Hotel "double dipping"
 

By which I mean hotels charging / making a feature of some aspect, but when you get there you find they have sold it as well to non-guests

Examples :

• Charging a "Resort fee", but you then find the facilities, even chairs around the pool, have been sold on to early arrival outsiders for the day, meaning after breakfast "oh, we're always full round the pool on weekends".
• Car parking, where (especially UK hotels near airports) they have sold packages of 'stay a night before your flight and you can then park here for £x a day and use our shuttle bus'. Meaning the car park is full and regular guests have to park out on the streets, to the annoyance of nearby homeowners.
• Leisure clubs, where they sell memberships to outsiders, meaning you go in at 7am for a swim before breakfast to be turned away as the pool is "full" with the daily club members.
• Dining rooms where you check in, go to dinner, only to be told "sold out tonight".

Any other experiences ?

This is not exactly double-dipping, but the most outrageous resort fee exclusion I have come across is at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, where they now charge to buy an inner tube to use on the lazy river. This is the number one "resort" feature that I value at the hotel and is not included in the resort fee. (But at least I can get a document notarized as an inclusion in the resort fee.)

I think it's $20 and you keep it. I suppose you could take the tube with you to your room, but that's inconvenient; it would be nice if they at least let you return it at the end of the day and take one the next day without paying again.

I stayed at a Marriott in Vienna where they outsourced the entire pool and fitness area to third party management. Of course their main revenue stream was selling memberships, so they were fairly hostile to the hotel users and tried to prevent hotel users from using some basic things like chairs, pool noodles, etc. Even worse: the outside members (mostly old ladies) were incredibly rude to multiple hotel users, demanding (unsuccessfully :)) that hotel users remain in one part of the pool. A small indoor pool maybe 20 meters long...

I wrote Marriott a long review about that one. An otherwise fantastic Marriott with wonderful hotel staff (Imperial Riding School, if it matters...), but terrible decision to outsource to a company with zero concept of "hospitality."

This is actually how I select hotels. I phone ahead and confirm what hours the notary will be available. That and making sure they have a working fax machine. Gotta have a fax machine.

A few years ago, I booked a Park here Fly There rate at the BWI Marriott-night before a vacation. We arrived 7-8pm to see them having a huge event that covered multiple ballrooms. NOT A SINGLE parking spot. They were over flowing people up the street and double parking in the rows. I was not happy as I paid extra to park there. Nothing they could or would do. I double parked until the events ended and was able to move around 2am. They ended up giving me 20K points. Reasonable. I am sure worth it to them as they made a lot of $$ that night.

I agree it's absurd that they charge for the tubes, but it isn't a recent development. The tubes have been $25+ for at least 7 years now (I've been frequenting that resort for quite a while). For your next trip, I recommend going to Walmart near the airport. They have inflatables as cheap as $4 (I buy the "fancy" chair one for $10). I think if you rent a cabana for $300 you get 'included usage' but I've never done it.

I forgot about one that was actually pretty bad.

A few years ago, I attended a huge conference at the Gaylord Hotel in Orlando. For those who haven't been to one of these properties (now part of Marriott), they are *massive* convention hotels with everything under one roof. You can literally spend days inside the property without going outside, and this particular one was not easy walking distance to anything else.

They typically charge a resort fee because of course they do.

Anyway, I was there for the conference, and at various points throughout the week they had restaurants, bars, pools, and other facilities closed for our private parties. One night they had *most* of the restaurants closed for multiple parties. I know there were other guests in the hotel not part of the convention because I'd run into them at the hotel bar late in the evening. Those people were probably paying a resort fee and not getting to use the facilities they'd typically expect in a large resort.

I've seen other convention hotels do similar things, but this one seemed pretty bad. Since Gaylord has huge conventions every week, it's one place I'll never book a room unless I'm a part of the conference.

Thanks the improved information and advice. I used to frequent the resort in the early 2000s and was there most recently a a few years now ago I guess.

An inflatable "chair" sounds like a wonderful idea for the lazy river. :cool:

So, as it turns out I have a tax bill at home that I need to pay by 4/30. I was going to ask my housemate to fax it to me (I do have a fax machine at home for contracts, etc.) but decided that it would be easier for her to take a picture and send that by WhatsApp - what's that a 40 year difference in technology?

A couple of years ago at the Clarion Sign in Stockholm (normally a stolid 4 star hotel with 558 rooms), I went down for dinner to be told that the (only) restaurant was closed to hotel residents that evening as they had an event on for an external party. On another occasion at the same hotel I was advised that there was a 30 minute wait in the queue for the buffet breakfast "as we have a large conference on today and all the external delegates are having breakfast in the restaurant first".

I find that rather than make up a BS story, Swedish hotel employees are generally a little too honest about things sometimes and this does make it hard for the management to justify their decisions in front of angry guests. No experience of anything similar recently though.

The opposite to this conundrum is the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore where I was pleasantly surprised to see that only guests are permitted onto the roof level where the infinity pool is. During my stay, poolside bed occupancy was around 30% during busy times. Much less at others.