Originally Posted by
Mary2e
I have a real ESA, not a fake one who used an internet "doctor" to get the letter.
In any event, I only stay at pet friendly Hyatts OR I contact the hotel and tell them he's all of 9 pounds and trained. I pay the pet fee whenever there is one. Sometimes the hotel doesn't actually charge it.
I stayed at the GH Tampa and paid their $100 pet fee. I also stayed in Disney and paid the obscene pet fee of $50 a DAY.
If you're only staying one night, I was contact the hotel in advance and ask if the fee could be reduced or waived. I wouldn't talk to the front desk about it upon arrival.
This seems like a totally reasonable way to approach it.
I think that the problem is that there are some people who think that they are entitled to special treatment.
Having said that, I don't think that there's a technical difference between a "real" ESA and a "fake" one, since there are no laws around ESAs. Absent regulation around ESAs, there's no formal definition to judge "real" vs "fake". But you aren't trying to get any special treatment, so I don't think that this really matters.
I don't think that the size of the animal or the length of the stay is really important here. Once there is an animal in the room (even a small one, even for just one day) I hope that they are doing a proper deep cleaning of the room, including steam cleaning the carpets and any furniture that the animal may have sat on. Some people do have severe animal allergies after all. This cleaning costs money and time (it may make the room unavailable for a night after your stay) so I think that the per-stay fees are reasonable (not so much the per-day ones -- that's ridiculous) I
hope that they are actually doing this and not just pocketing the fee without actually doing anything special to the room -- that would be a rip-off and also a disservice to the future customers.