Women friendly floor

[scotsheather]

I'm planning a business trip for 2 days with a client at my work, which work will give 'reasonable' costs for. I found there is a Leonardo hotel near which has 'women friendly' rooms on a particular floor. Has anyone used these? Is it useful or is it just what people think women like? Is it for women only (no men allowed) or just a guide? More generally is it useful or even necessary?

then coming back to a floor where drunk salesmen aren't staggering around making lewd comments must be bliss (not from experience, oh no).

This gave me a flashback to the weekend where we were staying in a hotel on a business park just before Christmas whilst visiting a terminally ill relative. The rest of the corridor was young bucks and women at their firm’s Xmas do, with all their doors open and the party/debauchery spilling into the corridor outside our room. No other family rooms available and no management on site to deal with it (when I went to reception to complain). Grim.

I’ve stayed on the “woman-friendly” floor of a Leonardo, because it was the same price and they promised me a mini bottle of Prosecco. Rubbish, and ridiculously patronising, but hey, free fizz. In the event the fizz never materialised, and I couldn’t detect the difference in the room. Nice enough hotel.

DH had a grim experience in a hotel (a usually decent chain type) once, when he was away with teenage DD, in adjacent rooms - there was a stag party and drunken men were rampaging in the corridors, thumping on doors shouting things like 'I need to find a woman to rape'. (Fortunately DD was oblivious). Took quite a while for security to get them under control. The thing is, I'm not sure in that sort of scenario the louts wouldn't have targeted a 'women's floor'....well, probably the leonardo is too upmarket for that sort of thing.

I have had a problem with a creepy male guest when travelling. He ended up in the room next to me and kept trying to hug me, told me he was watching me and felt sorry I was 'all alone', whilst blasting porn at full volume on the cable TV so I would hear. Would welcome a women only floor: it took several repeated visits to get the manager to change my room.

I would actively avoid any hotel which promoted a "women only floor". It is patronising nonsense and scare-mongering.

Plus if any hotel is so badly run designating one floor is hardly going to help.

Sounds like the target market for this is Merys, from Frazier....

Is the rest of the hotel a re-enactment of Mad Max: Thunderdome?

What a load of cobblers.

I'd like an area in the restaurant/bar where I could eat without being chatted up (no room service allowed on expenses), and a hair drier which does more than weakly blow warm air is always a bonus. Plus a mirror where there is light.
But in my actual room I have very rarely felt any risk, though my boss has banned me from hotels with a direct entrance to the room as it horrifies him

Premier Inn have a policy where they show you your room number rather than say it out loud if you are a solo female traveller. You are also not supposed to have a room on the blind end of a corridor. Sad that it should be necessary but I like that they have thought about safety.

I'd like an area in the restaurant/bar where I could eat without being chatted up

Oh fgs I've stayed in London, Paris, Vienna, Antwerp, Utrecht, Florence, Milan, Nice, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm etc, etc, etc and managed perfectly well to eat in restaurants on my own without being chatted up.

This is another version of Corbyn's stupid women only carriages. I can't bear this wrapping women up in cotton wool mindset.

Well, I've travelled to more places, in more countries, than I care to think about in 18 years of business travel, a lot of it on my own and it is a problem for me (and I'm no looker) and colleagues I've talked to about it.

I have done a stupid amount of work travel, and have a mental list of hotels which I avoided because they weren't women-friendly

My criteria for this was usually not providing conditioner as part of the standard toiletries in the bathroom, and not having towels the right size for wrapping my hair up after washing it

There was one hotel I stayed in which had an 'intimacy pack' in the minibar
Contents: 2 condoms, 2 sachets of lube, a pack of breath mints and those antibac alcohol wipes doctors use before taking blood
 not jealousy
The same hotel asked to see my room key before letting me into the bar but turned a blind eye to the prostitutes coming and going all evening

I used to travel a fair bit, would always take a book to dinner with me. The only time anyone ever approached me was two nice older ladies who said how 'brave' I was to be eating alone which baffled me but they meant well so I joined them for coffee.

That's so funny! Ridiculous.

Rapes in hotels are not uncommon. Date rape drugs and forced entry seem to be two most commonly used methods.
I would assume a 'woman friendly floor' to be women only.

I got a free biscuit once for International Women's Day. That was good. I'd like a hotel bar I can sit and do work without any hassle please. Oh and no randoms knocking on my door at 3am would be good. I travel a LOT for work.

I hadn't consciousnessly noticed that but they do, Thethinice as do Holiday Inn. Neither has said my room number out loud, certainly not in a lobby with other people in it.

For the small appetite choose a light snack from the room service menu. Besides, you can enjoy a refreshment from the selection of drinks provided in the Leonardo Royal Hotels.

Obviously your appetite is small, right? Because you are a woman womaning correctly? Remember not to order anything unladylike, such as an actual meal.

Hairdryer and conditioner is all I need

The utter pointlessness of hairdryers I'm so many hotels always surprises me. Ones that blow lukewarm air at you only if you youse both hands to press constantly on various buttons and then overheat and turn them selves off after about a minute. Drives me mad.

I always take my own shampoo and conditioner- hotel ones often smell nice but don't suit my hair. Tbh I'd rather hotels made that sort of thing easily available for people who'd forgotten their own rather than providing each room with dozens of small plastic bottles.

Hairdryer and somewhere sensible to plug it in would be good everywhere... last week on holiday in a very nice hotel but the hairdryer was in the bathroom so I couldn't get on drying my hair while DH bathed peacefully, and the only place to sit to use the dryer was on the loo seat.

Tbh I'd rather hotels made that sort of thing easily available for people who'd forgotten their own rather than providing each room with dozens of small plastic bottles.

You could have a toiletries ‘bar’ with well known, sensible brands and those tiny paper cups that you have by the mustard and ketchup in McDonalds. People could take enough for a day or two, so long as it is overlooked (eg in reception) so people don’t take the piss by refilling their own bottles. That would be far better than crap shampoo in pointless planet killing bottles.