In trouble, I grabbed the best room!

[Singletraveller]

I'm on holiday with a group of mates; they have partners and I dont. Last time we went away together the couple that arrived first at the cottage grabbed the best room, with no shame or negotiation! We all ended up joking that this time round we would race eachother for the best room...all a bit whacky races and jovial! Anyway, I got there well before anyone else for various travel related reasons, so grabbed the best room. Big with an ensuite. The other rooms were nice just a bit smaller...one didnt have an ensuite. Anyhow, one of the couples has kicked off - because Im single, I shouldn't have the biggest room apparently. Given they're all essentially nice rooms, this feels a bit shitty...should I have quietly taken a 'lesser' room just because I'm a solo traveller?? All so petty I know, but peed off at the sour atmosphere after all the joking about rooms in the run up.

For several years we used to go on holiday with a bunch of adult friends to very nice rental properties in France and Italy.

DH and I used to arrive before everyone else thanks to a handy overnight stay in a little tent. We stopped to buy food and wine to ensure there was a decent meal for the first evening.

The rooms in the properties varied immensely, some with four poster beds and en suite, others, though very nice , less fancy.

We unashamedly bagged a good, or even the best room, first come first served and the shopping done.

There must have been discontented rumblings. The property for our final trip came with a detailed description of all the wildly varying bedrooms.

We all had a meal together pre-trip, and lots were drawn to allocate bedrooms and foil our early arrival.

Unfortunately ( for everyone else) First name called was The Trickies. Deathly silence around the table. We won the huge room with the only en suite. There was a feeble and unsuccessful attempt to suggest we all swapped rooms after the first week.

It was a brilliant holiday, all old friends no quarelling..

What’s the vibe like now, op?

OP is paying the premium for having her own space so that is £75 for sole occupancy of a room Vs £100 for dual occupancy.

This is how I see it. The couples of course will be happily sharing a room but purely in terms of physical space. Two people are going to take up more space/have more luggage etc than one so it does come across as a dick move.

Personally I'd have taken one of the smaller doubles with an ensuite in your situation but it's done now.

I agree with all the posters who said that you should have taken a smaller double with an en suite.

You have to look at the bigger picture. Your hilarious room grab has shown you to be a bit petty and selfish, and started your weekend off on a sour note.

TBH it may be the case that you won’t have this issue again, because you may not be invited with this group of friends again, or some of them won’t want to go away with you again. I’m not saying they were right and you were wrong but you have to decide how much you value these friendships. Is the bigger room worth it?

I would apologise, tell the couple that you were a bit giddy and thoughtless, but it was an honest misjudgment. You can then rescue the weekend and the friendship.

This might seem like an overreaction but these things really piss some people off.

They paid to share a room. They don't get a room each. If they all paid the same and had a room each, it would be different.

@Singletraveller I'm hoping you passed the room grab off as a joke. I 100% understand why you did it, but it was never going to go down well.

If you holiday together in future, decide the rooms prior to going.

I've already posted this and so have other posters. Having an en suite is fair, taking the biggest room is not fair. I'm assuming you've paid 75% from your posts, a smaller room would be fair. The worst room would not. In fairness, I doubt the worst room is that bad!

I've got a particular couple friend who think they count as one, so I understand how frustrating it is. For example, the three of us share a taxi home, they'll expect me to pay £10 and they pay £10 between them, or at a meal out I'm expected to pay half. I get them to pay now and transfer a third. I don't think they like it but it's madness otherwise.

As you all agreed to the race, then YANBU. Enjoy the room and ensuite.

As a single person, no skin off my nose. I have bigger fish to fry. At least in the movie version of racing for a room, they wait for everyone to arrive ;)

If you got “a bit of a discount” then you shouldn’t have the best room. But they are being rude to have a go at you about it.

OP, I think you are being selfish. You don't need to take the worst room, but you should not have taken the best. You would have been perfectly comfortable in one of the smaller double rooms with an ensuite.
You think you are being clever and cool, but you come across as being rather smug, entitled and silly.

Blimey this took off!!!

Just finished breakfast and thought I'd check in - wish I had enabled voting now, it has been quite a polarising thread, this!

Anyway, all good today, the huff has passed - I paid for all the booze for last night's dinner as a penance for getting the best room, so don't think anyone is out of pocket! And pretty sure I've still got mates for those who were concerned.

(However, yes, it was a very childish way of allocating rooms, and whilst it made us all laugh in the run up, we probably won't be doing it this way again!)

Fair play.

I'd suggest taking it in turns to have first pick. The "best room" isn't always the same to different people. You'll probably find most people are happy with this overall and will take their turn having last pick.

I mean, you could work out mathematically who is entitled to the most square feet per pound spent, or carry on the race to bagsy the best room causing others to rush and become annoyed but isn’t this all a bit juvenile?

Surely friends compromise and why can’t this be decided fairly beforehand? Eg taking turns to have the better room. So, if you had the best room last time, it’s someone else’s turn next time? These shenanigans just all seem very passive aggressive, childish and rather petty. These are people you have chosen to spend a holiday with so presumably you do all like and respect each other? I can’t imagine my friends behaving like this. I don’t think I’d want to spend my free time with “friends” with these kind of dynamics 🤷🏻‍♀️

I can see why you thought doing the shopping entitled you to the best room, but doesn't sound like you validated your thought process with anyone else.

