie, OWJ, JALgirl, scroll down to the explanatory section on Japanese bidets at this site. Amazing. I wish I could get one installed for my husband in his throne room.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_toilet

JAGIRL, what OWJ wrote except with coffee this morning!

emd, thanks for the link. The options are unbelievable--everything but a motor to tool around the city. ;-) One of the restaurants we visited last year in dowtown Anchorage had the heated Toto seat--eventually, I pried myself off...nothing better than warm buns on a cool evening.

• A pillow-top mattress
• A TV with a “sleep” function and that does not turn on unexpectedly at night.
• Windows that open.
• Ample flat surfaces for suitcases, hand bags, and so on.
• A nightstand with plenty of space for personal effects.
• A clock that does not ring unexpectedly at night.
• Two comfortable chairs.
• A large, flat surface for toiletries in the bathroom.
• A convenient place for soap and shampoo while showering.
• A room ready even upon early arrival.
• A morning newspaper

Before I go to Japan, I may have to take an engineering class just so I can go to the potty. However, that said, I don't want to be washing my hands above my waste products. Ewww. :D

Oooh, my husband would love one of those Japaneses toilets his 'poopatorium'! If you put that and a flatscreen TV in there, I may never see the man again!!

1. Wrap the horrible top bedding in a clean sheet.
2. Throwaway paper socks/footies so I don't get athlete's foot or other fungus walking on the carpets/unwashed tile floors.
3. The above might be too much to ask for in chain motels, but not in larger/more expensive places.

LOL, OWJ! :-D

I don't know which hotels you stay in, but from my personal experience I could tell you that most of the places I ever stayed in, did have:

A magnifying mirror in the bathroom
A corkscrew
A coffee maker with real mugs
Closet hangers - as many as I wanted by calling room service

The only time I'm disappointed is when the bathroom has a tub/shower combo, and then to add insult to the injury, it's got one of those flimsy shower curtains that stick to you as you are taking a shower.....hate it..... and usually change hotels next day :-D

How about providing absorbent, BIG bath towels?? [larger than the Holiday Inn towels circa 1960's] And yes, 2 of each size for each registered guest, call me crazy for liking to shower in morning and at night.

And since I have become paranoid about bed bugs...2 luggage stands so I don't have to put my suitcases on the bed.

Funny, how you [me?] just keeping thinking of more things....
Debi

Whats missing?

Well, there's no chalk outline in the carpet, that's a plus!

A cockroach…

When my parents stayed at a hotel (I want to say Washington DC but I don’t remember) my mother saw a cockroach and my father killed it. My aunt at another room also saw one.

When the ladies went to the desk to complain the clerk wanted to move them to another room. My father told him “Why should I move, I already killed my cockroach”.

Gotta love my dad…

At two expensive hotels at which we have stayed recently, the king-sized beds were made with queen-sized blankets. Neither hotel could find a king-sized blanket the first night, and one never did. We had to make do with overlapping two small blankets.

This is from USA Today article on Opulence in Hotels:

"Many a luxury lodging offers pillow menus (Chicago's Conrad has six on call, including a pregnancy pillow). But it's hard to beat the Rome Cavalieri Hilton's options: 15 soaps (including "Lavandula Fiore" — lavender with "the Old World freshness of clean linen"), 22 bottled waters, nine salts, 35 teas, 14 coffees and six types of balsamic vinegar." Sheesh...and I just wanted a magnifying mirror and corkscrew!
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/hotel...l-luxury_x.htm

Debi

1. Nightstands on both sides of the bed, with good reading lamps on each.
2. Better lighting in the bathroom for putting on makeup.
3. Love those desk lamps that have two outlets in the base so I can plug in both my laptop and cellphone. Should be standard in every room.
4. Too many bathrooms still don't have grab bars in the right place for safe exit from the tub/shower.