There are some people who like to have a little bit of fun with hotel staff, so they purposely put in weird requests before their stay (here are a bunch of them). But some people staying in hotels have certain questions because they just don’t get it. Others just have REALLY unrealistic expectations. Here are some of the craziest seemingly genuine questions people have asked hotel staff, as per Reddit…
- A guest came downstairs to the front desk which, like most hotel front desks, was in the lobby, and asked me, “Could you tell me where the lobby is?” There was an awkward pause as I looked at him and finally said, “Ummm, you’re in the lobby.”
- A man I was booking a reservation for on the phone asked me if his room would have a bed.
- “Can you guarantee that no pet has ever been in this hotel room?”
- A guest wanted to know what time the 24-hour gym opened.
- “I only am staying half a day, can’t I pay for just half a day?”
- That time I had to show a guy how to use a doorknob.
- “How do I turn off the alarm clock?” Which in itself isn’t too bad, but he followed up with, “I see a switch with On, Off, Music, and Radio; which one do I put it to, to make sure it’s off?”
- “How much does the free continental breakfast cost?”
- A guest wanted a wake-up call and it was when DST changed over and this was the question: “I’d like a wake-up call for 6AM, but will it be the actual 6AM or the new 6AM?”
- Guest: “Hi, we’ve just had our breakfast in bed delivered to the room. Is it okay if we eat it on the chair by the desk, and not actually on the bed?”
- The woman who came to the front desk holding the TV remote control and asked how a call could be made with this weird ‘telephone.’
- A guest called from inside the room as he couldn’t find the door to get out. I told him that there was only one door, to which the guest replied, “yes, but it has a do not disturb sign on it.”
- “Oh you’re not part of notmybrand’s rewards program. Can I still get points on my notmybrand’s rewards program?”
- A guest once asked me how to get ice out of the ice machine.
- The guy that called down and asked how the shower curtain works. I was like “Uhhh you pull it?” And he says “no, like does it go inside or outside the tub?”
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“Can I use this computer?” Pointing at the business center computer surrounded with signs that make it obvious that it is for customer-use.
- “Can I hold a brainstorming session with your hotel team?”
- I got a friend request from a guest at the hotel where I work. Awkward!
- The guest who arrived at midnight and was upset because check out is at 11am. He wanted to be able to keep the room for 24 hours.
- “Can I pay for a room with food stamps?”
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5 comments
where is my man Alan? did Caesar live here?
Loved the comment:
“A guest called from inside the room as he couldn’t find the door to get out. I told him that there was only one door, to which the guest replied, “yes, but it has a do not disturb sign on it.”
I worked for a hotel years ago and remember a guest calling down and asking if he could have a room with a bathroom (this was a Westin hotel). When I inquired what he meant, he said his room di don’t have a bathroom. I was so mystified that I looked in the the system to see if he had been given an out-of-order room. Nope all was in order so I told him I would be right up. Turns out the housekeeper had placed the DND sign on the handle of the bathroom door. When I opened the bathroom door for him he turned red !
I mean really – would a room have another guest room door open into it ?
The question about having a bed in the room brought back an experience from my travel warrior days. Way back, I had booked a guaranteed room at a Marriott in Chicago. Got there around 11pm as was told by the desk clerk that my room was a “meeting room”, and that it had a pull out sofa bed. I found another hotel to stay at. The kicker, I was a top tier member (black card) of their frequent stay program.
I have a bit of sympathy for the guy with the alarm question. Just checked into Holt Art Hotel in Reykjavik, and was chatting with the guy at the front desk about how every single bloody hotel I stay in has some random different clock radio with some random weird function that no one can work out…and how once, in NYC, someone had left an alarm set for 3 am. I didn’t check it (rookie mistake) and was less than happy about that.
Working in a hotel in Hawaii had a guest ask if all the staff could stop saying Aloha to him, it made him “feel like a tourist”. Same guest also asked (pre-covid mind you) that no staff or anyone “local” ride the elevator with him, if they could have elevators just for “guests”, that it really ruins the experience. He also demanded a refund for one of his days because there was a huge fire cutting off half the island and around 200 employees couldn’t go home, so they set up cots in the ballroom for them to all sleep. This no way impacted his room, was on the other side of the hotel, mind you, and it’s not like they used the pool in the middle of the night. But he said it made him feel like it was a “homeless shelter.”