The Mystery Of Room 14

A few years ago, I did a summer season at a country house hotel built by the Victorians in Northern England. It had wooden panelling, large fireplaces in every room and stained-glass windows.

The hotel was very popular with international guests almost all of whom booked to stay there because there was “so much history”. However, this history was also the reason for many of their complaints. Our guests didn’t understand why grade one listed buildings in isolated locations would have:

Single glazed windows meaning birdsong could be heard when people were trying to sleep
Poor wi-fi connectivity so taxis to somewhere that was two mins away would need to be booked by telephone (imagine the horror of having to make a phone call)
No lifts, so the five suitcases they brought for a one-night stay would all have to be carried up the stairs by hand
Puddles on the driveway (yes, this was another cause of grievance, we would be asked to ‘sweep away’ the puddles, even when it was still raining)

Every hour of every day, I was told the building reminded them of Downton Abbey, simply because it was a) old and b) in England.

It was also common to be told by an irate guest that they ‘stay here all the time’ and so should be given anything they want. An example of this was somebody telling me they are here every few months and then demanding to see a manager who left seven years ago.

However, there was another group of eccentric visitors we had to put up with. The ones who had read articles online about room 14, which was, allegedly, haunted.

In the time I was there, I never experienced anything unusual in that room (or any other) and neither did any of my colleagues but that didn’t satisfy the ghost hunters. We MUST be engaging in a cover up. There couldn’t be any other explanation. People would turn up at the hotel asking to see that room (even when somebody else was in it), when we explained they couldn’t go into a hotel room at midnight that strangers were sleeping in, that was another sign of the cover up.

Then management had an idea, let’s charge people to see room 14. If it was empty, people could spend £20 to go into the room for an hour. A staff member would stay with them to make sure nothing was damaged (or no other ‘unsavoury activities’ occurred). People brought ghost hunting equipment with them, most of which was homemade. One man brought a coat hanger bent into a circle that he claimed could ‘detect energy’.

For Halloween, we would dress up as Victorians and show people round, telling them (fictional) stories about people who had died there. Then the lights would mysteriously turn off (we flicked the switch when nobody was looking) and the people would scream and then start spontaneously chanting. It was all very odd.

People would book to stay in that specific room. If it wasn’t available, they didn’t want to come to the hotel. It was more than £50 per night more than any other room but they didn’t care. They wanted to see a ghost. The next day, they would tell everyone about their late-night encounters of whaling or moaning. Which, oddly, nobody who worked there ever experienced.

Towards the end of the season, I heard a couple of ghost hunters telling a large group of international tourists that the ghosts were the reason they couldn’t get onto Facebook… It was a shame the ghosts couldn’t carry all that luggage upstairs.

Poorly Positioned Ports

Cruise ship itineraries are designed to sound amazing in the marketing materials. Beautiful beach resorts in far flung destinations, incredible cities to explore and natural wonders to be in awe of. However, the reality can often be very different.

Firstly, modern cruise ships are too big to dock in many destinations so either have to ferry everyone ashore in a series of small tenders (converted lifeboats) or dock miles away and hope people won’t realise until they are already onboard.

‘Rome’ is actually Civitavecchia – about an hour away
‘Beijing’ is actually Tianjin – 90 miles away
‘London’ is actually Southampton – more than two hours away

So, the other option is tendering. This is so much worse. Getting 7000 people ashore in groups of 100 when they all want to go at the same time (usually 9am) means that the queues are horrendous and tempers fray quickly. The boat trip itself will be overcrowded, very hot and it is inevitable people will vomit. What makes the whole process worse is if the port is terrible and people decide to come back again straight away.

