vexorg

Kids are a part of life, people should just get over it. I've had more annoying loud adults than kids in hotel lounges.

If I have kids with me, then I've paid my money, why should I be excluded because I have kids. Sounds more like selfish adults here.

uk1

People without kids are a part of life, people with Kids should just get over it. I've had more annoying adults with kids they don't control in hotel lounges. And why should the rest of us suffer?

If I do not have kids with me, then I've paid my money, why should I and we have to be subjected to and forced to enjoy their poor behaviour just because I have no kids. Sounds more like selfish adults here.

htb

While I don't have kids myself, "people without kids" may be "part of life", but they are quickly dying out. At least as individuals. They are not "the life" that's been going on for aeons.

HTB.

uk1

You are purposefully misunderstanding the point. Most visitors to Intercontinental Lounges are without kids.

I'm sure you understood this.

nicolas75

Nobody makes here the promotion of an (absurd) world without kids.

The point is that a luxury environment is not synonymous with noise (coming from kids, rude businessmen or noisy people thinking they are in a pub).

FLYGVA

I have no really a problem with kids in the lounge if they behave well and I have also experience more adults, who behave worse than children a couple of times.

Usually parents staying in hotel and use the lounge know how to educate their children. And if they do not know, they are not always that much better in terms of behviour than their children.

I would also expect that if I book a room which includes benefits (like lounge access), I am informed by the hotel if there are exclusion to these benefits for certain guests (like not lounge access for children). I would not be happy, to get this information only after arriving in the hotel.

What I really do not understand is, why some people here reduce it to "no children in the lounge" and not a general "behave well" to everybody. For me, this is some sort of generalism that children always do not behave well. And I think this is simply not true ... Is a child sitiing in the lounge, reading a book, without saying anything really a problem to you while the loudly talking business people are not?

uk1

I can offer my explanation re your last point.

Before that I do agree with your point that customers should be warned in the hotel descriptions, or when booking that there are some restrictions if there are any.

With respect to your second point, the problem is that TOO often the lottery ends up being stacked against the majority of people in the lounge who might prefer a greater degree of certainty about the opportunity of the quiet ambience of a club lounge ... and this is very often EXACTLY how it is described.

There is a danger of now moving the debate into stereotyping and being diverted down that route which I do not wish. However, you cannot debate this without encroaching on that no go area. There are like it or not often some cultures that believe in absolutely no control over their kids. Some hotels at some times are overun by people of some countries and cultures that leave their kids in the lounge all day sometimes supervised by a nanny who is basically a servant who the kids treat badly and over these kids the nanny exercises no control. I have lost my enjoyment for example of Vienna during the summer because of this. Vienna attempted to open a second lounge for kids but abandoned it. These are often extremely large groups of say 20 people who abandon their kids ALL day. I get no advance warning of this. I'm not going to repeat all the stuff these kids do, but it is a nightmare and it is all day every day.

On a recent trip to Singapore, a guy got up from his breakfast table in the lounge to go to the toilet. A kid running around in full view of his parents was running around the lounge and screaming and being a general nuisance to all the others wishing to have a quiet breakfast. He had already pushed pass me in the very confined hot breakfast area and I had nearly dropped my plate. The kid ran up to the table of the guy who had just gone to the toilet and started stabbing away at the guy's laptop keys he'd left open on his table. The kid then slammed down the lid and in so doing the laptop was pushed off the table on to the floor. The parents saw all this and simply looked the other way.

There is no suggestion that kids be banned from ALL of the hotel, and as equally you cannot understand people that share the view that it would be great to have a child free zone I equally do not understand why some cannot see that it is not a crime to seek a small appropriate part of a hotel be free from the lottery of other people's kids. Having a lovely rule .... which really should apply EVERYWHERE by the way ie all kids should be well behave everywhere, just doesn't work in practice in a multicultural environment because everybody has a different idea of what a well behave kid is "evidently"

jedicat666

For me clubs are exclusive and an adult/grown up environment. Adding kids into the mixture dilutes the exclusitivity.

If kids are well behaved, like my previous visit to the club lounge at CP Manila then I don't have a problem, despite the dilution.

If kids are noisy, hey that's not what I paid for. Ill take it up with the management. (unless it was free)

If adults are noisy, then its just unlucky.

Though, I expect that "higher tier" clubs like IC Hong Kong, Bali & Danang Sun are more strict and exercise more control to maintain the club exclusitivity.

vexorg

It all reads as a bunch of boring old victorian attitudes, maybe we should demand a good set of sticks and whipping post for "the wife". It shouldn't be about snobbery and keeping the "lower" classes out, you you can sit with your free brandy by the fireplace.

I've left lounges because I couldn't be bother with the adults.

MagicWok

I really don't understand how, if kids are noisy (their natural instinct to play) is a problem, yet when adults are (purposefully) noisy then it's somehow 'unlucky'.

I don't buy that at all. Noisy adults should equally removed from lounges as the suggestion that kids, and their family, should be too in this thread.

People who engage in bad behaviour dilute the exclusivity, not a subset or definition.

My son is able to behave in lounges, and regularly gets compliments from staff and 'clubbers ' alike. Pshh, he gets more freebies than me

Finally, I really get annoyed at other parents who don't try their best to ensure their child to behave in the hotel in general.

Land-of-Miles

It is all down to the adults. I don't have kids myself but if I did and they started screaming, running around or otherwise misbehaving I would leave with them straight away. It isn't fair to others to have kids who don't behave causing mayhem.

Many parents however seem to feel that they can let their kids do whatever they want and few hotel staff will intervene and tell them to leave because they are causing a disturbance. Good kids tend to result from good parents and the lousy parents cause the problems not the kids per se.

I think there should be a global warning that disturbances from kids or adults will not be tolerated and if other guests are being disturbed those causing the disturbance will be asked to leave.

My biggest disturbance recently was a massively noisy group of adults at the IC PL.

chrism20

As I said yesterday its a really difficult one as only a small percentage of kids (and adults) actually misbehave.

For any approach to work and be effective (regardless of what approach that is) I think it would need to be system wide and set out by IHG with some kind of penalty set out for complaints etc. Properties wouldn't be long in towing the line then.

Until something like that happens you are at the mercy of the individual property to manage and police the situation and the fear of upsetting HV customers is too much for some.

I have to admit though that I don't think the IHG lounges are as bad as some Hilton ones. Canary Wharf for instance at the weekends - their lounge should be renamed as the executive nursery.

stimpy

If by culture, you meant the culture of wealth, then I agree. Generally the children of wealthy people are not brought up to respect others, but rather think that everyone they meet falls into the class of family or servant. And if wealthy people book out several high end suites for their summer holiday, I'm afraid the hotel isn't going going to say no. Rather they will say yes to every request.

I too wish it were like a private British club where the rules were strictly enforced, but IC clubs are simply not that. In fact they are designed in a way that kids love to hang out in them for an hour or so.

uk1

We seem to agree on 99% except your last point. No one is saying that they desire a private British Club, but I would say that the Club is more intended to be a place for business people and adults to relax during and after a busy day - and clearly intended to be a private quiet elegant haven away from the bustle and noise of the rest of the hotel than it is to be a place for children to run around, play on the computers all day and generally make a nuisance of themselves. If there is a irreconcilable contention between these two pulls then I do not think it being a lounge for kids is the right choice between the two.

stimpy

I'll say it. It would be nice. Keep the women out too! Give them a Ladies lounge. I'm sure most women would prefer that anyways.

I'm sure that kids are not the intention of the design, at least at non-Disney hotels. But the *result* of the design is that they are great for kids.