Are hotels just to sleep at?

I'm a rope drop to close type of park visitor. On non-park days, I'm still sightseeing at zoos, national parks, or some other combination of entertainment, etc. for full days. Because of this, I only spend 6 to 8 hours a day in a hotel room when I'm on the road. For sleeping, showering, shaving, and brushing teeth. And sleeping takes most of this time - the rest take not more than an hour a day.

Because of this, budget hotels like Motel 6 suit my needs just fine. I've never had any problems whatsoever, and hardly ever have to pay more than 50 a night - usually scoring a room in the 30's or less!

I could afford pricier hotels, but I prefer to take longer trips by staying in cheaper hotels - longer than I could if my average room rate was double, triple, or more.

And I prefer to have more money in the budget for souvenirs (which I collect a lot of) and the cost of the attractions themselves.

So if it means being able to take, say, a 6 week trip hitting more parks and getting souvenirs, t shirts, etc at all of them by going with the 30-40 dollar room, or having to scale back the actual content and duration of the trip to pay double or triple (or more!) for the room, I take the cheaper hotel every time.

The way I look at it, the places I go on the trip - the parks, zoos, and other sightseeing attractions, and the souvenirs I can collect at them - are the whole point of why I want to travel in the first place. Years from now, those are the memories I'll remember from my trips, not whether the hotels I spend an average of one AWAKE hour a day at had extra amenities that I wouldn't need or use even if they did.

PS. This is not in any way meant to put down the moderate and deluxe hotel industry, or those who prefer them. I do understand that they offer a premium service that is preferred by many travelers. It's just not something I feel I personally need, as per my explanation above.

1EyedJack said:

It does not matter if you paid $30 or $300 for your room. If you used a UV light and saw the stuff they find on EVERY sheet and bedspread, you would sleep in your car!

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/BusinessTravel/story?id=4269295

Here's the best response I've ever seen concerning the 'stuff' found by UV lights on hotel bedspreads:

http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/10ogew/do_the_stains_shown_by_blacklights_on_hotel/c6feg5a

It reads in part:

"Let's pretend that instead, we have a red wine stain on a sheet, so it's easy to see. It's washed 10 times, but the stain is still visible. Is it clean?

Red wine has a bunch of chemicals in it that act as chromophores. These are the chemicals that are responsible for the red wine's colour. You can still see the stain after many washings because the chromphores have become chemically bound to the cloth. However, this does not mean that the red wine is actually present -- it just means that certain robust fragments of colourful red wine compounds are chemically bound to the fabric."

It goes on (definitely go read it), but the general idea is that just because you can see a stain doesn't mean something is dirty.

Stupid logic!

So let's say I have that sheet or a tablecloth with a red wine stain, and I've washed it ten times. I guess I should feel confident that it's clean and free from contaminates. What I know for sure, however, is that I will never put that item out for my guests to use or even see, (what should they know about my washing habits?), and neither should a hotel. And if they do? I'm calling it nasty.

Visible stains? Sure.

Pulling out the blacklight and crying foul? Get over it. It's not unclean...it has invisible stains that can only be perceived in the UV spectrum.

Folks, you're never going to be able to avoid germs. It just isn't going to happen. People need to stop being convinced that every germ is going to give them the flu or outright kill them. I have coworkers who are serious germophobes and they get sick whereas I eat a french fry that just dropped on the floor or type on the same keyboard as someone else with a cold and I haven't called out sick once in my entire career. We have immune systems for a reason, and they're pretty strong if you give them a chance to build up some antibodies.

LostKause said:

The last hotel I stayed at was Motel 6 in Huron (near Cedar Point). I thought it was kind of strange that they made a really big deal about the remote being germ-free, or antibacterial, or whatever. The remote was placed in a cardboard box that held it upright and printed all over the box was an advertisement about how special the remote was.

EEEEEEWWWwwwwww.....