The reason cruise ships dock in places the company knows are awful usually involve picking up supplies (there is nowhere else to refuel) or because they are cheaper to dock at than their competitors. Examples that come to mind include

Arriving on a Sunday when absolutely everything is shut (every week, all season)
Docking in a container port next to large piles of woodchip or dangerous chemicals meaning walking is forbidden and the only option is to pay for their compulsory shuttle busses
An island in the south pacific which had a recent volcanic explosion, so everything was dead and covered in a thick layer of dust. Many passengers left their balcony doors open and came back to find all their possessions were now grey.

Although for crew members, by far, the worst ports are the private islands. ‘Exclusive’ beaches rented by the cruise lines for their passengers. How exclusive any beach can be when there are 7000 people from a cruise liner there is another matter. These beaches are gated off to keep away the ‘undesirable locals’ and as it needs to be shallow enough for bathing, there is no dock. This means a very early start.

Before 6am the food and beverage team are loading bottles of beer and chicken ready to be barbequed in the already thirty-degree heat. They get taken ashore along with all the t-shirts and sun cream the shop staff need for their ‘pop up’ stores, everything the kids club will need to entertain hundreds of under 10s and sun loungers, so many sun loungers. Then at the end of the day, everything goes back in the little boats and is returned to the ship. The following day a different ship will arrive and the whole thing starts again.

All this would be worth it, if the resorts were amazing and everyone had a great time. The problem is, that is rarely the case. There is nothing to see (other than the beach) and it might be the fifth beach port of the cruise so everybody is already burnt to a crisp and has had quite enough of the sandflies.

Making use of the ship when it is quiet and everyone is ashore is a treat and whenever anyone asked me which port was most worth missing I would whisper ‘the private island’.

First-Aid-O-Phobia

There are many weird and wonderful phobias around. Some are well known, some are not….

Chirophobia – fear of hands

Nomophobia – fear of not having your mobile phone

Xanthophobia – fear of the colour yellow

Omphalophobia – fear of belly buttons

Arachibutyrophobia – fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth

My phobia is a fear of first aid. Not getting it, I have no problem with the idea of somebody putting my arm in a sling, putting my hand in cold water or giving me an eye wash. It is the providing of first aid which causes me so much grief.

My autistic brain finds the unplanned nature of having to deal with medical emergencies so terrifying that I actually feint. Working with the public means I am expected to get training every two years, by my calculations, this means I must have done at least 10 or 12 first aid courses and I never got through one without feinting.

The first time it happened was at high school, our entire year were put on a day long course. Most people got a document saying they had ‘gained a level two certification’, others got level one. My certificate said I had ‘attended a first aid course’.

The bits I can do:

Putting a colleague into the recovery position, although I am usually told off for rushing, yet none of my colleagues ever seem to mind getting it over with
Applying bandages to imaginary wounds
Chest compressions to the rhythm of Staying Alive by the Bee Gees (not a bad song choice for a first aid course, better than Knocking on Heavens Door which is too slow)

The bits I can’t do

Listen to the instructor talking.

This always makes me start sweating, feel light headed, turn so pale I resemble somebody from the instructional videos and eventually fall to the ground.

This bit it quite fun – just don’t ask me about EpiPen’s….

At least now I am aware of the pattern, I know when I am no longer able to see straight, I have to get out. I generally hide in the toilets until I think the instructor will have stopped talking and the class will have moved onto something else.

On my most recent course, I pretended to take a ‘very important’ phone call on my mobile, meaning I had to leave the room quickly “I didn’t want to cause a disruption”. I must have been gone for about ten minutes but sadly the veins and arteries chat was still going on so I was forced to pretend to take a second ‘very important’ phone call. Luckily, nobody ever calls me so I was in no danger of the phone going off for real.

It is curious that I am never given a choice about this. Simply having done the training course, does not mean I will be any use in an emergency, there are many examples of me failing to deal with a crisis, my preferred method is hiding and hoping somebody else will turn up, which they (touch wood) have always done.

Despite having missed very significant sections of the course I still passed. However, this morning I learned that because my certificate failed to arrive from the awards body, I will be required to do the course again.

