Pet Hates/What annoys you about hotels?

[LiamR]

Some hotels in some Asian countries have now started a silly trend of having a clear glass in the bathroom. This is fine if I'm the only person in the room, and that I have some magnificant water views where it's virtually guaranteed that nobody will be outside, and that it's a hot summer day where my cold showers won't get that glass fogged up. However, when there are 2 people in the room, and we aren't married to each other...

Hotel H20 in Manila has this, what made no sense to me was:
In rooms with two double beds, there is an open glass shower.
In rooms with one queen/king bed, there was a private shower.

I would think it would be the other way around...

What annoys me the most is the coat hangers, I just paid $300 a night to stay in your hotel, am I really going to steal a $2 coat hanger.... If you want to take your clothes into the bathroom, you can't. So it makes them very pointless...

• 10am checkout. I usually wakeup about then and just make breakfast, so an extra hour does make a difference.
• Noisy A/C
• Elevators that take 30mins+ to reach the higher floors at breakfast time. I wouldn't expect to wait for more than 5 mins, particually since you are in an expensive room.
• Electronic Keys that aren't programmed strong enough, breaking down. At HI SFO, on a 3 night stay, I would have had to get 10 new keys... Grr
• An alarm that hasen't been reset, resulting in the pilot who stayed the night before, waking you up at 4am aswell.
• Hotels that try to be smart, and have a light turn on automaticley when you open the cupboard. But it then breaks, and won't turn off, even at night.
• A note pad with 2 pages left on it.
• Noise from external sources.

 

[Alanslegal]

i really dislike showers within a bathtub :!:

 

[Taezar]

One thing that frustrates me is non-digital TV's on hotels in Australia (sorry forgot to mention that).
Not getting ABCNews24 is just a PITA.

 

[anat0l]

Just a few from me:
...

That's quite a few I must say.... or more than that.

Not only that but you've managed to put them in alphabetical order :shock:

The coughpiest brand of tea known to man (how hard is it to get Twinings?)

Well, you may be referring to the coughpiest brand of tea known to woman, but for the coughpiest brand of tea known to man that may be different.

Although if you are referring to Bushells or Lipton, then I'd agree with you.


Like most here, lack of reasonably priced internet is a pain. Of course, free internet is great but I don't consider it a major, major gripe if it is not free (unlike every single American who believes it damn well should be standard hotel operating policy to offer free internet). But to charge extortionate amounts for internet (as well as imposing bandwidth limits - e.g. 1 day or 100 MB, whichever is consumed first) is ridiculous.

Room cleanliness is a big thing for me. I normally try and check everything: the sheets, the bathroom tiles, the shower, the glassware - everything! If it isn't clean, I make sure I tell housekeeping or the front desk. In saying that, my standards do scale for hotel quality and location - sort of.

 

[cove]

In Post #23 let me just say Mal I don't think I want to travel with you.
The only thing not there was where a particular chain charges one US dollar for each toll free call in America. I voted with my feet on that one.
Well done on that master list!
I read hotel reviews and go for ones that have at least 10 positive reviews and score between 4.6 and 5.0 out of 5.0 to miss the annoying stuff.
Your post reminded me of the trip we took to America and we used PanAms economy list of hotels......now they took the prize for the worst group of hotels in America in the seventies.A wrecking ball would be a problem as the rats and roaches thought they were 5.0 on their scale of best places to stay.

 

[Grooba]

Yes, the whole internet thing. Still, nobody makes phone calls from hotel room phones anymore.

You would be suprised how many hotels make hundreds/thousands of dollars per day through call charges.

 

[Grooba]

Shocking prices though, and usually poor and slow service. I wouldn't begrudge paying so much if it was a good, stable, fast connection, but it never is

It depends on who the providor is. Some are rediculous and shape you after 50MB or so (I mean really, how can you operate for more than 20 minutes on the net with 50MB!) but others have no shaping (however this is not always readily specified anywhere).

 

[Mal]

The only thing not there

Actually, I could probably add another 10-20 items if I gave it a lot more thought. There are lots of strange things you experience when staying in hotels frequently.

Some more:

• Hotel fire alarms at 4am requiring evacuation. [actually anytime...but bright early is the worst]
• Taxi "mafia" hanging outside of hotel, and hotel staff receiving kick-backs from the scam.
• Hotels that still use keys (with the associated "huge keytag")
• Having to use intercom to enter hotel after hours (where they could have installed swipe access instead).
• Having your door nearly beaten down by a drugged up idiot who feels wronged by something bizarre.
• Ground floor rooms that back onto carparks (headlights in particular!)
• Noisy air-conditioning.
• Mould in air-conditioner.
• Drinking glasses that have been wiped clean by housekeeping using the same rag as they just cleaned the bathroom with.
• Housekeeping not servicing a room.

Yes, I spend too much time in hotels, and know many of the issues that occur!

 

[LiamR]

Hotel fire alarms at 4am requiring evacuation. [actually anytime...but bright

Yes, I spend too much time in hotels, and know many of the issues that occur!

Don't stay at Crowne Plaza Surfers Paradise, they have a false alarm at least once a week...

Don't we all spend too much time in hotels...

