How (not) to run a hotel

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#1221233 24-Jan-2015 06:37

People who turn the arrows that point to mecca around by 180 degrees.

Oh wait thats me...

kiwitrc

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#1221235 24-Jan-2015 06:43

gmball:

Unless you are staying in a hotel in Vegas where the minibars operate on a weight basis. You are automatically charged the minute you remove something from the minibar, even if you don't consume it and leave it on a nearby flat surface.

Found that in Vegas, but they always have a free ice machine in the hallway, so I filled up the paper waste bins and one of the sinks with ice to cool my beer and milk.

graemeh

2078 posts

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#1221305 24-Jan-2015 11:18

afe66:
gmball:
graemeh: Air conditioning that is so old and decrepit that it frequently breaks and then when the guest complains move them to another room with broken air conditioning. When they complain again upgrade them to a much more expensive room that also has broken air conditioning.

Tour buses that arrive early in the morning and sit just outside hotel rooms with their engines running.

Room service breakfast that is so expensive that even the reception staff can't believe your bill is right when they print it out.

The minibar full of stuff is easily fixed, just remove all the hotel items and leave them on a nearby flat surface.

Unless you are staying in a hotel in Vegas where the minibars operate on a weight basis. You are automatically charged the minute you remove something from the minibar, even if you don't consume it and leave it on a nearby flat surface.

Singapore hotel had a sticker on the mini bar door which said $25 fee if opened and nothing consumed..

A.

That is such a Singapore thing to do. Singapore has cheap food and drink options in most places if you know where to look so you can always go out. We managed to get breakfast for two at the airport for about $6 but I was the only white guy in the place for the first hour we spent there.

I like the Vegas solution with the ice machine.

Athlonite

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#1221365 24-Jan-2015 14:18

bedding that glows in the UV light I'll make them come and change it until it doesn't glow anymore

jpoc

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#1221513 24-Jan-2015 18:34

My world-champion rating goes to the Hotel Daniel in Tel Aviv.

It was 353 US dollars a night when I stayed (that Larry bloke from the America's Cup was paying.)

The wardrobe doors are big heavy glass mirrors. Really big - two of those and you have a ping-pong table. They slide - well they should but the runners had been neatly dismantled and left in a small heap at the back of a shelf in the wardrobe.

So when I tried to slide the door open, it fell on me. Luckily I am a big strong bloke and I was able to support the weight and wrestle it back upright.

Can it be fixed? What do you think. It's the Sabbath so of course it cannot be fixed. In the end, I did it myself rather than wait.

Attention to detail matters. The door-lock should work with the swipe-card issued to the guest but the in-room safe should not be coded for the same card.

Some folks have written about missing toilet brushes but that is just sloppy amateur stuff. At the Daniel, if you go and buy your own toilet brush the cleaner will remove it the next day. Now _that_ is attention to detail although it was explained to me as being some kind of religious observance.

Their mini-bar fridge rules the hotel world. Everything in it is rfid-tagged and if you remove it, you pay. If you want to use the fridge that is fine as long as you will pay $25 a day.

The furniture - wow - how could you not be impressed. I swear that the floor under the sofa had been excavated so that when I tried to sit on the sofa, my backside ended up lower than my feet - and they were still on the floor. That takes real dedication.

The air-con that makes a lot of noise but barely cools the room? Check. The leaky shower curtain? Check. The plumbing that lets you hear every splash from the toilet in the room above? Check.

All of the above is pointless unless the hotel pays close attention to the guest's feedback.

That must be why my wifi access dropped out shortly after I started writing a review for trip-adviser. The phone call that I received a moment later from hotel management asking if I had any problems was a nice courtesy gesture. I hung up the room phone and then unplugged it when it rang back a moment later. Of course, such hard working folks with their dedication to customer service would not be put off. My swipe-card stopped working. They blamed the high temperatures but I know that they just wanted to force me into reception for a chat.

Nobody does it better.

Geektastic

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#1221619 24-Jan-2015 23:46

jpoc: My world-champion rating goes to the Hotel Daniel in Tel Aviv.

It was 353 US dollars a night when I stayed (that Larry bloke from the America's Cup was paying.)

The wardrobe doors are big heavy glass mirrors. Really big - two of those and you have a ping-pong table. They slide - well they should but the runners had been neatly dismantled and left in a small heap at the back of a shelf in the wardrobe.

So when I tried to slide the door open, it fell on me. Luckily I am a big strong bloke and I was able to support the weight and wrestle it back upright.

Can it be fixed? What do you think. It's the Sabbath so of course it cannot be fixed. In the end, I did it myself rather than wait.

Attention to detail matters. The door-lock should work with the swipe-card issued to the guest but the in-room safe should not be coded for the same card.

Some folks have written about missing toilet brushes but that is just sloppy amateur stuff. At the Daniel, if you go and buy your own toilet brush the cleaner will remove it the next day. Now _that_ is attention to detail although it was explained to me as being some kind of religious observance.

Their mini-bar fridge rules the hotel world. Everything in it is rfid-tagged and if you remove it, you pay. If you want to use the fridge that is fine as long as you will pay $25 a day.