I did the sensible thing and deleted that email. My plan is to pretend I never saw it and hope the manager forgets. Wish me luck.

Afternoon Tea

Over the last decade, the afternoon tea has come back into fashion. No longer the preserve of the wealthy, these teas are now on every high street in the land. The typical afternoon tea involves sandwiches, lots of cake and, of course, tea.

Another reason that so many pubs, cafes and restaurants now offer afternoon tea is that it is cheap to make, and the high prices mean it is very profitable. A quick online search shows me that Fortnum & Mason charge £120 while The Millstone are selling vouchers for £280.

The sandwiches are usually ham or cheese (or salmon if it is somewhere fancy) and often very small. The cakes are scones and there will always be a huge variety of teas. Despite the huge variety, people will almost always choose breakfast tea.

At the posh hotel, afternoon tea is very popular. We are encouraged to give ‘service plus’ to the afternoon tea customers (whatever that means) rather than the normal lunch customers who presumably just get ‘service’. The main difference between the two groups, afternoon tea and lunch, is that the tea customers get tablecloths. On the four sunny afternoons we get per year, there will be the option to eat outside, along with the wasps.

Most places will provide takeaway boxes so the excess cakes can be taken home although we prefer them to be left behind so we can take them back into the kitchen and eat them ourselves.

A fun game we like to play with our afternoon tea customers is trying to predict which of the following conversations will happen first:

Is it pronounced scone (rhymes with gone) or scone (rhymes with bone)?
Which goes on first – jam or cream?

These two conversations happen at every table, every day during the afternoon tea service. Sometimes they get quite heated and a waiter gets summoned to settle the argument. Some people think it is cream first as it is a butter substitute, others think it is jam first as the jam stops the cream from sliding off. We now serve the scones plain, with the jam and cream in small pots, following complaints they were being served ‘wrong’.

To be honest, I couldn’t care less about these discussions. Do what you like. Its only cake.

Dog Inclusive Weddings

The posh hotel has been running ‘dog friendly’ weddings for a while now. This meant that people could bring their pets to the ceremony and to the reception. It was always quite popular, and the hotel earned money by charging an extra fee per hound. Then somebody took it one stage further and a new program was born, ‘dog inclusive’ weddings, rather than just attending, the dogs were to be given active roles in these outdoor ceremonies. So how has it all been going?

The first dog inclusive wedding was for a middle-aged couple. Her father had recently passed away, so the bride decided to be walked down the aisle by her elderly greyhound, Fiona. It was quite a small wedding held in the garden, but it seemed that all the attention had taken its toll on poor Fiona. She had already eaten the poesy, some twigs and half an unattended beer and by the time her big moment came, nature was taking its course. Halfway down the aisle, Fiona stopped to do her business (which made for a lovely photo), it took a while to get her moving again which gave the bridal party time to find a plastic bag to remove the offending item. Only then was it noticed that her deposit was runny. As there were young children in the group, we then had to discreetly clean the aisle as the wedding ceremony was progressing. Amazingly, on the way out, Fiona did the same thing once again.

However, this was nothing compared to the next dog inclusive wedding which featured a pair of two-year-old Jack Russell twins named Lala and Po (apparently after the Teletubbies). Lala was chosen to be a bridesmaid while Po was the ring bearer. Lala had a dress to wear which matched ones worn by her human counterparts and Po had a waistcoat with a strip of Velcro which the ring box would be attached to.

Apparently, the wedding rehearsal had gone very well but that was without the excitement of the attending crowds. Problem one was that Lala did not want to wear the dress that had been specially made for her and insisted on trying to rip it off with her teeth, but the bride was insistent that it was worn. It took three people to pin her down to get the dog dressed. Getting Po into his waistcoat had been much more straight forward although while wearing it, he jumped up at a baby who immediately vomited on Po and the waistcoat meaning both now needed washing.

