To want to be able to sleep when I’m staying in a hotel.

[Hangerbout]

I work away from home a lot, so have clocked up a lot of experiences in hotels. AIBU? Here are the problems:

1. Bedrooms too hot. Air con default at 23 degrees appears to be the norm now, with restrictions on how low you can go (which is usually above what I need in order to sleep). Last week, the default was 25 degrees. Surely hotel chains have read the research that bedrooms need to be cool?
2. Beds too narrow or short. One time, the bed was so small I had to sleep diagonally.
3. Bed backboards affixed to inferior stud walls, resulting in waking up every time the person in the next room moves in their bed.
4. Hotels not informing customers they are hosting migrants, homeless families and what seems to be recently released offenders: thank you for all the noise in the middle of the night.
5. Doors that look like they’ve previously been crow-barred open. Cue trying to sleep with one eye open.
6. Gyms only open at 7am. Like, that’s too late.
7. Breakfast from 8am. Like, that’s too late.
8. Severe restrictions on the shower temperature options. Thank you for the luke warm shower! Likewise, a lack of industry wide standard shower fixings: I don’t want to solve the shower equivalent of a rubic’s cube when I’m pressed for time. Oh, and the shower head maximum height being set at ‘hobbit mode’. Thank you for the crick in my neck.
9. ’DOG FRIENDLY’ everywhere. Cue me not being able to breathe in a room formerly occupied by a dog due to allergy. But that’s ok because ‘customer wellbeing’.

Thank you for hearing my woes.

Whoever makes your hotel bookings needs to accommodate your dog allergy, at the very least. Do you know what the budget is and could you find an alternative? I would have thought something like an Ibis or Premier Inn would more or less guarantee a decent night’s sleep and offer an early gym and breakfast.

Then there’s noisy bastards talking next door till all hours. And noisy minibars.

This why I like a Travelodge.

It might be basic, but you know what you're going to get and that everything will be "OK".

breakfast at 8 seems perfectly reasonable to me. A hotel surely negates a long commute?

Huh Travelodges down south near Chester we left one a few weeks ago, full of immigrants as soon as we walked in we could smell smoking, went into the room we were given not joking a rat ran out of the window, there were old fag butts stuck in the soap dispenser. So we went right back to the desk and were given another room, half an hour later the stench of cigarette smoke flowed in hubby opened the window and not one but several were sitting at there windows smoking. So back to the desk we went for a full refund and ended up at a very nice place down the road. First ever bad experience with Travelodge and since seen loads of review's and all day the same experience we had so clearly they are being paid to house certain people and ignore what there doing at this particular on

Lots of hotels fit your wishes. Do your research....

I am slightly bemused by some of these.
Just book a chain?
Premier Inn?

Or look at previous reviews?

The standard of non-chain hotels in the UK is generally awful!

Thank you ! I absolutely Hate boiling hot hotel rooms
and the windows will only open half an inch !!!
sweaty sticky discomfort all night long
so so gross
also breakfast at 8am is far too late. My children are up at 6:30 ! And desperate for breakfast.
I have to bring a “breakfast picnic” to tide everyone over until the hotel breakfast

Yeah I hear you.

these days I travel with teabags and croissants or pastries so I can eat before breakfast starts, ear plugs and a mask.

too hot not normally an issue for me though

Sounds like you're staying in cheaper hotels - is this for work? Do you have a limit on what you can spend?

I agree it's shit, and noise or light in the room are dreadful

but the majority of hotels have windows you can open, heating and air con that can go up or down. I don't think I've ever been in a hotel where I couldn't stop the heating?

You should look at airbnbs too, they tend to work out cheaper and be a lot more comfortable

There are plenty of hotels that serve breakfast from 6:30 or 7, and a lot more comfortable that what you described, and not the top of the range ones. There's not that many "dog friendly" room either.

Have you considered looking for another job?

Presume you're staying in a Britannia hotel?

I have never experienced any of that abd I travel a lot even budget hotels are decent. Who's booking your hotels? Have a word

I also travel a lot, worldwide. This isn’t restricted to the UK. Europe has environmental guidelines so in summer until your room gets to 24-25 no cool AC in winter it’s 23. Rooms where the AC is now motion detected so once you go to sleep you’re waking up at 2am boiling to death.

Plugs that aren’t near a mirror, suitcase racks that’s are far too small for a normal sized case and the general noise. People wandering down the corridor in the early hours making noise, shouting and carrying on giving zero fucks to the rows of doors that probably have others sleeping inside.

Windows that no longer open for safety reasons. The list is endless, because the job I do means I’m away a lot I never go on holiday anymore, I am lucky in that I get to stay in some really lovely hotels, the issues are the same.

We had a recent stay in Premier Inn and Travelodge .PI was comfortable and quiet .( DD had a separate room though and was disturbed ) Travelodge bed quite small but no noise .Food very good .I would always stick with a Chain hotel TBH .they are reliable and always keen to help.

Not to mention lighting you need a degree in to understand! I want to sleep in a dark room. I do not want a permenant light glowing in the hall way, an interior light in the wardrobe that I cannot turn off or a radio alarm that a previous guest has set on the TV that goes off at 3am.

No PowerPoints or USB points next to the bed. I like to charge my phone and tablet overnight and keep them beside my bed, and I use the tablet as an alarm to take my thyroid meds.

Overcomplicated showers with more than one shower head.

I don't know where OP works but I work in a university where travel can only be booked through the approved 'travel agent' platform and it is an actual scam. I've stayed in hotels that have been appalling (and have had awful, publicly available reviews) and my employer has been charged a lot more for it than a chain hotel costs. But it is institutional policy, for reasons that are very unclear to me.

Try Premier Inn, they don't allow dogs except for service dogs. They also have big beds and you can turn the air-conditioning quite low (in the ones with ac).
I hate hotels, I much prefer a cottage or apartment but I know that's not a feasible choice for odds nights with work.

Oh, and a kettle that you either cannot fit under the taps to fill, or has a lead so short there is no way to plug it in.

I used to spend most weeks in hotels for work all over the world and often thought about having a 2nd career as a hotel consultant - telling them how to get it right!

Why is a 7am gym opening time too late? What time do you have to leave for work?

I find the same, hotel rooms always far too hot and crappy temperature control. This is for mid range hotels such as raddison, I hate it.

Points 4 and 5
Prisoners on parole? Homeless people? Flimsy doors?

What shitholes are your employers booking? And why are you not complaining?