Grrr… I have a no smoking plastic table top sign, a welcome book, a do not disturb door knob sign, a room service menu, a phone directory, laundry bags and forms, note pad and pen, be green with you towel sign, local channels sign, minibar list…
It’s all spread at the area I want to have nothing so I can set my own things out. For instance, the desk is cluttered in this garbage. The night stand too. And the sink.
The first thing I normally do is round all this garbage up and dump it into a drawer that I don’t plan to use. When I check out, they can feel free to add it all back, to obstruct the next guest.
Well, the hotel I’m at now doesn’t understand this. They have been putting all these damn signs back everyday! Gah!
So I pack my laptop and files and leave for a meeting in the morning, only to come back in the evening and have to again round up all this damn junk to get it out of my way.
And what’s with the soap? One bar can easily last me 5 days, yet every day the bar I used that morning is gone, replaced by a new bar in a plastic wrapper. That’s just crazy!
There’s a housekeeper that checks the rooms everyday that the room meets ‘standards’. If the standards says “signs must be displayed”, they’ll be displayed.
However, if you stack them on the desk corner, then put a few sheets of paper and a pen on the desk, they’ll leave it alone as “customer objects must not be moved around unless necessary” is another standard.
If you find that they’re replacing your soap annoying then get a travel soap dish and put the soap in it, and leave the hotel soap on the counter. If it’s in your dish, it’s a “customer item” and they should leave it alone.
Wait, the laundry bag and list are usually pinned to one of the closet hangers, unless you use every single hanger it will never get in your way. The DND knob sign is usualy hanging from the inside lock, also out of the way. And I darn tootin’ want the note paper and pen at hand.
Seconded. Place a notepad, the magazine you read on your flight in, a personal (non-hotel) water bottle, a hat and a non-hotel pen neatly occupying the desk workspace and they will still be there in the afternoon. The signs and fliers will probably just get rearranged over the remaining available surface space on the corner but it’s not like you use every last square inch of every surface of the room, and the cleaning staff will get gigged over it if the supervisor doing a spot-check does not see the standards being fulfilled.
Use that one. I understand your frustration and I avoid it by just telling housekeeping to stay the hell out of my room. I don’t change the sheets and make my bed and clean the bathroom at home every day and I don’t need it at a hotel either. That sign goes right on the door first thing. It stays there until I leave unless I have a specific need for housekeeping.
Don’t count on the do not disturb to actually prevent being disturbed. Oh, it will keep them out of entering your room, but that’s about it.
When I used one because I was planning to sleep in while the person I was sharing the room with had meetings to go to, they pounded on the door despite the sign (yelling HOUSEKEEPING!), then after finally getting the message that I wasn’t going to get up and answer, rang the phone (with a loud ringer!) and left a voice message telling me they would respect my request to not be disturbed (? oh no you didn’t) and if I needed more towels or whatever I could ask at the front desk. Which was already mentioned on several pieces of the literature cluttering up the room that the OP is complaining about.
As I understand things, it is a matter of policy in many hotel and motel chains to have access to your room at least once in every 24-hour period. If nothing needs to be done or you don’t want anything to be done, it won’t be; but somebody from the hotel has to have a look. I’ve heard it explained as everything from “insurance reasons” to (quietly, and only once) “we want to make sure you’re not dead.”
To me, the “do not disturb” on the outside of the door means either that I’ve decided to sleep a little later than housekeeping expects (in the mornings), or I don’t want the turndown service (in the evenings). I know it won’t keep the staff out if the hotel determines that it absolutely has to enter.
I should clarify: I’m staying in South America. It seems every free space of flat area is occupied when I enter a hotel room. This is, after all, the land of cars driving the street with loud speakers blaring commercial messages. So, it must be a culture thing.
Le Meridian in Cambridge, MA has a giant tray of snacks sitting on sensors with a very small card saying that you will be charged immediately if you so much as move anything.
Exactly my feelings and my experience. More than 90% of the time I don’t need anything done to my room until I’m gone. If I am staying with my travel buddy and we are there for two nights I will use the towel that she used so that she has a clean one for the next day.
They had that at the Venetian in Las Vegas. Without thinking, I picked something up to look at it, then put it back. I wasn’t charged, so there is probably a time delay.
I imagine that the pool of people willing to pay a 300% markup to avoid the “inconvenience” of walking down the hall to the vending machine probably isn’t terribly large, and shrinking every day as people realize what huge ripoff minibars are.
Yeah, I know business travelers usually expense everything, yadda yadda, but the guys in accounting are damn sure gonna care. My company’s travel guidlines make it clear that the company will not pick up the tab for any of that crap.
At a hotel in Delaware I found a very large and very bright night light that could not be turned off. I complained to the front desk, but they told me it was required by state law. I had to pile up the guide to services folder and some pillows to block the light to a reasonable state of darkness to sleep. Probably a fire hazard. :rolleyes: