Changing times? Surprising (to me) behaviour in hotel

[CurlyhairedAssassin]

I'm just back from a short break in a nice hotel in the Lakes. Fancy hotel in picturesque setting, spa etc. I don't know if I'm just getting old but I was surprised by some of the behaviour of a number of people there (who all looked to be in their 20s or early 30s). Is it just changing times or am I old-fashioned or what? Bear in mind that there are plenty of walkers who use the hotel and I haven't got any issue with less formal behaviour in the right context eg leaving dirty boots in the porch and walking to the bar in their socks.

Dress: fancy hotel restaurant. Women with skimpy, very flimsy dresses more suitable to a nightclub, at dinner. One had the front completely cut out from the bra part to below her waist. Apart from anything she must have been freezing. It was about 4 degrees outside, the fires were lit in the lounges etc, it was NOT a warm night.

Conversely at breakfast, when most people were just dressed casually but not scruffily (i.e. in jeans and jumper or t shirt, or walking trousers if they were going out walking for the day), the younger ones looked like they were taking the bins out or had literally just rolled out of bed, hair all dishevelled bed hair. Quite a few women in old leggings and an oversized hoodie, with slippers. One looked like they were wearing pyjamas. Men in obvious gym shorts and trainers. Clearly they weren't going in the gym straight after a big breakfast so had they just come in from the gym, and were putting their sweaty arses on the chairs? They all looked stand out sloppy compared to everyone else.

There were a couple of other little things which surprised me. After dinner a young woman sat in the lounge had her bare feet up on the low table where you'd put your drink or bar snacks. It was in front of the fire so maybe she was warming her feet but still.....yuck. Just not behaviour I've ever seen before in a nice hotel (or any hotel).

During dinner there was a load of noise from the table behind. Music etc which clashed with the music being played on the restaurant speakers. I turned round and there was a couple in their 20s just watching facebook reels or something on their own phones with volume on high, not interacting or talking to each other at all.

At breakfast, there was also noise from a screen which I could hear from the other end of the long dining room. Dora the Explorer or something on full blast on a screen being watched by a toddler while their parents and grandparents just chatted amongst themselves.

The nightclub gear at dinner is probably the one that didn't bother me that much: woman's right to choose what she wears etc, but the rest just surprised me. It just felt like a drop in standards of behaviour somehow. Not what you would have witnessed even 10 years back.

There was a much older guy in his late 70s or something who walked into the bar in the afternoon to meet some friends and he was dressed very stylishly in a jacket and shirt and was even wearing a hat (like a trilby kind of hat, not a beanie or something). He stuck out a mile, but in a good way. He had nice manners too. No bare feet up on the tables for him Made me wish a bit that we could go back a bit to the days when people made a bit more of an effort to make themselves presentable in public, and to avoid behaving in an anti-social manner.

Have times moved on, and I'm just not keeping up, or have standards of public behaviour dropped?

Old people are incredibly entitled and rude now one reason won't work in pharmacy anymore but thats what happens now and they vote reform hate young people and feel ok to be racist

at least you are at your own home

We had this same experience just before Christmas at a country hotel we have gone to as a family, at the same time of year since our children were very small (15 years or so). We all agreed that was our last year there.
Young women were walking around in their pyjamas in the evening, the children were brought to breakfast in pyjamas and without their hair brushed. Dads in short shorts (I suspect they had slept in - yuck!) and Mums in pyjamas. Children running wild around the hotel and parents sitting drinking in the bar with their children on iPads. People walking around the hotel with full pints, obviously the worse for wear. Nightclub outfits at 5pm with toddlers in tow.
As we were coming into the hotel, we couldn’t get through the revolving doors because two boys were chasing each other round and round in them, while Mum filmed them. Couldn’t believe how rude that was. I am disabled too and use an aid to walk but she clearly didn’t think it was her responsibility to control her boys.
They used to have a big Christmas party, with the children all dressed in their party outfits, sitting in a large circle waiting for Santa, playing pass the parcel etc. It was magical. This year, it was absolute bedlam. Children were playing with the figures in the large Nativity scene and had broken the baby Jesus’ arm. Pass the parcel and party games couldn’t even be attempted.
People have lost all sense of being respectful to people around them and how their behaviour affects others. It’s becoming very problematic.

Our culture is so badly eroded there is zero decorum anymore. No appreciating respect for others, nothing. We're mirroring a deeply selfish, insular and disrespectful culture. It's so sad. A 50+yo woman stood on my foot the other night and didn't say she was sorry. So I told her how sorry I was that my foot ended up under hers. Very passive aggressive I know but it pisses me off. What did she do, just look at me. So sadly, even older folk cba with behaving in a way that is the fabric of British society as I know it. What have we done to grow our kids like this and what has happened to older folk?

When I eventually retire I will either buy my own island or leave the UK never to return.

Totally agree with Anibanani - hotels should put down some regulations about dress standards and kids' behaviour - if people dont know how to behave properly in public maybe they shouldn't appear in public at all. I agree it is disrespectful of other people who just want to have a nice family time

he sounds dead dapper. You pulled?

I'd find a lot of that repulsive, OP.

