Last month, my wife and I drove through some of the US Gulf Coast states. Starting in New Orleans, we went through Mississippi, to Alabama. After spending time in Mobile, we went to Montgomery and Birmingham.
One hotel was great, but the quality of the others was uneven.
In the past, as leisure travelers often don’t return to visited cities or vacation spots, preferring instead to try new locales, hotels could get by, even if they weren’t “up to par,” but today the Internet has changed that. Most hotels clearly know it, as more and more of them display their Trip Advisor ratings in their lobbies, for example.
With hotel guests slow to give praise, but lightning fast to complain on review sites, I don’t understand why hotels continue to fail to eliminate basic problems, yet expect it to not affect them.
Here are ten hotel problems we encountered on our trip which should never happen:
• Announcing guest room numbers at check-in — This is a safety issue. Hotel managers must train their personnel to never do that.
• Inadequate lighting — When I get to my hotel room at the end of the day, I want to work, or relax and read. That requires adequate lighting. Lamps with undersized bulbs can’t adequately light a room. With today’s high efficiency, long lasting LED and compact fluorescent bulbs, hotels have no excuse for inadequate lighting.
• Too few electrical outlets in the right place — When we travel, we usually have a pair of smartphones and a pair of tablets. Each requires an outlet for charging. I think that’s fairly typical of leisure travelers in the 21st century. When working, I also bring a laptop, and camera battery chargers. In my opinion, hotel rooms should have at least four outlets available at the room’s desk, and at least one available at each night table beside the bed(s). You shouldn’t have to unplug lights in the room to use your equipment.
• Lack of or undersized hotel room safe — For security, travelers need a room safe to stow extra cash, credit cards, tablets, cameras, and other valuables. Business travelers stow their laptop in the safe when not in use, if at all possible. On the Gulf Coast trip one of our hotels had no room safes, which is completely unacceptable. Another had a room safe, but they were so small an iPad mini wouldn’t likely fit in. A reasonably sized room safe is an essential hotel room amenity.
• Zero or one luggage rack — Two people staying in a hotel room isn’t unusual, so why do so many hotel rooms have just one luggage rack, if any? Opening and using luggage on the floor isn’t acceptable. Luggage racks are cheap and necessary. Two to a typical room should be standard practice.
• “Trickle-down” shower heads — After a long day of travel, I love a hot shower. Some hotels try to cut costs and be good environmental neighbors by conserving water. I applaud that. We do that at home. The problem is it’s almost impossible to take a shower when hotels go overboard by installing shower heads which spit out only a trickle of water. It’s ridiculously difficult and far too time consuming to clean, then rinse your body, with a “trickle-down” shower head.
• Not enough towels — This seems to be a chronic problem, even at many expensive hotels. If two people are going to be staying in a room, it needs to be supplied with at least two each of bath towels, hand towels, and wash cloths. Nothing less is adequate. No one should have to call housekeeping to get the minimum.
• Unrequested turn down service — I don’t like or want this service. Once I get into my room at night I prefer hotel staff doesn’t enter my room until the next day for cleaning. I put out the “Do Not Disturb” sign. If that’s what I want, it should be respected.
• Ridiculously thin walls — I don’t expect silence around me, even when staying in a typical luxury hotel. Frankly, it’s an unrealistic expectation. That said, I don’t expect to hear every noise of an elevator’s movement in my room, as if I’m in the elevator. We noticed loud elevator noise the moment we entered our room after check-in at one of our hotels. We changed our room, but someone, of course, stayed in that room. It’s not right to have rooms like that.
• Rooms with serious problem not taken out of the hotel’s reservation inventory — Some hotel chains let you check-in online and reserve your precise room 24 hours in advance of arrival. I take advantage of that system. When we got to our room at our last hotel, neither of our room keys worked. We returned to the front desk assuming the keys weren’t programmed properly. We then learned the lock was broken the day before, but hotel personnel could come up with us and unlock it anytime we wanted to get in. We got a new room. The room should have been removed from use and reservation inventory while the electronic lock was broken.
What hotel problems have you experienced which should never happen?
(Hotel Room Image: Copyright © 2015 NSL Photography. All Rights Reserved.)
After many years working in corporate America as a chemical engineer, executive and eventually CFO of a multinational manufacturer, Ned founded a tech consulting company and later restarted NSL Photography, his photography business. Before entering the corporate world, Ned worked as a Public Health Engineer for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. As a well known corporate, travel and wildlife photographer, Ned travels the world writing about travel and photography, as well as running photography workshops, seminars and photowalks. Visit Ned’s Photography Blog and Galleries.
