Your overnight hotel stay experiences

When In Rome

Gleaned from the recent and sad train stabbing thread where some comments on hotels at least brightened an hour but rendered some off-topicness so, yes, staying at hostelries overnight - what are your experiences on your travels? One chain was dubbed 'Travelsludge' but others are available of course.

Did you sign a guestbook?
Did you sign in as Mr and Mrs Jones?
Did you leave a tip?

Answers on a serviette please...

                                                                                                                                       

mjn

In the last 3 years i must have stayed in about 3 dozen hotels, but i wouldn’t have called any of them awful. However, they were all abroad where the standard seems to be better.

sergiup

Most of them are much of a muchness, some of them are terrible and they'll usually stand out in your memory.
The only one I can think of that stood out in a good way in the last few years was citizenM in Schiphol Airport - it's a slightly different concept for a hotel, far more compact, but actually quite nice. I very much doubt it would suit the more... 'discerning' (*cough*stuck up*cough*) crowd though; and the Dutch are almost irritatingly nice, which helps a lot. Which helps a lot.

When In Rome

Extreme I know but it made me think of...

                                                                                                                                       

nheather

Mostly Marriott - they are a bit like McDonalds - pretty much the the same wherever in the world you are.

They are all generally good quality and any problems are down to that specific room having something missing or broken but that is rare.  The only thing that I don't like is the subdued lighting - it seems to be feature, no main lights as such but lamps instead which means too many light switches.

Where I have come a cropper is that I am so used to staying in the likes of the Marriott that when I stay in lesser/cheaper hotels I am sometimes caught without soap and shampoo.

Cheers,

Nigel

mjn

Not quite a hotel, but a refuge at the top of Colle Di Nivolet, Italy. More commonly known as the road from the end of the Italian Job film.

                                                                                                                                               

                                                                                                                                               

                                                                                                                                               

                                                                                                                                               

                                                                                                                                               

                                                                                                                                               

                                                                                                                                       

BT Bob

We regularly use a Holiday Inn with parking when we go on holiday - typically at Gatwick (it's too far to risk driving the day of the flight, so usually go the day before and stay over), but does the same at Heathrow. They're a pretty good standard - clean, good showers, comfortable beds, free wifi and quiet.

Re the Travelodge in the OP - I really cannot be doing with their "breakfast-in-a-box" system...

When In Rome

In the opening post it's a Premier Inn, not a Travelodge?

AMc

I stay in a variety of hotels some for business and some for pleasure.
When I'm on business I get put up in Hiltons, Raddissons etc. and they tend to be quite similar but sometimes you get something out of the ordinary - the Radisson in Covent Garden is a cut above the general experience.  You usually get a bar and a breakfast that's worth getting up for.
Pet hate are the "move it and you've bought it" mini bar fridges that mean you can't use them for your own stuff.  I'm usually staying at someone else's expense but that doesn't mean I personally want to pay £6.50 for a bottle of Becks after a day onsite with a client.
Sadly you only really notice when they make a mess of something like the heating being stuck on or switched off permanently which seems to happen more often than you'd think

When we travel for pleasure we either go boutique or strict "utility".
Visiting family near Manchester or Herts we use Travelodge or Premier Inn.
My Travelodge experiences have been positive, basic but clean, car parking and friendly staff.  WiFi is restricted and as above the breakfast in a box isn't worth having unless you're miles from anywhere to grab something independently.  Rooms are very sparse but we're usually just sleeping there.
Premier Inn are (a bit) more expensive but have the advantage (in the ones we use) that you can plug An Amazon Fire Stick into the TV and use the free WiFi for Netflix.  Again I've found they are as clean as more expensive hotel chains and the staff are very helpful.  They seem to be attached to chain pubs more often than not which are OK for a drink but we eat elsewhere.
I usually skip their breakfast too but at least you don't have to pay for it.

reiteration

we normally stay in various hotels / B&Bs / airbnbs ~once a month overall, but we tend to stay at independent places and we select them depending on it we fancy using their spa facilities (which tend to be in the middle of nowhere - so we'd have a meal there too), or perhaps a city/town break where we'll have a mooch about and eat out locally...

we never leave tips, and I'll salvage the place of any magazines / books / toiletries they have (except if there's a large bottle of shower gel etc...)..

we normally get drunk in the room before we go out (well, I do at least), tho, some smaller hotels sometimes have a corking fee for drinking in your own room so we always take home our empty bottles (couple in the lakes have done this)... some places you even have to pay for wifi (Marriott in sunderland)...

we tend to judge a hotel on their breakfast sausages, and the breakfast is normally spot on if they bring out your fried breakfast rather than a selfservice - tho, of course you'll only get 2 sausages instead of 6..

some places you can ask for a quiet room (think some Marriotts you can) - and of course drunken noisy people are a pain when they get back to their rooms at 2am...and it seems almost obligatory to slam your room door when coming back in late at night and getting up early for breakfast...

we've had some interesting stays in airbnb -
went to a gig and saw a room advertised for 13 quid (plus the usual % on top for cleaning etc) and we decided to stay there so we could both drink as it was around the corner from the venue - the landlord said someone would be there, turns out it was a bedsit and the woman who answered the door assumed we were moving in..
One woman had just starting doing this as her husband had left her - she was there with her 2 teenage kids... everytime we left the room (to use the bathroom,  or to go out) - she was always 'there'... and the room carpet was a bright cream so me lady didn't dare touch her red wine..
Went to some farmhouse which was lovely, but I didn't feel that comfortable when the woman was making breakfast and licking her hands etc whilst doing the fryup..

some hotel pool facilities are very busy, and have been compared to a council owned swimming pool (I'm talking about matfen hall here) - where you can't get moved at all...tho, a lot of people tend to only stay in the pool for 20 minutes, whereas people like myself will chill there for hours...