The Jack Russell twins were finally ready to go, Lala managed to get down the aisle with the other bridesmaids with the matching dresses (although attempts to repair the rips were a little less than fully successful). Po had the ring box attached to his waistcoat and as he was released from his lead, Po saw a rabbit through a gap in the hedge and went charging off for a game of chase. The ring box became detached and the entire group went chasing after both dog and ring. Lala took this opportunity to finally rid herself of the hated gown and the registrar just stood there in pure shock as the sickly baby had another explosive episode.

I am informed we have had an enquiry for a wedding featuring six chihuahuas – what could possibly go wrong?

Just A Cruise Ship Singer

The phrase ‘cruise ship singer’ has been used as an insult on TV talent shows for years. Generally speaking, the people who use that insult strike me as the kind of people who have never actually been on a cruise so have no idea what they are talking about.

However, it is fair to say, cruise ship entertainment can be a real mixed bag. The shows with the singers & dancers are often a series of vaguely connected pop songs performed with enthusiasm three times a night. These performers are great. Unlike Broadway stars, they get to perform in a variety of styles on a guaranteed contract with no risk of the show getting terrible reviews and closing after six performances.

The performers rehearse on the ship, with no understudy. If somebody is ill or injured, everybody else just does extra. I remember one show that was supposed to have thirteen people on stage, seven had a vomiting bug and the other six had to everything and change their wigs a lot. There is no wardrobe and make up department, the performers have to maintain their own costumes which means there is little room for indulgence in the buffet.

No matter what the weather, the show must go on

Something else to factor in, is the movement of the ship. The dancers jump up and while they are in the air, the floor has moved. While the shows might be a bit ‘ropey’, the performers are amazing.

This is not always the case for the guest entertainers. These are people who fly to the ship, sail for a few days, and then fly away in the next port. They can sail on three different ships in a week and get paid per show, if they plan carefully this can make for a very lucrative career. However, it is fair to say that many of these people are way past their best and can be very hard to work with.

Examples that stick in my memory include:

A member of a very famous 70s band who can’t walk onto the stage and wheezes throughout the show
A successful Broadway actress who answers her phone (every time it rings) by singing the entire chorus of the song she won a Tony for
A 90s TV performer who reads his entire show from cue cards and even though it is the same every time, still gets the cards mixed up
A variety show ventriloquist who insists everyone addresses his puppet with any questions rather than him directly
A record-breaking English sportsman’s wife who refuses to talk about her husband and instead does her entire show in broken French to the bemusement of all concerned

These people used to cause me so many problems, many of them couldn’t really function without somebody to look after them and seemed to forget their luggage, miss the ship, get arrested or deported for having the wrong visas on an alarmingly regular basis.

One of my favourite pieces of guest feedback concerns an American TV star from the late 1980s who would come on board every week to do a concert about his career. The complaint was that the concert would have been better had he not been in it.

When it comes to entertainment, I’ll take a ‘cruise ship singer’ rather than these so-called guest entertainers. Just writing this has made me realise how little I miss them all.

Fake Helipads

Along with the brigg, another part of the cruise ship people are endlessly fascinated with is the hospital. Every modern cruise ship sails with a team of doctors and nurses ready to leap into action when the worst happens. Thankfully, this is very rare and the team of highly qualified medical professionals spend the majority their time dishing out cough syrup and seasick tablets. This is the reason that most doctors and nurses don’t last long onboard the high seas, their work is very tedious.

The reason for this is insurance. It is a requirement of sail that everyone must have adequate medical cover and this process weans out anyone likely to need complex medical interventions. If there is any reason to suspect somebody is likely to keel over, they are immediately taken ashore to a local hospital, often the ships will divert to make this happen. Although depending where in the world the ship is, the hospitals in question can have wildly varying standards, not that the cruise lines care, they just want the ill person gone.

The medical centres themselves are very impressive. They can deliver babies, perform blood transfusions, and even sustain people in a coma. Many medical staff told me the facilities are better than the ones in the hospital they worked in ashore.

