KRSW

Okay road warriors:

We often think of hotels as our home away for home, or for some of us, our main residence.

What sort of hacks do you employ to deal with a hotel room's annoyances? What level of hacking are you willing to go to?

There've been threads about dealing with motion-sensor thermostats and people bringing their own showerheads.

What are some of yours?

KRSW

I'll start by adding some of mine:

#1 HVAC -- I'll leave the thermostat hacking for the aforementioned thread. I have been known to pop a thermostat or room AC open and manually jumper the system full-on if oppressive temperature limiting exists.

My #1 gripe is too much humidity, which is virtually any property in Florida. I carry a small space heater with me exactly for this. This allows me to mimic how dehumidification is handled in large buildings like hospitals and museums via reheat. They use hot-gas reheat, but a space heater works just fine. Crank the heater up, crank the AC down, enjoy a nice dry, cool room. As a bonus, you'll feel more comfortable in a wider spread of, and warmer temperatures in lower humidity.

#1A Noisy HVAC -- There've been more than a few times where I've taken the bed comforter and draped it over a chair in front of the noisy through-the-wall ACs. Blocks a good portion of the noise.


#2 Lighting -- It seems the trend is for fewer & dimmer lighting. It also seems that higher color temperature lighting has become more popular with hotel room designers, which is the exact opposite of what I need when trying to wind down for the night. So, I carry a small armada of LED lights in my bag. From little warm white LED USB sticks to a few warm white LED battery operated lanterns. Lantern #2. I travel to a lot of places where the power goes out frequently, so these all double as power outage lights for me. The USB sticks are particularly useful because I can use them with my phone charger OR portable USB battery pack. The second lantern I linked charges via USB and has a long runtime, so no worries about finding batteries in remote areas.

#3 Annoyingly bright power LEDs. -- I carry a bunch of scraps my Brother P-Touch spits out before it prints the actual label. The black background tape works particularly well for this. Peel & cover the offending LEDs. The black ones blend in quite well with TVs and some alarm clocks. Best part is they peel off without leaving any residue. No harm, no foul.

PAX_fips

Sound: earplugs (with airflow)
Light #1: I just hate how they limit the curtains that they barely overlap, using those to clamp together: http://csimg.shopwahl.de/srv/DE/0000...214-breite.jpg
Have seen some hacks with coathangers, but there are not always there in a usable type.
Light #2: as above, LED lights. I'm using small postit's which dimm enough for me. Will try that #2 from above the other day.

Annalisa12

I often think of bringing post it notes to put over bright light switches that glow in the dark.

wrp96

It's what I've done for years. I also use them to cover up peep holes. Of course that doesn't help the lights that are in the ceiling that I can't reach, but at least I can dim some of them. I stayed at one hotel a few months ago where there were at least 10 bright (and sometimes flashing) lights in the room, including 2-3 in the ceiling.

abmj-jr

Not really a hack but I almost always wind up pulling the plug on the mini-fridge to quiet the noise.

Closing gaps in the drapes with clothes pins or small photo clamps is often also necessary.

pinniped

Not really a hack, but I won't unpack in a hotel room unless I'm 100% certain the A/C is working and will actually get the room cold. It's the first thing I check - always.

Almost everything else I can work with...blinky lights, noisy minifridges, suboptimal electric outlet locations, even weak Wifi... But an A/C unit that either doesn't work well or is limited intentionally is a nonstarter. If maintenance can't fix it, or if the front desk can't get me into a room with good A/C, I'll cancel the reservation and go elsewhere. (I've only had to do this twice, and both were in chain hotels where the manager didn't hassle me on cancel rules.)

The keycard-in-a-slot system doesn't bother me so much, as you can usually put *any* card in the slot. I usually stick my AAA card in there. (It's the one in my wallet where it wouldn't totally kill me if I accidentally forgot it in the slot.)

LarryJ

I just use a hanger with the two clips for hanging pants.

I carry two 6' extension cords each with three outlets on the end. (Why do I have to crawl under the desk at the Westin Harbour Island in Tampa to get power for my laptop, etc.?)

There's rarely a place to plug in the iron where you have room for the board and enough light to see what you're ironing.

Also carry a couple of outlet cubes (one plug and three outlets in a small cube) when there aren't enough outlets.

Roughly three out of four irons aren't clean enough to use on a white shirt. I test each iron on a damp wash cloth before using it on my shirt.

PAX_fips

I like that card-in-slot. Doing almost the same at home with my keys, I always lock the door - not for security (weaklings door anyway) - but to know where the keys are

A/C .. more like a pet-pevee but maybe one has a hack on that, too. I dont like a hot room to sleep in and usually there's a single A/C//heating. Also I dont like a cold bathroom. Even if there's a heater, it's usually friggin small and cannot heat up the bathroom within say 15minutes.

Tried the 'hot water running' part, but first that's a pain in resources and doesnt really work in Europe -- just not hot enough to heat a room.

darthbimmer

Space heaters? Lamps? Multiple extension cords? Oh, dear, this thread does not square well with http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...ust-carry.html.

emrdoc

So so true...

writerguyfl

I've taken to carrying a roll of blue painter's tape. It has lots of uses, including an easy way to cover up bright LED lights on sockets/switches/equipment with worrying about damage.

I also use it to tape a big note on the room door that directs me to the nearest fire exit. "Right. 3 Doors. Across the Hall." Although unlikely to ever need it, I know I'd probably panic some in a true emergency and have difficulty deciphering that tiny floor plan posted on the door.

Kiwi Flyer

I use an old room key which I keep for just this purpose.

MSPeconomist

A business card works in many of these thingies.

BRITINJAPAN3

WOW, the OP carries all that stuff !!I think he would be sometimes classified as a little fussy ! A SPACE HEATER !!

I am gusing he is not flyingm but driving around in a truck !