Are there any hotels, motels, or Holiday Inns where you’d need to temporarily become Mr. and Mrs. Smith to rent a room with an opposite-gender companion?
It seems that lodgings don’t have an obvious profit motive to care if you’re hosting an orgy as long as your bills are paid on time, you don’t cause any serious damage, and it isn’t loud enough to draw attention. However, the classic jokes remain, as well as the concept of the No-Tell Motel (as presumably distinct from the places which were not so-called).
Unless there were some local laws they had to worry about, I don’t think hotels ever cared. I used to check in giving only a single name, but paying for double occupancy. No one ever asked me for the name or status of a companion or if it was a spouse.
That was a long time ago, so things may have changed post-9/11. Authorities are now obsessed with IDs.
I don’t think the “Mr. Smith” thing wasn’t so much that you weren’t allowed to check into a room with your mistress, but that you didn’t want to leave a paper trail for your spouse/town gossip/nosy preacher to follow.
Not even the “Romantic Getaway” motels around here (by which I mean Sybaris and Essence Suites, not Jim’s House of Sleeze) require marriage licenses at the front desk anymore, although Sybaris did at one time.
I think they do have an interest in preventing orgies (and Sybaris does indeed limit guests to couples) not out of morality, but out of property damage concerns. Parties in hotels/motels can tend to get out of hand, no matter what the subject matter is. And noise complaints probably aren’t worth the time and hassle for management. Plus, and especially if one is running a Romantic Getaway motel, one doesn’t need the hassle from moralizing locals trying to make your business life difficult for encouraging parties of more than two.
There are still places in the UK where checking in as Mr & Mr Smith could get you in trouble…
Edit: actually, it appears the couple in question are not married (civil partners), but I can’t imagine the welcome would have been any different if they were.
I once ran across a B&B in Korea that stated on its website - “We do not accept unmarried couples under the age of 27.” (I can’t remember the exact age, but it was something in the mid 20s.)
I thought it was really weird. They explained that they had children and didn’t want to expose them to “immorality.”
I travel with my sister and we rent a lot of motel rooms, probably several dozen different places over the years. Never once have they so much asked her name and I’ve never offered it.
Outside the US, they do. When I was last in India, they had room on the form for “relationship with lady”, and in China couples are technically supposed to show proof of marriage.
In the US, I know from front-desk experience that hotels discourage bringing in prostitutes or other obviously shady sexual situations. Whenever someone who was obviously bringing in a prostitute came to my front desk, I was instructed to quote them an outrageous rate.
I learned why the one time I made an exception. No hotel manager wants to spend all night dealing with the irate wife calling every five minutes, the loud and occasionally violent disputes, and cleaning up a room full of condoms and spilled beer. I remember one wife called every ten minutes all night long demanding “Tell me who he is with! I am calling the police! Where is he, i’ll kill him!” Not fun.
Actually I just looked up the website and here’s what it says:
“We only welcome couples who are over 25 and are financially independent. We don’t want our children to learn bad behavior!”
I suppose “financially independent” might be code for “married,” as young people in Korea usually live with their parents until they are married.
ETA: Also they refuse to allow two couples to a room, because doing so would not be “civilized.”
I went to Egypt in 2009 with my folks and my wife. My folks have the same last name, but my wife and I do not. My folks got hotel rooms with one bed, and my wife and I only got rooms with two beds. That includes our rooms on the Nile river cruise boat!
When I was younger (teens & early 20’s) my Dad and I used to take road trips. I didn’t have a driver’s license so he was the one always driving. We ended up in a little town called “Mars” in Pennsylvania one night when my Dad just got too tired to keep going. We pulled into a budget hotel and my Dad goes to the desk clerk: “Yeah, we just need a room for a few hours.” I was like, “OMG Dad that doesn’t sound right!” and he was all, “This is my DAUGHTER! We’re on a ROAD TRIP and I’m too tired to keep driving!!” The desk clerk wasn’t fazed at all and gave us a room with two beds. We still laugh about how bad that must have sounded.
Honestly, though, I’ve never encountered any hassle with checking into a hotel with a male travel companion. But I’ve only traveled around North America, I can imagine the policies would differ in other countries.
In Canada, the law considers a place commonly used for prostitution a “common bawdy house”. (Ah, old legalese…) A hotel would have an interest in being sure that they did not become that sort of establishment, as allowing such activity can get the properietors charged.
So unless they found that they were the no-tell motel of choice, there’s no outstanding reason to demand proof of marriage or permanent relationship. If a number of regulars were getting a room every night with a different spouse, they might be turned away. So many couples nowadays are not married, it’s sort of a waste to time to drive away much of your legitimate clientele. Plus, at least in Canada IIRC, discrimination by marital status is prohibited.
