Travel Tips : Life of a traveller, checking in/out at hotels

Checking in at Centara Beach Resort Pattaya


As I travel a lot I also stay in many hotels. And with that comes checking-in/out at hotels. At the most hotels there is no problem with this at all. Especially at the simple (cheaper) hotels. At checking-in you just pay and get your room key. That is it. But at the "better" hotels it sometimes becomes a long story. Something I am not waiting for to happen after traveling the all day.


But when you check-in
  • at a 300+ room hotel at the counter for Club-members it would be nice if there were actually people working at that counter
  • it would be nice if checking-in would not take 20 min (checking everything like your are a potential criminal)
  • Yes I know official the check-in time is 14:00 .... but are all rooms full so I cannot check-in at 11:00?
  • In some simple hotels (where there is really nothing to steal from the room) they still want 1.000 Thai baht (in cash) as deposit for the room-key. To me it looks more that the front-staff hopes you will forget the deposit when you check-out (and many people do forget it).
  • When you arrive at better hotels it would be nice if the bell-boy would help you with your luggage.
  • After check-in at the front-desk it would be nice if someone would bring you to your room (human-resource is cheap in Asia).
  • And I really dislike to get the "B" rooms ... top-floor (too hot), next to the elevator (to noisy), the room not used for 3 months (smelly).
And when you check-out
  • It would be nice if it does not take 20 min to find-out that you did not use the mini-bar (actually why is there still a mini-bar?)
  • And that staff that checks the room also really checks everything ... like the safe (I did once forget my passport in the safe and nobody did notice, also I once found a locked safe in my room)
  • And at the better hotels it would be nice if the bell-boy would bring your luggage to the car
My best check-in was once in Penang in a super-luxury hotel .... We were backpacking, it was raining, we were wet, it was night and we walked into the lobby. The bell boy took our luggage like we were VIP guests, we checked in at the counter and the lady said "You can pay and copy passports later, after you refreshed in your room". And the bell boy brought us to our room while another bell boy was bringing our luggage.


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