Never seen the robes, or never seen the note about buying them? Just about every hotel I’ve stayed in in recent memory has robes, and many have slippers (a few you have to call housekeeping and ask for the robes). Some have fairly obvious signs about buying them (e.g. a little card on the hanger), others have it buried inside the information book. But I think most have it mentioned somewhere, and I agree that at least to some extent it’s a reminder that they’re not yours to take home. I’ve never purchased one at the hotel, though both of my current robes were purchased direct from suppliers to nice hotels (Cypress and Chadsworth & Haig). They’re great robes, but not cheap (and frankly it’s not dramatically cheaper to buy them direct than from the hotel in most cases, especially if you factor in shipping). We did once buy the sheets from a hotel shop (Wynn Las Vegas) because we were already in the market for another set of sheets and really liked the ones in the room.
Somewhat closer to the original topic, one of my major pet peeves is when we specifically request a single king bed room (as my wife and I always do if we’re traveling together), and when we checkin they have none available. This must happen at least 1/4 of the time. I realize that reservation management is more art than science, and they have to overbook to some degree. But we’d be more than willing to pay extra to have a king bed guaranteed. It’s important to us. It’s especially frustrating when they claim to have none available, but when you talk to the manager, suddenly one appears. Why could they not have offered that in the first place? Typically, we’re at nice places, paying hundreds of dollars a night for several nights. We’re good customers. We don’t ask for unreasonable things or be troublesome to the staff. Would it be that hard to just give us the kind of bed we requested originally without making us fight for it?
When I’m traveling alone, I don’t care much about the beds. If I get two queens, I’ll take advantage of the second bed to spread my stuff out. But if I get a king, I’ll spread myself out and enjoy it (we have a king at home, but I only get the whole thing to myself when my wife is out of town).
It’s not the sparce furnishings- it’s the quality. Motel 6 types seem caked with disillusion… The yellowed plastics, the cheap paintings, the polyester bedsheets*… The basic assumption you are going to steal everything you can…
my friend told me once, and ever since the thoughts have seared a hole in my brain:
“you know, the sheets are clean, but how often do you suppose they wash the comforter? I never see clean ones on the trolley”.
I don’t know, sharding, one of the few things we guarantee is the type of beds in the room; you book a king with me, you’ll get a king. Promise. What we can’t do is guarantee you a specific room, except under rare circumstances. Same goes for the condos; we can request it, but if something breaks, or the owner wants to use it, then you’ll end up in a different one.
But how it works at your average hotel, I have no idea. We seem to have a bad case of “just gotta be different.”
Really? I guess we’ll have to come stay at your resort some time
Seriously, we travel quite a bit, and stay at fairly high end hotels and resorts, and regularly end up being told they’re out of rooms with king beds. I haven’t really kept a tally of which types of places it happens at; there may be a pattern I’m not seeing at the moment. I’d guess it probably is somewhat more common at chains. Usually if we stay at a chain it’s Hilton or Starwood. I do know that both times we’ve stayed at a Disney hotel it has happened, but we don’t really make a practice of that (we like going to Disney parks, but have found the quality and service at even their top tier hotels to be lacking).
It could also be that I get so annoyed that I’m subconsciously inflating the frequency with which it happens…
