Comments on: Budget hotels spoil dirty weekend breaks

By: Natalie

Natalie — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 12:48:19 +0000

I’ve stayed in the same Travelodge twice in London. The first experience was really bad but the second was a little better (we had already booked our second stay before seeing how bad it was the first time in case anyone wondered why we would re-book!). The first time the room smelt as soon as we walked in and we found out why when we opened the bathroom door and saw the mouldy shower. When I went to use the hot tap it was so hard to turn on and realised why as it drips unless you turn it off very very tightly. Unfortunately me and my sister weren’t quite strong enough to turn it enough to stop it dripping!! Also the service wasn’t great. We only stayed for one night but the next morning we were interrupted 3 times by the same cleaner. We kept telling her we were checking out today so please come back once we had left. We informed reception of this who said they should have known we were leaving that day and waited. We also informed them of what we found wrong with the room. On our second visit we were in the room next door but there was a massive differance!! A lot cleaner and no problems. Either way, I probably would go back if I was only staying for one night again as we did get it very cheap both times – as long as the bed was ok as we didn’t spend any time in the room apart from when we were sleeping.

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By: jeff solomon

jeff solomon — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 01:21:47 +0000

I manufacture and sell a travel sheet called Allersac to protect the user from all manner of allergens bedbugs etc. i started the company exactly because of the dirty hotel rooms i kept experiencing. No matter what the cost whether it was a $50.00 room or $300.00 room. Un-changed bedding, sticky tv remotes, smudged drinking glasses and who knows what on the carpets. This past holiday I stayed in a brand new Hilton Hotel suite, we got in late in the evening and when we turned down the bed to sleep it reeked of perfume, they had not even changed the sheets, how does a chambermaid ” forget ” to change the sheets ? This hotel was rated highly on a few sites, so much for ratings. Ratings don’t work because hotel chains are not consistent. I don’t blame the lazy housekeeping staff, what do you want for minimum wage. Do you expect to get intelligent, conscientious staff to perform housecleaning for minimum wage? I blame the management, it’s their job to ” mange ” their staff .

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By: Rooi_Skoene

Rooi_Skoene — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 13:41:16 +0000

I agree with Tamara. Could it be PR companies that get their clients these ratings?

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By: Robert Mayer

Robert Mayer — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 23:22:30 +0000

First of all, I just found you site and love it!

As a hotel manager I have to say that the classification of a hotel should represent the facilities and services provided, not the level of cleanliness. Sadly – an it is increasingly true with chain hotels specially in the budget factor – operators think that the decrease in the number of stars means increase the in amount of tolerated uncleanliness….
The housekeeping staff basically gets the same salary regardless of classification, therefore it is really up to management to make the difference.
It will be quiet interesting to see how the decreasing prices and increasing level of quality of the four star hotels will affect the budget market….

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By: Mark Pickering

Mark Pickering — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 15:38:09 +0000

Apologies for mentioning star ratings… although I think you should do a post asking people if they think they should be changed – that’s sure to provoke plenty of comments and suggestions for how it should be done! =)

Any sorry for wandering of topic a bit …. slap on the wrists for Mark! =)

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