I’ve stayed in over 100 different hotels this year, in 15 countries, and in a price range between £20 and £5,000 per night.
What did I learn? Expensive doesn’t always mean good, and cheap doesn’t always mean bad. On the contrary, the best hotels, regardless of their star rating, are the ones that do the simple things well.
You should leave a hotel feeling fresher than when you arrived. No black eyes from unnecessary noise or burns from a hot shower. Here are 10 of the most common mistakes and a few suggestions for overcoming them.
1. Enough with the unnecessary paperwork!
I booked the room online and provided all my personal and payment details. Everything you need from me is of course already on your hotel’s administration system, because when I arrived you quickly found me on the computer screen. Then why, after rushing in from a long flight or car ride, am I asked to write it all over again, with an unreliable pen, on a piece of paper? This is an archaic and unnecessary formality. The best hotels simply check your ID and hand you a room key. Job done.
2. It’s free wifi, not the nuclear codes
Some hotels treat their internet connections as coded memoranda between MI6 and GCHQ. I stayed at a hotel earlier this year that had a 26-digit Wi-Fi code, made up of letters, numbers and special characters, in a chaotic combination of upper and lower case letters. The worst are hotels that still require multi-factor authentication, forcing guests to verify their existence via a text message (which requires roaming changes) or to click a box that opts in to a lifetime of marketing spam. It doesn’t have to be this way. You just need to have an open internet connection, with a maximum of one click to join.
3. Divide your guests over several floors.
I recently stayed at a 300 room hotel where only 10 rooms were occupied that night. Still, it sounded like it was at full capacity because all the guests were on the same floor, in rooms next to each other. I understand, this is to make life easier for the cleaners, but would it really be difficult to spread everyone out a bit?
4. Is this a hotel or a leisure centre?
Many of the world’s more expensive institutions appear to be in an identity crisis. On the one hand, they market themselves as exclusive hotels for out-of-towners, but on the other hand, they prey on local spending. In many cases this worsens the hotel experience. A few weeks ago I visited a hotel gym that was so busy it was out of bounds. How about exclusive time slots for hotel guests, who pay more per night than your local members pay monthly?
5. Shhhh. I am trying to sleep
You won’t realize how quiet your own home is until you sleep in hotels dozens of days a year. In some cases this is simply due to poor design. In one hotel this year, the toilet drain pipe in the room above me ran directly behind my headboard. However, in many other cases, decibels could be significantly reduced by simply adding anti-slam door hinges. Don’t get me started on the hum of ventilation shafts. The first thing I do when I enter a hotel room is hold my breath and listen. If there is even a buzzing or beeping sound, I ask to be moved somewhere else.
6. Clean under the bed, it’s dirty
Some hotel rooms are so dirty that you wonder what the “cleaning” process actually entails. A basic level of cleanliness should certainly be a requirement. Do hotel managers routinely monitor the condition of their rooms? Some of the things I’ve found under beds give you nightmares. Again, this is due to hasty cleaners having to tidy up bedrooms within inappropriate time frames. By law, hotel rooms must be thoroughly cleaned weekly or at least monthly.
7. Replace the batteries in the TV remote control
Of the 100 hotels I stayed in this year, about 50 had TVs that didn’t work properly. You’ll get white noise and untuned channels, but mostly it’s just a matter of replacing the batteries in the remote. If you want to make a television the focal point of a bedroom, at least make sure it works. The same applies to hairdryers, kettles and coffee machines. A paying guest should not have his morning brew disrupted by a blown fuse. How about a quick inventory of all the electronics in your room on a quiet day? If it doesn’t work, replace it.
8. Sorry, but I can’t drink tea from a thimble
What is it with hotels and inappropriately sized crockery? In particular, the billions of tiny cups that are common in bedrooms across the country. No one, except perhaps the aristocracy, drinks tea or coffee in such crazy quantities. We need mugs. Just like we do at home. Large, thick, regular sized mugs. Is that too much to ask? Apparently they are also way too small to eat Super Noodles from…
9. Sort your lights
You are exhausted and would like to collapse into bed in the dark. The only problem is that you can’t find the upplight switch, which pulses maniacally like an emergency flare. And how about a little reading before bedtime? Sorry, the lamp is broken. Use your phone. Of the more than 50 American hotels I stayed in earlier this year, almost none had “big lights” in the center of the ceiling. Instead, they go for about half a dozen smaller lights, each of which must be turned on and off individually. The way to my heart? An “All Off” switch.
10. Is a medium-height shower really too much to ask?
I know you can’t go a day without someone chewing your ear off about the health benefits of cold water therapy, but can I at least make the decision for myself? The problem is that you won’t know if your shower is defective until you’re naked and ready to get in it. Of the hotel rooms I’ve stayed in this year, I think at least 70 percent had bad thermostats. Complaining to a receptionist is a total waste of time. At that point you’ve already had your ice cold or glowing splash, you’re fully dressed and checking out.