Woken by hotel staff

[HotelStrangers]

I've been at an important 2-day work meeting further from home than usual. Due to a long-term condition, which causes fatigue, I booked myself into a Travelodge overnight to avoid a bit of commenting (me paying, not work).
At check-in the lovely staff gave me a 'quiet room' when I explained the reason for the stay. By 9.30-10pm I was asleep, yay (despite it being like a sauna).
Then at 11.30pm I woke as a stranger was walking into my room! I jumped out of bed and shouted to get out. They did and I barricaded the door assuming I'd forgotten to put the snitch down (was sure I had).
Was just drifting off again when abput 11.55 there was banging on the door. Got up asked through the door if they were wanting me, yes. Had to open the door to a male staff member. I was stood there, bleary eyed, in just a 'Should not be seen in public' nightie, and had to confirm my identity. He said a brisk 'sorry for waking you' and when I said I was already awake as had had a stranger in my room 25 mins earlier he confirmed it was another member of staff as there had been a room mix-up. He seemed a bit annoyed.
No idea why they didn't call my phone and that they had to take my name with me there not dressed, face to face.

I'm now fully awake, hoping they're not coming back, regretting having booked this room, wishing I'd just done the driving, and dreading being exhausted in the meeting tomorrow.

I've just sent an email to the only email address I could find for Travelodge.

Am I unreasonable to complain?
(If I disappear will be due to trying to sleep)

Appalling 'management' from Travelodge being shown here.

To bang on a single female traveller's door so late at night demanding a face to face conversation ... after THEIR mistake ... is completely unacceptable. I would definitely be taking this higher.

Absolutely this!

Thanks so much OP for posting.

Travel Lodge is clearly not a safe hotel for lone women to use. Good to know.

Of all the bullshit the Daily Mail lift from MN, this would actually be a good article to lift.

Very poor response from them.

Well done for contacting the police and adding weight to any other complaints.

OP I’m so sorry you experienced this awful behaviour. Thank you for reporting to the police. I’m a victim of sexual abuse and what happened to you would have absolutely freaked me out and sent me spiralling into a serious mental breakdown.

Staff members need sacking, there is absolutely no excuse for what they did. And no it doesn’t matter how much you paid for the room as someone suggested. This is very basic stuff.

Complain and ask for your money to be refunded.

Was the first person a member of staff or another customer? Did anyone offer an explanation of why the two incidents occurred?

Not that it justifies either incident but may offer some reason. Would be really worrying if the person who just walked in was a member of staff - another customer would potentially be a mix up and not so sinister even if the follow up was not dealt with and was unacceptable behaviour.

I’ll stand corrected, but it’s unlikely there’d be a phone in the room at a Travelodge. Premier Inns don’t have them, as I had an issue and was told a three star hotel wouldn’t have a phone in the room 🙂

I haven't read full thread, just full OP. OP, post on Twitter to Travelodge. They should/will be thoroughly ashamed to have their extensive failings exposed in public, and so more likely to respond properly.

We stayed in PI in London, friends in the next room. We came back from evening out my friend and I went back up to the rooms and DH’s stayed in the bar. She rang me and asked me to come to their room. All their stuff had been moved into a pile and two extra single beds made up. We went to reception, staff member with little English asked why they hadn’t removed belongs if they had checked out, couldn’t get what we were saying.
We asked for someone to come to the room and get rid of the extra beds which happened about an hour later but all night they were expecting a family to walk in, so didn't get a proper nights sleep.

Sounds like a nightmare OP. The CEO of Travelodge is Jo Boydell:

[email protected]

I used to work for them and I've accidently walked into an occupied room before, in the middle of the room. A guest had been checked into the system into room 40 (or whatever) but had actually been given the key for 41. I turned up for night shift had no idea. The system showed room 41 as vacant and ready, so I went straight in (guest had a broken TV remote and I went to get one from the 'empty' room to switch) Walked into a man in his bed at 2am. I was probably more scared than he was as a lone female worker.

Stuff like this happens a million times at Travelodge. I've walked into multiple occupied rooms due to mix ups, but only once at night like that.

Generally the smaller ones (under 100 rooms) operate on one lone worker for night shift so sending male/female staff to rooms for genuine reasons isn't possible.

But with the amount of errors made frequently I think most of them generally have a very inaccurate sense of which rooms are vacant and which are occupied - certainly if there are more than 40 rooms or so.

