Amen to this list. Pretty comprehensive. The one minor thing I’d add, bizarrely complicated light fixtures controls where you struggle to turn the lights off.
Actually, one more thing comes to mind, especially in European hotels. The aircon/heating controls aren’t connected to anything to save on energy costs. When you enquire you learn that they are centrally controlled, and, despite the tropical heat in your room you cannot get the temperature down because it’s a predetermined day on the calendar where it’s off, no matter what. Came across this frequently both in the UK, Finland, Germany and a bunch of other European countries.
I understand high-end (and not so high-end) hotels using a subtle "signature scent" in the common areas, but I can't stand when they go overboard. The last time I was at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, DC, the lobby smelled as if an 18-wheeler stuffed to the gills with bottles of perfume had overturned. It was enough to make me not want to stay there again.
Subtle, soft night light so that at 3am I can navigate from bed to toilet without injury.
I wear contacts, so I need to be able to close the drain. Often, I can't.
It is not very expensive to buy a high pressure, low flow shower head hotel owners!
360 nights a year in hotels and I concur with all of these. Especially the water pressure.
My other pet-peeve is air-conditioning. Especially in woke Europe, absolutely does my head in when the hotel sets the minimum temperature. I like it particularly cool, circa 18-19c ( 66 - 68F ). When they set them to 23-24c ( 76-78F ) I always make them get an engineeer to come to my room and change it in the duct in the room. There are also ways of over-riding this penny-pinching by the hotels so I try those first.
Or when they have it set to fan only with no refrigeration and when you complain, they treat you like an imbecile.
The other thing that does my head in, also air-condtioning, when the air blows straight on the other place where the pillows are on the bed. I don't know how many times I have woken up in the morning with a head cold, all because the damn air blows straight onto the pillow area. I have even been known to relocate the mattress to the floor.
Have you considered getting a life and a home? Spending 360 nights a year you obviously do not have an intimate partner and that could be the cause of your aggression which is a huge turnoff for women.
YES, ABSOLUTELY THIS! Europe and some parts of Asia have very warm hotel rooms and it’s absolutely frustrating. I also don’t often have the opportunity to wait around for them to send the “engineer” down, cause that would just munch about 2 hours of my day away between incompetent front desk staff and a slow maintenance department, and I really do not have that amount of time to spend, or trust people coming into my room if I have not yet set up my safety protocols while I’m not in the room.
So, instead, particularly for my leisure holidays, I would always have my travel advisor check with the hotel if the AC is going to be working well. If it isn’t, I’ll go with something else.
If you check Google for the model of the room thermostat, you can often times find the quick override combination. It's usually holding two keys while pressing a third or something similar.
my pet peeve is hotel rooms where it is impossible to turn off all the lights in the room - some sort of pesky nite light seems to stay on or there is a light on a timer, in one instance i had to call housekeeping for insturctions & their response was to use an eye mask... argh
Most of mine are covered already but two to add:
1) Motion sensor lights for the bathroom and/or under the bed, with no manual override or way to turn off. I get up in the middle of night to use the facilities I do not light on for 10 minutes after I lay back down, nor do I need my partner woken up by unnecessary light.
2) Furniture placed at the end of the bed. Why? Just why? I'm tall, and often times my feet hang off the end of the bed. I also like to untuck the blankets/sheet.
Agree about the turned-on TV. I (obviously) switch it off immediately, but nothing is more annoying than a hotel with paper thin walls, where your next door guest lets that thing go all night.
Decorative pillows- disgusting.
I also cannot stand how many "things" in rooms these days have little lights staring right at you at night. From alarm clocks to TVs to USB hubs to those terrible smoke detectors.
I agree with all Ben said, except the TV on when entering room does not bother me. Additional peeves include:
-- Having to wait until the morning to see if late check-out is available. That pretty much defeats my whole purpose of a late check-out! If I am traveling late, and arrive late, then I want to sleep late. The "morning call" defeats the whole purpose of a late checkout. I'm pointing the finger at you Hilton / HHonors properties.
-- Not having an alphabetical order channel guide "cheat sheet". So many hotels have a channel list printed out, but it is a numerically ordered list. If I want to find, for example, ESPN, I should be able to look at the list and go right to "E", and not have to scan down a numerically ordered list that might be 80 channels long.
