Things I hate about hotels…

A few days ago, Guardian Travel asked on Twitter what people hated most about hotels, for the paper’s regular Travel Corkboard feature. Well, the floodgates opened. And not just from me.

Quite apart from wanting a good rant, there’s so many bizarre things that hotels inexplicably seem to do that most travellers have got at least one bugbear.

• Over-complication. A set of about 20 different switches to operate the lights, with the final master switch nowhere near the bed, so you have to blunder about in the dark. Same goes for showers with a million settings. And I once encountered a hairdryer that needed a combination of four plugs and buttons before it would work…
• Air-con and heating. Either the switches and dials don’t work at all, or as soon as you’ve got it set to your perfect temperature, someone resets it to some strange default each time you leave the room.
• Assuming everyone’s 6ft. I’ve lost count of the number of mirrors where I’ve had to stand on tiptoes to see in. I know I’m not quite 5ft 4 but I’m not the only short person trying to check for smudges.
• Hardly any plugs. Or plugs miles away from the desk/bed so you can’t charge your mobile while you sleep or work for more than an hour.
• Twin beds pushed together. It’s not a double bed. It’s not fooling anyone either.
• Minimalist bathrooms with nowhere to put your products/wash bag. Or designer ones where the water drains through the floor. After having soaked everything in the bathroom along the way. Oh, and towel rails on the other side of the room from the shower.
• Extortionate wifi. Especially when it’s in a top-end hotel.
• Plastic room keys which lose the code on a regular basis, so each time you get to your room, it’s a lottery whether you’ll get in or need to traipse back to reception to get it re-set. Again.
• Those special un-stealable coat hangers with the metal loops that are a pain to get in and out of the cupboard. Besides, who really steals coat hangers?

And that’s before you add kids into the equation. Which gets me wondering exactly what little annoyances the future holds for hotel trips with the mini traveller – what annoys you most about hotels when you’re away with your family?

Image: murdocke23/Flickr