Hotel rooms should have internal lock?

[TheNavygravy]

My newly turned 18 year old has just went to Rome with her best friend for a holiday. When they arrived they were greeted by a male Asian receptionist who had very little English or Italian. They checked in and discovered their bathroom was dirty (used soap, towels etc). On highlighting this 5 male cleaners arrived to clean the room. Then they discovered the internal lock to the hotel door doesn’t work (just turns around without engaging the bolt). The receptionist/manager is insisting there is no problem as you can only enter with an electronic key. They don’t feel safe but finding somewhere else will be expensive. They are exhausted and planning to stay at least tonight but my spidey senses aren’t happy. They have seen no female staff and no other guests. Am I unreasonable for thinking all hotel rooms should have working internal locks/deadbolts/chain?

Should I interfere in their first solo trip and bite the bullet with paying over the odds for new last minute accommodation?

Sounds awful if the room was unclean and the lock doesn’t work.
Is the room other wise ok? Some of the hotel I’ve stayed in with DH have certainly felt less safe than others. just have an off vibe.

Get her to go and buy a door wedge and have some piece of mind. There are some tricks you can do with a coat hanger too if you look on YouTube.

Just test it out. Get one of the girls to stay in the room while the other goes outside and see if they can get in without the electronic key fob. Then you know if there's an actual problem or not

When I worked in hotels (big, well known chain) the doors didn't have additional locks or chains, just the keycard. The reason was in case of an emergency, staff need to be able to open the door. Imagine you're in there and you have a medical emergency but you've double locked the door. That's what we were always told to say to guests who asked

My mother to this day wouldn’t let me stay in that situation. She would be booking me somewhere else.

We aren’t rich.

Sort it out.

is there a chain or bolt as secondary security, ie card plus something physical?

If not, get them out of there. Unfortunately booking.com have the absolute worst customer service - impossible to contact anyone. don't get taken in by the scammers on their social media who offer whatsapp links that get you through to someone who pretends to be booking.com then empties your bank account - that was not a fun day...

You could Amazon prime door wedges to the hotel for them to pick up tomorrow.
I always take door wedges with me on holiday. I have small children and I am an over worrier

I’m sure skin colour has any bearing on whether someone speaks English!

The best tip I received for solo travel was to pack a rubber door wedge. I leave mine in my case so I always have it when I travel. Once wedged at the bottom of the door, the door won't open.

Dont know why his race has anything to do with it. He could have been English or Italian and your daughter would have had the same experience. These things are not exclusive to a race. Anyway, next time she travels alone there are certain locks you can send with her to place on hotel door, and extra safety stuff including like an alarm that goes off if door opened, that generally women who travel alone use. Google/GPT for more.

I use a wedge with built in alarm. Even in premium hotels with internal locks. They are not as secure as you might think.

5 male cleaners? Is this real? Even at 5* hotels they send 2 at most. Anyway not to be dismissive but this is why as a single woman you always travel with a travel hotel door lock.

Oh and realistically especially in cheapo hotels most cleaners are female. Especially if there are 5 of them. This is a kinda weird story

The point was they were prepared to communicate in Italian - in Italy! or English but he spoke neither of these (turns out they’re from Bangladesh). Was I not supposed to mention their gender either as that’s misandrist? Not everything is racist.

Exactly why I was so concerned. Well that and the fact she was crying on the phone to me.

She said 5, possibly exaggerated slightly as she was a bit upset. Definitely all male though and from Bangladesh so maybe a family run business, apparently there’s a large Bangladeshi community in Rome. They’ve calmed down now anyway (lack of sleep added to upset) and they took precautions last night. They will undoubtedly be more prepared next time they travel, as will I.

Key card only is normal but get them to put suitcase or something behind the door. Not enough to jam it if there is an emergency, which always really worried me about doorstops, but enough to stop someone using the card without you knowing

Because it sounds like a language problem.

It doesn't sound a great place but surely if the electronic lock works then no one with a key can get it. It sounds like the key lock is now redundant and has been disabled.

How would it have been the same experience? The problem was with lack of communication. They wanted to know why the lock which they thought was supposed to secure the door from the inside (like you’d find in every Premier Inn, Travelodge etc) appeared to be broken/disabled. He didn’t understand this, just kept opening and closing the door and saying “no problem.”

We now realise (because of a previous poster) that it was possibly an old lock disabled after the electronic locks were installed. The dirty bathroom could happen anywhere obviously. The lack of females however, together with what they took as an unsecured door (which it really is) put the wind up them. They’re literally on their own for the first time, turned 18 just weeks ago, and were overtired. Obviously they’ve had all the warnings about all the things that could go wrong/you need to be careful etc so they overreacted. We (and the media) constantly fill our own heads and our daughter’s heads with horror stories about what happens to unlucky women who meet dangerous men out there so their overreaction is understandable.

Definitely a learning experience to be more prepared next time they have a hotel door they can’t lock from the inside.

Anyone with a key (who works there and has access to keys) could enter the room during the night. I personally have never stayed in a hotel that I haven’t been able to secure from the inside. I was very glad of this one night many years ago in a motel on idrive in Orlando. 😬🫣

There’s a metal thing you can buy to wedge hotel doors. Great when you have little ones that might try to get out or a situation like this. Can you get them one shipped for their next stop? It’s called a portable door lock. Very cheap.

No, that’s the issue. Nothing but the electric lock and what was probably the previous lock which has been disabled. I’ve always had some chain/bolt device in addition in hotels that I’ve stayed in.

Oh dear, sounds awful. I’ve come to the conclusion, after being misled by photos/reviews on my last 2 hotel bookings, that I will not be using booking.com for my next holiday!

That's not the issue ffs

I know it's a fire risk but get them to put a piece of furniture at the door. That way they will know if someone tries to enter their room.

My hotel stays are mostly Premier Inn, but I can’t recall any recent rooms that had the means for guests to barrricade themselves in. As a PP who worked in hotels said, it’s a safety risk. If there was a fire & the room occupants were unconscious from smoke inhalation then it’d be more difficult to get them out.