It's all much more manual than you'd expect and leaves huge margin for error.

It's not acceptable, but it's very unlikely to be sinister. I think most night staff at Travelodge are more scared for themselves than anything - we were all issued panic alarms etc but working completely alone in a hotel occupied by hundreds of people, at the side of a road, was always scary for me, especially when having to walk the corridors (a mandatory requirement every 2 hours).

How was it repeat behaviour?

You'd be surprised at the absolute state of some key card systems.
Incredibly old card systems, you have to key in the room number and number of nights. Majority of time, keys are never done for correct amount of nights which is why if your card stops working during a hotel stay, that's the reason. It wasn't done correctly by staff. The machine will say to override any previous keys & you can just say yes.

For newer computer systems, if the key system is separate to the hotel reservation system, it's a quicker system but it wouldn't tell you the name of the guest or any other information. It's literally just to cut a key for the room.

Some hotels have invested in integrated systems where you will see the guest information on the key cutting system but out of over 25 years of working in hotels, I've only seen this in one hotel.

If they have a disabled guest they have to have an additional member of staff in case of emergency, who normally gets their head down for the night unless needed.

Did you put the ‘do not disturb’ sign up? We do that unless we want the room cleaning.

We had a similar thing is Australia, we had the door chain on and someone tried to noisily get in in the middle of the night then at about 6am the alarm clock / radio went off really loudly.
Don’t recall even mentioning it to reception.

The disabled guest thing is exactly right. TL do this all the time. Second staff member sleeps in vacant room as the team member allocated for the 'PEEP'. They might have come in to sleep then realised it was occupied. Room shown as vacant - confusion ensues. Return to room to verify who you are as they believe the room to be empty. They need to know who you are for fire risk.

Police won't care - Travelodge will probably refund you. They retain the right to enter your room so it's not a police matter at all.

That's quite the reach. I've stayed in Travelodges as a lone woman plenty of times without incident, if you want more anecdata.

I would be LIVID OP!

if you were raped they’d have said you consented!

I hate this kind of ridiculous assumption. You do realise you've just completely made this up don't you..

I'd go ahead and write the review. You're not saying anything untrue, and you might just save another lone woman from experiencing the same.

Agree . you are so good to be thinking of others . I knew who assaulted me (another guest an older boy) and I was too scared to:embarrassed to say anything as I thought I’d be in trouble (knowing my mother I would have been) but even though it was 40 years ago I still feel guilty thinking could I have prevented him doing it again, if he ever did do.

For over 30 years my DH has wedged a chair or anything available under hotel doors overnight, home and abroad, and I have moaned at him for being ridiculous and potentially delaying escape in the event of fire etc. Following this thread I now stand corrected and owe him an apology. I’ve found all these recounts of intruders totally shocking and it undermines the image of a relaxing hotel stay. Very glad to have seen this thread and hope you get a decent apology and refund OP.

I think the police should be notified, so they have a report logged. It’s their decision whether to investigate.

No hotel staff member should enter a room without knocking/permission at almost midnight. What would happen if she’d remained asleep or frozen and hadn’t asked them to leave?

And what if other guests have reported the same thing to the police (or worse still thefts, sexual assaults etc), and the hotel is unaware or hasn’t dealt with it properly, e.g. a certain manager is complicit? Better to log it.

Hadn’t read this update before I posted. It’s always worth logging suspicious behaviour with police (not via 999 or emergency call out, obvs). It can be very helpful to them to identify patterns or as corroborating evidence.

I’m shocked at the number of stories of staff and guests entering rooms. I shall now always knock when entering a room for the first time and make sure I use the chain or a wedge.

If this is a frequent occurrence, and hotels don’t think it’s a big deal, a thief or sex predator could use it to their advantage.

I guess OP could log it but it sounds much more like something the hotel should be dealing with.

@TorroFerney and @ILoveMyCaravan it was reassuring to hear the police take this seriously. Notes were taken and the call handler checked the sequence of events. They were definitely alert to checking for a pattern and keeping a record of the report. I feel the police have responded appropriately.

I’ve now had a good sleep. Had forgotten how sleep deprivation can impact. On waking there was an email from Travelodge. It was a generic ‘sorry you’re unhappy, here’£25’ one. No refund. No exploration. No action.
Thank you @Goodadvice1980 for providing the CEOs email address. I will definitely be using it this weekend.