You really should have taken the hint with the draw and suggested one of the lesser rooms for a change.

When we've gone away with friends and relatives it's always been discussed and agreed who is getting which room. DS always a bit short changed as one DC rather than two so one year when everyone else had lovely air conditioned rooms and his was a broom cupboard with broken mattress our friends suggested we have the master suite to make up for it and DS ended up sleeping in the living room.

Up to you if you're happy to always be mugged off though isn't it!

Brilliant update op, sounds like you made things right. I take back my previous comments, you did good. Enjoy the rest of the trip!

But I really don't understand this maths logic of "OP paid more pp" that keeps cropping up?

Let's take out the single person factor which appears to be making things emotive...

Say my small family of 3 (DH, me, DS) go on a group holiday with some family friends. Let's say, a big extended family of 15 called the Browns. The Browns pay £1000 in total (so about £60 pp, although we don't know how they're splitting it among themselves). My family pays £250 in total (so about £80 pp).

The holiday land comes with a nice big shared backyard. Altogether, the holiday land would cost £1250 to rent, which neither my family nor the Browns would be able to afford on our own.

There is a big house and a small house on the holiday land. Again, remember that the Browns paid £1000 and my family paid £250.

According to your logic, my family of 3 should get the big house. All 15 of the Browns need to squeeze into the small house, as they've paid less per person than us... Despite the fact that as a unit, they have paid 4x more than us, £1000 to our £250.

Makes no sense right?!

How each "buyer unit" (couple, family, single) arranges their finances is nobody's business. Someone's parents could have sponsored their entire holiday, which would in theory mean they were paying the least out of anyone there. Or one half of a couple could be paying for the entire couple, which means that payer would be paying more than any other person there, even more than OP. None of that matters. All that matters is how much each "buyer unit" (couple, family, single) has paid towards each "product unit" (room). Then the buyer unit will have to share the product unit among themselves (ie share the room).

Good for you for not giving up your room. Have a lovely holiday.

Payment per person in this case is not relevant.

If you were all booking separately, would you have argued with hotel that as a single person you are paying more per person, so you should be entitled to a bigger room.

Your couple friends were to share room between 2 people and hence were able to afford bigger space, e.g. a bigger room cost £150 and between a couple it is £75 but smaller room is £100, so you had option of either paying 100 and getting smaller room or paying 150 and getting bigger room.

But you say your friends are happy, so that's good. I hope they won't have grudges next time you all plan something together.

Proportionately you paid more than each individual. You deserve the best room.

Proportionately you paid more than each individual. You deserve HALF OF the best room - which is what those in couples are getting.

It seems that most people on this board think that single people.should always accept inferior accommodation, even though as individuals, they have to pay a supplement.

That supplement is to (partially) replace the 'supplement' that each half of a couple is already paying by default.

Maybe the fairest thing - at least for hotels - would be for them only to have double rooms and charge everybody the same for that room, regardless of occupancy. Single person? Well, we only have double rooms, so you'll pay the same as a couple would, but you'll have twice as much room all to yourself.

But then you would get some single people protesting that they shouldn't have to pay for more room than they need, as there's only one of them; but then, if they're given a smaller room to reflect the lower (even with a supplement) price that they've paid, it turns into a complaint that they've been given a smaller room and thus 'disrespected' as a single person!

I agree that smaller shouldn't mean worse in terms of view or facilities, but when people say 'pokey' - do they just mean that a (cheaper) room for one person is physically smaller than a (dearer) room for two people?

I agree with @HunterHearstHelmsley that you need a better system for picking room, and a list would work. I'd pop top of the list those that got the worst room this time, then the others in no particular random order, then the person who got best room last time and you on the bottom and suggest that you rotate the list so top gets best room, and then goes to bottom of the list for the following trip

Exactly. I suspect PP aren't really thinking. Just projecting their own feelings that society looks down on single people. Maybe so, but in this case it isn't logical.
People think 'couples' are a single unit but they are actually two separate people. You can form other units if you want a cheaper sub-unit price. Share with a friend. Whom you are also choosing, like your partner.

If you don't want to share that's on you.

Crack on OP.

Hopefully, this will spur the group members to have a sensible discussion about budgets and forward planning next time rather than silly banter and pointless hints.

Nothing annoys me more than people who can’t be straight with you. 😠

*But as it stands if say OP is paying £75 for her room and the others are paying £50 each (so £100 per couple).. no. She is paying £25 per person MORE than them... to get the worst room?

Fuck no.*

@WiddlinDiddlin,

Call to the reception of a hotel and inform the manager that you are only prepared to pay 75% of the price a double room. Then carefully explain to the manager in very clear terms that you believe that you are fully entitled to the hotel's largest and very best double room because you are deigning to pay more than half the price of the room.

I guarantee you that the reaction you receive will be priceless!

In the past I’ve paid per room as a single person and still been given the shit room because I’m a single person, yet paying twice as much per head! It does really suck how this happens, so I sympathise. The discount but not 50 percent makes this less than clear cut however…