 

[Grooba]

<Rant on>

Internet - particularly in ANZ - where it is expensive (vs free in a lot of Asia) and slow and particularly if you hit some sort of download cap (WTF - you can't charge for it and then cap it at something ridiculous - I'm looking at you - Intercontinental Wellington and Rydges Melbourne)<Rant off>

It is crazy the prices hotels charge I completely agree. When half the time you can wander down to the nearest maccas and grab free internet. Some chains have caught on and offer free internet for their top members but really, how hard/expensive is it to offer free internet, even if it's not super fast.

IC Wellington and Rydges Melbourne have different providors but have deals just as bad as one another.

 

[BadgerBoi]

• Having your door nearly beaten down by a drugged up idiot who feels wronged by something bizarre.

please can we hear more about this one?

 

[Awesom Andy]

If you are regularly staying in hotels in Australia with 3G mobile phone access (say, at least 3 nights per month) you may be able to save money if you just get your own mobile broadband stick instead.

 

[medhead]

What annoys you about hotels?

One thing that frustrates me is non-digital TV's on hotels in Australia (sorry forgot to mention that).
Not getting ABCNews24 is just a PITA.

That's a bit annoying. But I can connect to home computer to record stuff. With TV I get really annoyed when they don't properly tune the TV, instead just doing the auto tune and leaving it. That usually results in a heap of channels that have just enough signal to be auto tuned but not enough signal for anything mire than static. How hard is it to skip the dodgy channels?

 

[Princess Fiona]

What annoys you about hotels?

The " You can purchase this coughpy secondhand bathrobe for "X"amount of $, please contact housekeeping "
Even worse the pathetic excuse for hairdryers offered by almost all large chains. The first chain to sign up with Parlux as a hairdryer supplier will have my undivided loyalty

 

[Mal]

[/LIST] please can we hear more about this one?

Hotel had one of those adjoining rooms with the door between the rooms. Had settled into bed one night and not too much longer later had the neighbour absolutely pounding that door and slamming their body against it. They were screaming at top voice "Who is in there", a string of profanities and other threats against whoever was "in there".

Then a female voice screamed back at him to calm down etc.

Not normal behaviour!

Another example from my list combining multiple elements:

Was staying at a hotel for several nights. Had DND sign outside (It was a weekend, and I was relaxing. Didn't want room serviced). At 4:45pm, with the DND sign on the door, there is knocking. I was asleep at the time, so not sure how long it had gone on for ... but after awaking, it lasted at least 20 seconds. No door viewer, so I open the door with my foot firmly behind it. "Can I change your sheets?". Shooed they away (in a nice way). But what type of clowns were they employing?

 

[Verde]

#1 Rooms with bath-showers.. I like only a shower (though I admit I should just check this before booking the room to be sure and try to remember to do so).
#2 Mini bar checking first thing in the morning. I think it was CP Auckland where they turned up at about 8:30am to check the minibar, though was somewhere else recently where it was 9am. Surely you shouldn't have to put a DND sign on to have privacy up to 10am.
#3 Lifts where you need to swipe the card before you can hit the floor number.
#4 Having to ask for things that should be offered at checkin (eg. no offer a newspaper at check in but it being in the hotel guide to phone down and ask for it). Rydges gets this for the complimentary drink - I always forget to ask for it and was never offered it in the few stays I had before abandoning the chain.
#5 Slow lifts, but even more annoying - when half the lifts aren't turned on. At a lot of hotels it is hard to track, but I've been at some where it was pretty clear two or three of the lifts just weren't in action.
#6 Breakfast buffet prices not being in the hotel guide/similar. Why can I have a whole document about room service, but have to feel cheap if I want to know if breakfast is going to be $20 or $55.
#7 Hotel guides you have to access on TVs rather than in a document form.
#8 Hotel guides that seem to be hidden.
#9 Hotel gyms which feel more like you're imposing on a private gym than accessing a hotel one.
#10 Small mugs/tea cups. Some hotels have wonderful sized cups for a cup of tea/hot chocolate (and I do like hotels with hot chocolate with the tea/coffee selection) but some have the most annoyingly small ones.
#11 Air conditioning which won't cool the room down to a low level. I'm not staying in an office block, I should be able to get it a nice cool temperature. Nearly as bad is when they have confusing controls and it takes you half an hour before you feel confident the settings will get it to do what you actually want.
#12 Points that don't post (and I'm looking at A|Club there).
#13 Hotel clocks that glow too brightly. They really don't need to be lighting up the room, why give me curtains if the clock is going to give the room a red glow day and night?

Anyway, I'm out of time to gripe now. The order is as I thought of them, #11 is probably the most painful one for me - I'll never stay at the Novotel Nadi again after a hot and miserable night there.

 

[Timba-Jet]

What annoys you about hotels?

The main ones for me:
- 10am checkout in Australian hotels
- coughpy irons
- over priced F&B
- Pushing you to their overpriced hotel car/taxi without asking if you prefer a standard taxi

 

[BadgerBoi]

neighbour absolutely pounding that door and slamming their body against it.

Thanks for satisfying my curiousity. Not a happy experience for you.

 

[BadgerBoi]

The " You can purchase this coughpy secondhand bathrobe for "X"amount of $, please contact housekeeping "

I'm with you there. I would prefer that they took the more honest approach of just coming straight out and saying "management considers all guests to be potential thieves."

 

[UP4014]

Some great things here.

I have to say staying an expensive hotel and being charge another $25 to park a car is rather annoying, and being charged for internet when they obviously want business customers. 5 star hotels take note - even Maccas can provide free wifi.

In room, the list is large but you guys have it all covered.