-- Paying for parking when the hotel owns the parking lot or garage. Charging for parking is understandable if the hotel has to contract a 3rd party parking facility. But charging for a parking lot or garage that they own is just an additional money grab.
-- Thermostats that you can not control. Invariably, these places keep the room too hot to sleep comfortably. The finger is pointing mostly at you, Europe.
-- Breakfast hours that end too early. As one who often arrives on the later side, and prefers to sleep later, breakfast that ends at 9 a.m. is way too early. Pointng the finger at you Marriott / Bonvoy properties.
-- Clogged / slow draining shower or sink drains. House keeping didn't notice? Seriously?
-- Treating Tea drinkers as an after-thought. Many of us do not drink coffee, but all the attention seems to be given to coffee drinkers.
-- Valet only parking with no self-parking option. Sorry, but I don't want others driving my car, and wedging it into a tight space and banging the car door.
-- Poor lighting in the room. Dark spots in the rooms that have very dim lighting.
-- A room sensor that controls the HVAC. It automatically shuts off your air conditioning (or heat) if there is no movement (or you are a very still sleeper). It is super annoying to wake up covered in sweat because the A/C cut off during the night.
-- Rattling / noisy HVAC units. Did housekeeping not notice and / or not alert maintenance?
-- No overhead roof to park under to check-in and unload my bags. Oh, what a joy it is to unload your bags in a heavy rainfall! I have noticed this at Residence Inn by Marriott, as well as a few others.
-- Pushy bellhops who insisit on "helping" you with your bags after you just lugged them yourself for 3 or 4 blocks from a remote garage. Sorry, but you are not taking my bags for that last 5% of the lugging distance just to expect a tip. I will take them myself for that last 5% of the distance.
-- Lack of a self-service ice machine. A self-serve ice machine is much easier than waiting for room service to bring a tiny portion of ice 15 minutes later.
-- Not enough towel bars to be able to able to hang up towels to dry. The hotels want us to re-use towels, but many do not provide a decent means to dry them.
-- Mini-fridge that is warm or completely turned off when you arrive.
-- The extra "cabinet furniture door" that you have to open before you can open the mini-fridge door. A decorative door in front of the mini-firdge is unnecessary and annoying. You would NEVER have it set up that way (having to open TWO doors) for your home fridge. Why is that okay for a hotel room fridge?
-- No spare toilet papar or tissues, and the tissue box is already close to empty when you arrive.
No bloody in room hot tea !! Or only one black tea bag or only all green tea bags. Yarghhhh. Ill look for the housekeeping cart or stop by the front desk.
1. Hotels that claim to be caring about the environment when they leave cards in the bathroom encouraging guests to reuse towels, yet there’s not a recycling bin in the room or even the entire hotel. It is obvious that cost cutting is the only reason they’re asking.
2. Hotels that expect you to tip their staff but will not help you get change for a 20 or provide a digital way of tipping.
Have not read it here, so maybe it's only me. I despise liquid soap. There is a chemical sodium laurel sulfide, that is more like something to clean dishes rather than skin. I have brought my own gentile bar soap for years because of this. Think you have dry skin? It's that cheap soap.
Heavy fragrances too. For instance, I know hotels consider Hermes Eau d'Orange Verte products to be luxurious, but the fragrance is actually very strong, and not to everyone's taste. I don't want to smell like that. I also find Aesop products dramatically over-perfumed, and neither as gentle nor "nourishing" as their reputation suggests. The sooner all hotel bathroom amenities go fragrance-free, the better.
Excess lights drive me nuts. LEDs on mandatory fiee detection sensors are bad enough, but when every switch and the telephone has its own light, the effect is enough to drive me batty. Also curtains or blinds that don't block 100% of the light. Don't tell me you have blackout curtains, then leave me to be awoken at 0430 because the curtains are anything but.
Here's a classic one at 2-3 star hotels: Showers that only fluctuates between ice cold and scalding. It somehow never settles on a nice warm setting.
I *love* walking into a Hyatt room and having the World of Hyatt channel already on. The narrator’s voice is so soothing, and I love seeing all the Hyatt brands and destinations featured.
If the housekeeper smokes themselves, they won’t notice any smoke smell in the room.
Nothing like a reheated post from a year ago to get engagement going...