One myth that needs busting is that of the cruise ship helipad. A lot of cruise liners seem to have a helipad painted onto the deck somewhere at the back of the ship. These are not real. Unlike a navy ship, cruise liners can’t cope with the weight of a helicopter. However, in a real emergency, it is possible to air lift a very ill person from a ship onto an aircraft hovering above the ship. Obviously, this is fraught with danger and would be an option of last resort.

In my twelve years, I can only remember one helicopter evacuation (or ‘helivac’ as we call them). The ship’s captain was very worried about the helicopter crashing into the ship so we had to close all the balconies and move everyone inside. It also led to one of my favourite complaints of all time “it was extremely disrespectful of you to schedule the helicopter during our dinner time”. These are so rare because if it is close to land, the ship will sail back to port, if it is too far from land, the helicopter can’t get there. Let’s not think too much about the cost…

But what if the worst happens? Do we have a mortuary? The answer to this frequently asked question is yes. There is a unlabelled door on the main crew throughfare that will hold a small number of deceased people. On the majority of vessels that I sailed on, it took three. The old joke was, if everyone was offered free ice cream, we must be looking for a space for person four. However, this simply doesn’t happen.

It is totally normal for gossip to go round that 2 or 8 or 27 or 7531 people have passed away in the three hours since we left port but it is incredibly unusual for anyone to meet their maker at sea. An interesting point to note is that the body of the deceased is given to the next port we visit. Depending on where that is, there may be a substantial fee to release it to the family so insurance is very important.

For those of us lucky enough to come from countries with free (or subsidised) healthcare, the prices charged by cruise ship medical centres can come as a major shock. Depending on the voyage, the doctors can take more revenue than the hairdressers or photographers. So here are some tips:

If you suffer from motion sickness, take tablets before you start vomiting
Don’t leave your prescription medication at home
Can it wait? Out of hours calls will double the fee
Don’t visit the doctor for insect bites, just buy the lotion from the shops
For goodness sake: GET TRAVEL INSURANCE

What Should We Do With A Drunken Sailor?

When people find out I spent twelve years working on cruise ships, a series of fairly inevitable questions arise:

Where is your favourite place? I say Singapore, then go into an anecdote about how chewing gum is illegal there.
Did you get seasick? Not really, but motion sickness tablets will do the job for almost everyone who is worried
Is there anywhere you haven’t been? Pretty much anywhere landlocked.

A more interesting question is ‘where is the brig’? To clarify, a brig is usually on a warship, a cell into which drunken sailors are thrown to stop them causing trouble.

In international waters, the captain is king. Whatever he/she says goes. Many people are incensed that their domestic rules don’t count here and think the rules should be either stricter or much less strict depending on wherever they are from. Smoking is a good example of this, passengers who come from places with few smoking laws want to be able to smoke anywhere they like. Other people who come from places with very tight restrictions on tobacco argue the entire ship should be smoke free. To navigate this, there are usually designated smoking areas in out of the way places so both smokers and non-smokers can be annoyed equally.

The ships all have an onboard security team. Their main responsibility is to keep undesirable people and objects from gaining entry. I wonder if some of the breeches I encountered would still happen today:

The stowaways who came onboard while a large coach party distracted everyone’s attention. They slept on the open deck and were only discovered two days later.
The workmen who confidently stole a grand piano, taking it through the cargo doors during a dry dock, everyone assumed they were working on it.
The person who didn’t like the photo on his security pass so took the barcode to a Home Depot and simply made himself a new one. This case went to the desk of the Vice President who was amazed it was so easy.

Depending on the cruise, another set of security problems is that of people who are drunk and disorderly. People who have thrown punches or caused damage are not taken to the brig (there isn’t one) but to an empty cabin. This cabin will be one that is unsellable. It has probably had a burst pipe or electrical fault that remains unfixed. It will do for the disorderly. Then security sit outside all night to stop them leaving and they are handed over to the police of the next port we go to, along with the relevant CCTV footage.