The furniture - wow - how could you not be impressed. I swear that the floor under the sofa had been excavated so that when I tried to sit on the sofa, my backside ended up lower than my feet - and they were still on the floor. That takes real dedication.

The air-con that makes a lot of noise but barely cools the room? Check. The leaky shower curtain? Check. The plumbing that lets you hear every splash from the toilet in the room above? Check.

All of the above is pointless unless the hotel pays close attention to the guest's feedback.

That must be why my wifi access dropped out shortly after I started writing a review for trip-adviser. The phone call that I received a moment later from hotel management asking if I had any problems was a nice courtesy gesture. I hung up the room phone and then unplugged it when it rang back a moment later. Of course, such hard working folks with their dedication to customer service would not be put off. My swipe-card stopped working. They blamed the high temperatures but I know that they just wanted to force me into reception for a chat.

Nobody does it better.

In Tel Aviv you say? Say no more, Squire.

Geektastic

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#1221620 24-Jan-2015 23:47

kiwitrc: People who turn the arrows that point to mecca around by 180 degrees.

Oh wait thats me...

Bwahahahaha! I like this one - I shall shamelessly use it henceforth!

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Geektastic

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#1221622 24-Jan-2015 23:48

garbonzai: Bed Bugs would be the worst possible experience from staying in a hote//motel.

I stayed in one in Cambodia once that had an ant colony in the wardrobe...!

graemeh

2078 posts

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#1221623 24-Jan-2015 23:48

jpoc: My world-champion rating goes to the Hotel Daniel in Tel Aviv.

Basil Fawlty could only dream to deliver to the same standard as the Hotel Daniel.

garbonzai

315 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1221632 25-Jan-2015 00:37

Geektastic:
garbonzai: Bed Bugs would be the worst possible experience from staying in a hote//motel.

I stayed in one in Cambodia once that had an ant colony in the wardrobe...!

Yes, creepy crawlies can make things hard (to sleep) especially when the hotel is at 100% occupancy and they can't put you into another room.

DrCheese

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#1221633 25-Jan-2015 00:45

Most of the horrible experiences can be eliminated by paying an extra few hundred a night and staying at a decent hotel, but sometimes I have to pay myself, which means cheaper hotels. Here are my ten worst experiences:

1. The people in the room upstairs smoking (in a non-smoking hotel) with the smoke deftly tranported to my room below by the air conditionig system. Not the fault of the hotel though.
2. Toilets that don't flush. (You get to find out about this problem AFTER the event)
3. Previous guests drinking the bottled water without paying, and re-filling it with tap water. In one instance this gave me a nasty illness.
4. Wifi priced like it was 1999 and mind-numbingly slow. Not a problem in NZ as I can use mobile data.
5. Graffiti on the bed head. The taxi driver in LA was a bit nervous about this part of town.
6. Filthy carpet turning the soles of my feet black.
7. Bedside clock radios set to go off at 3am at the loudest possible volume.
8. Cleaners knocking and opening the hotel door, usually when I'm in the bathroom, or changing clothes. Happens quite a lot. Must remember the Do Not Disturb sign.
9. No air conditioning in summer.
10. Leeches in the shower (not good for short sighted people like myself)

Dr. C (the travelling cheese).

surfisup1000

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#1221652 25-Jan-2015 06:50

First place: Shower head directly above toilet. Seriously, every time you shower you must move the toilet paper .

And, same hotel advertised as having pool, only to turn up and they say the pool belongs to the neighbouring hotel and to jump the fence.

This was in Greece. Europe has some of the oddest hotels.

jpoc

1043 posts

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#1221670 25-Jan-2015 07:27

kiwitrc: People who turn the arrows that point to mecca around by 180 degrees.

Oh wait thats me...

But if you do that, they still point to Mecca, just the long way around the great circle. You need to turn them by some other angle.

Sidestep

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#1221775 25-Jan-2015 11:22

We had a business that required several months of road travel in the US each year.

Usually we'd stay at budget chain Hotels - like Super 8's or Hampton's - every hotel's basically the same.. Same decor, same TV's, same breakfast, same ice machines.. Usually easily located near freeway exits with a giant lit up sign on a pole.

An Australian partner travelled with us a couple of seasons. Penny-wise & pound-foolish, he'd Google cheap hotels in the cities we were headed to so we could 'save money'. They were inevitably dives. It's surprising how in some US cities there's an invisible line separating a decent suburb from a really scummy one..

We were robbed leaving a Hotel (in LA) by muggers who angrily discarded our Australian and Canadian money (what dis sh1t!!?). We stayed in a hotel down a dirt road off the Interstate literally in the middle of nowhere (MT) - think Bates Motel.. We stayed in one in MI where a gunfight broke out nearby at 2am, gunshots, sirens, screaming.. And one we tried to stay at in OH the lady behind the safety screen at checkin said "y'all should find somewhere else" to stay. And we did. In PA the wheels got stolen off our trailer, and we went back to staying in Super 8s.

maslink

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#1221875 25-Jan-2015 15:50

Things that feel like they're going to kill me...

(No, this was not an NZ hotel, and there was *no* splashing in the shower!)

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