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Old Feb 5, 2012, 7:28 am
  #23  
Mike Rivers
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Falls Gulch VA
Posts: 222
Originally Posted by geekalicious
Call me a Princess.. but I routinely walk in the room and walk right back out and ask for a different room or move hotels.
Well, if you're the Princess, I'm the lowly Pawn, but I, too, expect that when I pay for a room, it will be a reasonable substitute for home for a couple of days.

I've learned from experience to NEVER EVER stay in a room with an adjoining door - they just cannot block out sufficient noise from the neighboring room.
I can dig that. It's rare that I've stayed in a room that doesn't have a door to an adjoining room. Guess they just build 'em that way, at least the brands that I can afford. I can only remember a few nights in maybe 40 years of travel where there's been too much noise from an adjacent room, but I've heard a few doozies. Usually they don't last very long, fortunately, and I can get to sleep.

Just last week I walked into a Hampton and had two double beds, a tiny (not a "Suites" Hampton Inn, apparently) room and an adjoining door on a smoking floor. I walked right back down stairs. I kindly explained my request and was moved to a huge corner room suite on the non-smoking floor with no adjoining doors. Nice & quiet - slept just great.
I'd walk out of a room like that, too, Sometimes they'll tell me when checking in, usually apologetically, that they couldn't give me non-smoking room. I assume they're thinking "Well, what's he going to do about it?" The excuse is usually something along the line that they had someone who extended their stay in a non-smoking room and that was the room that they were going to give me. At the end of a tiring day, I'm not about to start looking for another hotel. And if I ask the desk clerk to find me a non-smoking room in another hotel he's usually willing to do that, but It'll cost me more (always) and of course they won't cover the difference or negotiate their rate for me. The usual thing is "non-smoking requests are not guaranteed" unless it's a totally non-smoking hotel.

I prefer one bed to two, and usually will ask about that, reminding them of my request, but generally the bed configuration is a request that's honored unless it's a choice between non-smoking with two doubles or a smoking king. I think they recognize the priority there. But I rarely get bumped up to a premium room for the rate I'm paying, which is usually pretty low (AAA, senior, or, when I was working for the government, the government rate, which sometimes meant "the government room").

I rarely have problems with cleanliness, blood stains, bugs, or sense of security. It's really the stuff that should work but doesn't, or should be quiet but isn't.
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