The ‘next port we go to’ can be a real mixed bag. If it is somewhere with an established legal process where many people speak English, they will be fine. However, if it is somewhere riskier, they are on their own. The cruise line will not do anything to help. Even getting home could be a costly and difficult process, let alone the legal problems they find themselves in. It is better to just behave.

Of course, the other group we need to consider are the crew members. Working 60-70 hours per week, means there is very little time to get into trouble. Perhaps the most obvious exemption is ‘banned substances’. To tackle this, random drug tests are undertaken every six weeks, these tests pick up everything so trips to a local pharmacy can lead to danger. Apparently, the reason for all this testing is not anything to do with welfare or safety but because it allows the company to pay a lower insurance premium.

Security incidents at sea are thankfully very rare (at least those involving cruise ships). One more thing to note is pirates which are still very active in the waters of East Africa and can be a worry to ships travelling through the Suez. Pirates don’t generally attack cruise liners, they are too big, travel too fast and have too many people inside. That doesn’t stop us from doing pirate drills. Essentially these involve shutting off the outdoor music and closing all the curtains. I can imagine this would be enough to foil the pirates ‘I just can’t find that ship now the curtains are closed, let’s go home instead’.

Disfunction Rooms

Alongside all its bedrooms, bars and restaurants, the posh hotel has several function rooms. I have blogged before about the various birthdays, weddings and funerals that are hosted but another large group of bookings are from companies.

Some of them are regular customers, they book a room once a week as they don’t have their own office and use the posh hotel as it has car parking, internet access and coffee. Others use the function rooms for conferences or corporate parties. Here are a couple of recent highlights…

An obviously fake picture, nobody looks this happy in business meetings

A strategy meeting regarding a supermarket’s in store radio service. Apparently, every branch in the country tunes in while a DJ plays music and announces the specials to shoppers who won’t be paying attention. One of the talking points was regarding if there should be a ‘listen again’ feature on the website so shoppers can hear the DJ announce the chance to save 10p on tea bags over and over again. One of my colleagues was asked her opinion on this, some ‘real world’ feedback, she said she didn’t care.

An awards ceremony for a riding school. A van turned up with 92 trophies to be distributed. It took six of us to get them all up the stairs. It transpired that there were only 48 attendees making this a very tedious occasion which lasted much longer than the attention span of those present.

A trade event for people interested in petrol station forecourts. There was a life-size model of a petrol pump, a demonstration of jet washers in the car park, somebody selling display cases for vape liquids, a presentation regarding new technology in coffee machines and no mention at all about the fuel price crisis. As far as I could work out, nobody at all, other than the vendors, came to this event. Apparently, the lure of a model petrol pump was not enough to tempt the public into attending. In fact, this event was such a failure that an entire pallet of marketing material ended up in the skip. Not great for an industry trying to prove its eco-friendly credentials…

A flying demonstration from a bird of prey centre. This was supposed to be outside, but the weather was too poor, so it was moved indoors. The room is quite large and has a high ceiling so was deemed suitable. The problem here was that David (a barn owl) seemed to be suffering with digestive problems and ‘soiled’ the carpet multiple times. I asked the handler about this and was informed it was an ongoing issue and last week he was booked to attend a wedding and made a ‘deposit’ on a bridesmaid.

In the diary next week, we have cheese makers, Grand National enthusiasts and nuclear waste specialists. Thankfully these are all on different days. A race horse eating cheese infused with nuclear waste is not a scenario any of us need.

How To…. Be A Good Hotel Guest

We hear a lot about what makes a great hotel. But what makes a great hotel guest? Here is a twenty-point plan on how to be a 5* customer in a hotel.

