Why travellers love to hate hotels
I love hotels. Most of the time. It should be very obvious why you pay more than a rental apartment or roadside motel: think plush pillows, great service, spotless bathrooms and a bed more luxurious than your own. But it's not always like that, is it?
Thankfully in the last decade, the consumer has regained some power in this transactional relationship: yes, the online review that is TripAdvisor (and its rival sites). Isn't it great to have somewhere to vent and hopefully lead to an improvement in service.
Although recently, we've heard the industry say they've had just about enough of our collective moaning, I say rant loud and proud.
Hidden fees and extras
I've had to shell out extra for everything from a daily electricity charge in France to a dental kit in a four-star hotel in England. Backpackers on the Banana Pancake trail will be well aware of Southeast Asia's love of charging for rooms with air conditioning.
All of the above should surely be included in the rack rate right? Wrong. The ridiculous resort fee in many US hotels, which 'covers' amenities like the communal pool needs to be boycotted. Holding fees or deposits against things like the minibar are far less common, but still out there.
Some of these are unavoidable (and in the case of my forgotten toothbrush, I could have just waddled down to a nearby shop), but all should be made obvious before booking.
Showers for short people only
The average human height is about 160-odd centimetres, however it seems the average hotel shower that I step into struggles to extend to 155cm. I'm exaggerating, but only just a little. I can't understand why when installing a new bathroom kit, hotel operators wouldn't try and satisfy all guests by allowing the shower head to reach a height of two metres and save a lot of us having to contort unnecessarily just to wash ourselves clean of a hard days touristing. Just a thought.
That's if you can get it to work
I don't know where hotel companies buy their showers, air conditioning units, TVs, even kettles from – but it's not from the electronics shop down the road. Because if that were truethey wouldn't take a good 30 minutes of trial and error to figure out how to turn them on and make them work.
I'm a millennial, a "digital native" so why is this so hard? And if staff know that their everyday contraptions are complex, couldn't the porters and check-in staff be a little more helpful?
Put a sock(et) in it
If you're like my party-of-two you're likely to be carrying around four or five pieces of electronic kit: laptop, chargers, kindle, hairdryer et al. It's the way of the world. Except if you're a hotel room designer and you think electronic sockets are ugly so you hide them in silly places or just disregard them at all.
Those infrequent frequent shuttles
You opted for a quieter resort beyond the rabble of the main city, confident that you could rely on the hotel's free shuttle to town or the airport "every 30 minutes" transport they proclaim on their website. What's not to love: more peace and quiet, larger rooms that old buildings downtown – and then you're told the shuttle is actually once an hour, or only in peak season, or out of order.
Well, can you at least pay my bus fare since I booked this room on the basis of free transport for the weekend? No.
The six hour window of nothingness
You know who wants to get up unnecessarily at 9am on holiday to check out before 10am (along with 200 other guests)? Nobody. The worst destinations that follow this rule are Australia and New Zealand. I feel like I'm demanding their first-born child just to be granted a sleep-in on holiday and check-out before noon.
I know there will be rooms to clean (although it's unlikely that all guests will be checking out that day) but why then the need to keep us from checking in until 4pm? Local hoteliers more frequently have check in times of 2pm or 3pm. In Europe it can often be as late as 4pm.
Either way it seems an awfully lenient to the cleaning staff and barely lets you make the most of the hotel's outdoor facilities in the heat of the day.
Hair, there, everywhere
If I wanted to wipe away anonymous hair from bathroom counters and sinks I would have stayed home at my flat. Anywhere offering to host you a night – whether a pit-stop motel on SH1 or a swanky 5-star – should be completely free of manky, unknown or pubic hair.
You pay for the service, but you don't get any
If I was lazy, I'd say this comes down to the host nation culture, with some anecdote about fantastic service standards in Asian cities and lazy, grouchy service along the Med. A cliche that is often correct.
But sadly, you find crap service the world over. Staff who would rather be anywhere else and owners who lost their passion for the industry years ago.
That being said, unlike physical problems like a blocked drain it's rather hard to confront a manager or wait staff and say: "You're incompetent and your service is an embarrassment". I can't imagine that wins you favours or (shock!) an apology – which is probably why aggrieved guests turn into keyboard warriors on TripAdvisor later.
What are your thoughts?
Written by Josh Martin. Republished with permission of Stuff.co.nz.