Jul 142024
 

Having just spent a couple of nights in a cheap hotel (which is my own choice so no complaints about that), I have a few suggestions with regards to hotels. Most of which would be cheap to implement, make life easier for both you and your guests.

Sure some will cost money, but still worth considering.

Beds

Beds are rather critical to what we’re there for – if anything that is the only reason we’re there. A place to sleep overnight without being squished into strange contortions in a car, or under a bush hoping it doesn’t rain.

You do fine with the beds themselves, but the bedding?

I’m sure how you make beds is very impressive at an exhibition and if you want to make an exhibition of how you make the beds, stick it in the fucking lobby.

I don’t want to struggle for half an hour to untangle the bedding to get into bed; in fact on my latest stay I just didn’t bother. I slept on top of the duvet with the addition of a few towels.

Just don’t tuck that shit in. It’ll save your staff time, and it’ll save your guests time.

“For Your Safety”

Oh please! We know that those window chains preventing them from opening far enough aren’t really for our safety. They’re a legal safety belt so that if someone does something really dumb like crawling through the window, you’re legally covered.

Replace the notice with “For our legal protection”, and allow us to unscrew the safety cable (“On your own head be it”). Most of your guests are adults and have been successfully dealing with the dangers of open windows for years; sometimes decades.

Nicotine Addicts

… don’t disappear in a cloud of smoke just because smoking is now prohibited in hotel rooms. And how many fire alarms have been triggered because vaping triggers ‘smoke’ alarms? Or by especially steamy showers?

Let’s face it, those smoke alarms are just a bit shit – they should be looking for smoke particles not all particles.

But ignoring that, making some sort of arrangements for nicotine addicts might well make sense – not only for those who are addicted, but also those who aren’t. Smokers usually exit the hotel and smoke somewhere on the ground floor which often seems to climb into hotel rooms. Certainly the room I was in caught the occasional whiff of smoke.

Give the smokers a balcony on every floor with an active ventilation system that ejects the smoke at roof level. More convenient for the smokers, and less nasty smells for the other residents. And a separate balcony for vapers; despite what you might think, vapers don’t necessarily enjoy cigarette smoke.

Ceci n’est pas une cabane de plage