The hotel business is built on cleanliness, comfort, and visual appeal, but as soon as you look deeper, dust rolls in and secrets are revealed. The BestLife website has collected bold confessions from hotel employees.
Cleaning your room in 15 minutes?
The standard check-out of a hotel is usually scheduled for 11 am, and the start of a new guest check-in in the middle of the day does not allow the maids to thoroughly clean the rooms. According to Travel.com, in just 15 minutes they have to change towels and sheets, change dishes, check and replenish the minibar, and take out all the rubbish.
Considering that they need to remove from 10 to 30 numbers, there is no question of conscientious work. In addition, as the former cleaning manager of a large American hotel chain, Renet McCarthy, admitted in an interview with CNN, the bedspread in the hotel is changed no more than four times a year.
Do you want a cheap number? Close your laptop and pick up the phone
Some hotels pay specialized sites up to 25 percent commission for booking rooms. If you do not want to overpay, find an offer on the site, but do not rush to book.
Call the hotel and see if you can get a better rate than what is offered on the website. According to TripSavvy, many hotels are accommodating customers and offer a cheaper rate when booking directly.
Paid concierges?
Business owners try to drive people into their establishments by any means possible. Some of them even pay the concierges of neighboring hotels to recommend them to naive tourists.
Ignoring their advice is not worth it, but it is better to treat them with a healthy dose of skepticism. Just compare them with reviews on Yelp or TripAdvisor.
The secret of the “better” number without overpayments
If you want to change the economy to a suite for free, remember the code word – just ask at the reception for “corner room”. According to the DailyMail, this tactic works because corner numbers are slightly larger than others, but do not fall into the category of more expensive numbers.
In addition, the saying “he who gets up early, God gives him” works. In this case, the agent at the reception “serves”. If you arrive at the hotel early when the rooms are being inventoried, you might get lucky and get a better room.
The maids can take the things you left for themselves
According to hotel rules, maids are required to report any items found in the room. If a guest does not return a lost item within a certain period—weeks, not hours—some hotels allow staff to pick it up.
“Unnecessary items are donated to charity, but usually management takes the really good stuff,” said Reddit user Booboo_the_bear, a maid who has worked at several five-star hotels. She added that in this way she received a hair straightener and a designer jacket.
Did someone die in your room?
People die in hotel rooms more often than you think. So often that hotel staff is instructed to keep information secret at all costs. Publicity is suppressed, especially if a celebrity has died in the room.
There is a whole group of fans who are trying, by all means, to spend the night in the bedroom where their favorite star rested.
“Hotels are doing everything they can to keep room numbers secret, especially in the event of a celebrity’s death,” according to the Huffington Post.