In particular, coming in from a run and plonking your sweaty arse down on a chair in a dining room is beyond rude.

You don’t have to closely observe anything when it’s going on right in front of your face. Hard not to observe!

It clearly did interfere with your experience though - it caused you to feel so angry, bitter and jealous that you came home and wrote a mumsnet post about it. I’d call that interfering with my holiday. If it was just an observation that you couldn’t care less about, you wouldn’t be responding to other posters with stuff like this: “I call it entitled and inappropriate behaviour displayed by some young people”. A lot of people in spa hotels wear their bathrobes to breakfast! Because it’s a place you’re supposed to relax, hence why it is common and encouraged. Thank god you didn’t experience that..I don’t think you’d have coped!

I agree OP. This decline in civilised behaviour is happening in all contexts now - people playing their phones loudly etc on public transport, hospital waiting rooms, everywhere.

I think it is just the way it is now really. Not sure about the way people dress, I was at my nieces wedding last year and some of the grooms friends girlfriends wore very revealing dresses to the ceremony which was in a church. Their breasts were all but fully out. I'm all for free expression and being able to wear what you want but their outfits weren't really suitable for a wedding mass and my niece did notice and was embarrassed and upset by it. It does also come off as trying to upstage the bride a bit which I think is a no no.

But yes people are that bit more thoughtless and self absorbed these days I think. Not everyone by any means but enough that you do notice and that it makes being "out" that bit less pleasant than it once was.

I think there is a huge difference here between needless fussing over what people are wearing (this has no impact on anybody else, providing it is clean) and disruptive sounds from devices etc.

Definitely. OPs point would've been much better made without inventing hypothetical legging wardrobes for strangers and deciding which they're allowed to wear for breakfast.

… and in the bar the evening before.

i think it’s a disengagement from others. Many people don’t seem to have any interest in other people whatsoever and are only interested in themselves and their own little world. Some people have responded as such on this thread, questioning why I’d notice what others are wearing and suggesting that means I must be having a shit, boring time and that because I must have been dressing differently from some I observed I am therefore a frumpy middle-aged person who is obviously bitter and angry and jealous. 😂. Should we tell writers and psychologists and artists and songwriters to mind their own business and stop making observations about how the world around them works?

i feel sad for the bride mentioned a few posts down whose guests were dressed completely inappropriately for a wedding. The phrase “read the room” is lost on plenty of people now, as they simply DON’T read the room. They just don’t have an interest in others.

i wonder if it’s social media algorithms which contributes to some of this attitude. People are literally fed only stuff they like or are interested in, and so end up with their own little self-curated view of the world and think that’s how the world IS. Their views and ideas are automatically reinforced without any critical thinking or original thought having been used. (I can’t stand that phrase “critical thinking” but I can’t think of a better term ). And you’re right - it erodes true culture which develops naturally.

Only a few years ago when someone was thinking about what to wear to a wedding (church especially) the first thing someone would think is “rule number one: don’t wear something which will stand out and take the attention off the bride. Rule number two: don’t wear white. And maybe don’t wear all black like it’s a funeral. Rule number three. It’s a formal occasion so denim and loungewear etc is out. Rule number four: it’s church, I’m not on the pull in Magaluf, I don’t need to display almost my entire breast area and I definitely don’t need anyone to see the bottom of my bum cheeks hanging below my skirt, no matter how fabulous my bum is.”

Now it’s like some people’s thinking goes “Ooh a wedding! I need a new dress and I need to look amazing! My arse is looking particularly fab since I started on my diet and exercise regime so I’ll want to show that off”. Etc etc.

I do agree but the gentleman in the hat was also rude. It is not classy to keep a hat on indoors like that.

People have commented multiple times about how it was poor etiquette for the man to keep his hat on indoors. I don't know that he did. He came into the bar, ordered, went to sit down at a table, and then I lost sight of him. I have no idea if he left his hat on when he sat down or not. He caught my eye because of how refreshing he looked, like he'd made a bit of an effort, even if it WAS a bit of dated look in terms of formality (I tend to think he was not of an age where he cared very much whether his look was up to the minute fashion or not).

The OP said it was skimpy clothes not bathrobes. Not many people like to see other peoples flesh being bared while they are eating dinner. And it's not being prudish or anything like that, it's called standards. If we want to bare flesh we go to a beach. I have non idea why people feel the need to flash as much flesh as possible these days.

The OP also talked about people dressed sloppily/not dressed up enough. That’s what I was referring to

Judgey on things that don’t impact on anyone else.

I don’t know what kind of weddings you get asked to , but I’ve never in my life attended a wedding where someone’s bum cheeks are hanging below their dress .
Thankfully…

As I said earlier, I think it's correct to keep a hat on in indoor public areas.

So, if someone is in the public area a hotel with food spilled down their front, because they didn't feel like changing, would you still they were just dressing how they wanted and therefore in the right? At what point would you think they should go and change?
Is there any limit to doing what you feel like?

I have never seen anyone wearing a bathrobe to breakfast in a hotel

I said further up thread “providing it was clean”.

Unfortunately, l have been in a position with food spilled down my dress and no opportunity to change. I just sorted myself out best l could in the loo. I’d hate to be judged on that.