Kacee

I've been walked in on by staff so many times I can't even count. Most recently last Friday at Westin St. Francis. IMO not worth getting upset about, let alone escalating, absent clear and direct indications there was some wrongful intent (as opposed to just doing their job, albeit not so well as they should have).

yule_boy

This is the part that doesn't make sense to me. If the security latch was in use then the staff would had to have known that someone was in the room. Yet they still tried to gain entry.

Kacee

I dunno, I can absolutely see a housekeeper who's under pressure to clean a long list of rooms very quickly, who's been told the room is empty, and is not really paying attention to anything except getting in and out as quickly as possible just pushing on the door and not understanding why it seems to be jammed. This would be fully consistent with my experiences where I yell "hello" loudly several times and yet they still push the door open (and appear genuinely surprised to find me in the room).

DELee

"Hellooooooo! Naked here!"

David

clarkef

My point was different. The security latch wouldn't need to be taken off if the rom was unoccupied nor would it require two hotel employees. I concur that multiple lines of contact should have been initiated, which does not appear to be the case.

clarkef

Both seem like oddly specific scenarios, one which I must confess I have never encountered.

• Scenario #1 seems unlikely, if for no other reason, the guest would i) not be able to access Room B via Room B's door and ii) would have no idea if and when another guest will check into Room B.
• Scenario #2 doesn't make sense. Whether the previous guest exited through Room A or Room B, and left the latch on in either one of the rooms, the room occupied by OP (either Room A or B) was cleaned (presumably) by housekeeping and listed as available to be occupied. Had housekeeping flagged the room as unavailable because they could not access the room, the property would not have rented the room to OP.

Neither scenario explains why the hotel rented a room to OP then felt the need to enter the room, bypassing the security latch. My guess is that there was a mix-up, the hotel thought the room was empty and when housekeeping couldn't access the room, someone dropped the ball, didn't call or knock, but rather just entered.

Marriott Bonvoy Lurker II

Dear ean2015,

We are sorry to learn about it. May we know if the hotel management has followed up with you?

You can send a private message to us with your stay details and contact information if we can be of any assistance.

Best regards,

Carrie L
Specialist Social Media Care
Marriott International
[email protected]

The Road Goes On Forever

Fwiw, officially they're called wellness checks and you're right that a hotel can do one anytime if they have a plausible reason to do so. A further obvious sidebar would be that the bulk of chain properties are limited service where there is no security and 99% of the staff do not have the access/ability/knowledge to read a door lock yet the need to make an immediate decision about how to proceed in a potentially sensitive situation still remains. The past few years in the industry have seen an unprecedented amount of permanent job cuts and turnover. I'm amazed situations like the OP described aren't brought up more often because they do happen quite often.

You're right that both scenarios are oddly specific and in principle neither make sense, yet, they indeed happened multiple times at properties I've worked at over the past 20+ years. As I said in a different post, guests at times do unbelievably odd things (i.e. purposefully unplug the room phone or work/sleep with noise cancelling headphones on) and staff are poorly trained and not given the tools to do their jobs which equals mistakes being made. Put those together and...

Fwiw, every hotel has some type of LSOP in place that if you're going to be entering a room via overriding a door lock and popping the latch for any reason, there needs to be at least two employees present and/or ideally with the police present for obvious liability concerns. You never know what you'll find from suitcases of drugs, prostitutes in the room told not to answer the door or phone, one or more dead bodies to an empty room where nothing was touched that defies explanation.

stuartpig

Happened to me at Lingfield Park UK. At midnight. No apology and sent complaint that was ignored. They then tried phoning on an unknown number rather than respond to my email. Then told ME to ring them. Bonvoy Champion was involved but they still didn’t resolve. On top of that we were woken by an idiot guest having a party at 2am. It was a catalogue of errors and the worst hotel stay I have had in 1600 nights at Marriott’s.

ean2015

Ok, it seems there have been more than enough of response since my initial post on this incident.

To put the matter short, I had a mobile check-in 72 hours prior to the day of arrival with my check-in time at around 12:45 PM which on the same day I received the notification around 11:45 AM that my room is ready on the app so this has given everyone a clear ideal that the room must have been checked twice or thrice by a supervisor housekeeping.

They tried to override the door locked and opening the security latch were because they said they received report from housekeeping in the morning that the door lock were broken so they needed to come in to fix it. Well, this excuses is a bit dumb tbh because they could have phone the front desk to check whether the guest is already checked-in as it was 4:35 PM and when there were a security latches then a ring of bell is a courtesy no?

The escalation went up all the way to the management and they have checked the door access lock and also the security footage, admitted it was their mistake for the break in without following the SOP. They offered me to move to a different room which I have declined as it has no relation to the security breach I faced.

The issue has been resolved with the management itself as I was about to brough it to the police.

notquiteaff

Outrageous that guests would dare to work with noise cancelling headphones, especially when some hotels don’t take issue with other guests being extremely noisy or construction is going on down the hall.

goodeats21

Thanks for reporting back. Seems there was incompetency with hotel staff, but thankfully nothing malicious. Glad you were able to resolve with management to your satisfaction.

gasongasoff

​​​​​​Oh how funny. Westin St Francis was also the hotel I was talking about (above) where another guest walked in on me.
​

WilcoRoger

That might cost you the presidency of France, if we remember the case...

EuropeanPete

Every time I see this thread referring specifically to "Marriott Bonvoy" staff, I'm imagining a small team from Salt Lake City arriving by helicopter and breaking in to give your free luggage tags for being a lifetime Platinum Bonvoy member.