Book online. It takes ages to take a reservation over the phone and a long line will be building up in reception while you decide what you want. You will always get a better deal by booking with the hotel website directly. While other sites may offer lower prices, nothing extra will be included and you will likely get the terrible rooms.
Don’t arrive too early. Find out the arrival time and be around an hour later than that. There is always a huge queue at check in time and many of the rooms won’t be ready. Just wait.
Don’t arrive too late. The rooms are allocated as people arrive. The worst ones will be left until last (hoping the people in them will be so late they won’t notice the lack of hot water or the weird smell).
If your query is not important come back later. The other guests won’t thank you for holding up the line while you try and remember the name of somebody who used to work there years ago.
Pick your time wisely to pop into reception. First thing in the morning, middle of the day and during the evenings are all good times. The staff will be happy to chat to you and help with whatever you need.
The reason that check-in takes ages is because of mystery shoppers. They dictate a long list of near pointless questions that must be asked. Of course, you don’t want fresh flowers or a Sunday newspaper (nobody ever does) but we have to ask. Particularly if you are a solo traveller of working age. Mystery shoppers are always solo travellers of working age.
Check when the school holidays are, particularly if you hate children. It isn’t the hotel’s fault if there are children in the swimming pool when you wanted a quiet swim during a bank holiday weekend you hadn’t realised was on.

The question “what would you recommend” will cause alarm bells to ring. Nobody will have been there long enough to recommend anything. It would be much easier to google it. That is what the staff member you just asked has rushed into the back room to do.
If asked to make reservations for the restaurant, please do. It will be because they are short staffed – like every other hospitality business. Yes, there are loads of tables but there is only one waiter (and it is his first day). Please book even if it is just a few hours before.
Absolutely nobody has any idea why dishes or wines are numbered. If you order a 37, a 81 and a 12 to share, your order will be much slower as the waiter has to go and find a menu and look up what the dishes are. The kitchen staff won’t know either (they will be new too). Everyone will thank you for ordering the food by name. If you can’t pronounce it just point.
The croissants ‘delivered straight to you room from the local bakery’ are almost certainly frozen and purchased in bulk from Lidl. It won’t be worth the bother.
Before ringing to say you are missing something from your room, check the letter they gave you at check in. 90% of so called missing items turn up in the place it said they would be on the letter. Usually that place is in the wardrobe.
Overly tidying your room before the housekeepers arrive is very suspicious and will make people wonder what you have been doing to require all that tidying.

A particularly time consuming bit of a housekeepers duty is washing up the cups and glasses. If you don’t use them, the cleaning staff will love you. The stories about people washing their underwear in hotel kettles are spread widely but largely untrue. However, if it makes people use fewer cups, the cleaners won’t mind.
This is an important one. If there is something you are not happy with, please let somebody know before leaving. There is nothing more frustrating that people moaning online that their easily solved issues were not easily solved because nobody said it was a problem.
Always ask. Unless the hotel is packed, it isn’t that hard to get that window seat or a better room. If you are a nice person, you will be rewarded. If you are not, you will get the minimum. Just ask (nicely). On that topic, it is very easy to get a gift if you say it is your birthday (don’t worry, they won’t check).
Check out is simple, just drop the keys in the box. If there is an outstanding balance, the hotel can charge it after you leave to the card on file. There is no need to queue up at reception unless you have something critical to say at that moment. Note: remembering the name of the person who worked there years ago doesn’t count as critical.
Please make sure you have everything before you go. Hotels get so many lost property enquiries it could be a full-time job. Many of the ‘missing items’ reported won’t ever turn up (presumably because they were not lost at all). At least 50% of them are regarding phone chargers. Also, nobody wants to put your half-used bottle of shampoo in the post.
After you leave, you will inevitably get a survey sent to your email. The results of all of these surveys are more carefully analysed than you think, the comments will be widely read. If somebody has done a great job, put their name in the survey for the managers to see. A description of what they look like and when you met them should be enough.
The hotel will do the best they can to give everyone a wonderful holiday. So, pick your moments and have a great stay!