There are some people in this world who would see the advertising on that box and remote as an invitation to mess it up badly. I can imagine all the disgusting things certain people would do with that remote just to be ultra-facetious. Thanks for the awesome photo!

They might as well advertise that the remote would make a great dildo. ...Am I allowed to say that here? :D

I saw "ultra-feces" in your post. Still applicable.

Years ago we had a patient who came to the ER after "accidentally sitting on the TV remote," which had to be extracted. Every time he farted, he would change the TV channel.

Million to one shot, Doc. Million to one.

I also shop online if I am going to stay at a hotel. I used to go buy what is the most reasonable nightly rate, and got a horrible hotel room on a trip to Great America. It was a hotel near the midway airport in Chicago, with little windows so high up off the floor you could not see out them, with a note on the door, "Do not open this door for anyone." at $49.00 a night. That hotel was right next door to a strip joint/truck stop. I'm surprised it didn't have a big Family Guy neon sign, that read "Ask about our Sluts and hookers discount...and free STD testing." LOL!! The place looked like a cell block, and had no pool. Just really crappy.

After that very scary 2 day stay, I did all of my online hotel searches by lowest cost by location, with photos, and pool. If the hotel did not offer photos in the search, I passed it. So, the next time I went to Great America, I paid just $20.00 more and got a suite at the Hawthorne Suites on half day road in Lincolnshire. The room had a kitchen, with sliding glass doors leading out onto a patio courtyard, which lead to the pool house with hot tub. Plus free continental breakfast.

The only pitfall of doing this was the "Bait N Switch" tatics at a certain hotel chain in Sandusky. Reserved the Sandusky room, only to arrive and be routed by the desk to a different hotel in Norwalk. As they said they were "full" even though I had a reservation. Paid $109.00 a night, for a room that was nothing like the one I thought I was paying for. And, my indoor pool was downgraded to only an outdoor pool. The worst thing about that is that same room cost $295.00 a night depending on what day and what month it is. To me, that's just wrong. But, they get away with it.

But, hotels are a thing of the past for me now that I found the campground in Ohio. If I get the chance to go to kings Island I will be camping again for that trip. Though my reasons are different now, then they were before. The Campground is a trip all by itself.

I also thought about staying at one of those hotel/water park resorts. But, that is beyond by wallet.

Yet another reason to avoid the lower end places:

Timber-Rider said:

The only pitfall of doing this was the "Bait N Switch" tatics at a certain hotel chain in Sandusky. Reserved the Sandusky room, only to arrive and be routed by the desk to a different hotel in Norwalk. As they said they were "full" even though I had a reservation. Paid $109.00 a night, for a room that was nothing like the one I thought I was paying for.

Lower end hotel means lower end management which means a higher chance of them incorrectly reading the market like this and a higher chance of being walked to another hotel.

With that said, it happens to the best of them sometimes too. It's not entirely unheard of and it's not a 'bait and switch' or some weird scam.

But you should never, never pay when you get walked. If the hotel can't honor your reservation you never pay for their mistake. You get a room at a nearby hotel and the hotel picks up the charge for your inconvenience. I've never heard in my life of a hotel expecting you to pay for a walk.

I never stay below a 3 star on Hotwire and rarely stay below a 4 star. I learned my lesson years ago even with good reviews and pix. I'm usually in a Crowne Plaza of Hilton brand hotel.

Hardly a "walk" from Sandusky to Norwalk. It's 25-30 minutes which as we all know on a visit to Cedar Point can make the world of difference. I woulda raised holy hell, and not paid a dime.

But this begs the question: Does anything, ever go right for you?

Timber-Rider said:

It was a hotel near the midway airport in Chicago, with little windows so high up off the floor you could not see out them

Maybe they were normal windows, but you're just really, really short.

Timber-Rider said:

I used to go buy what is the most reasonable nightly rate, and got a horrible hotel room on a trip to Great America.

No, you mean "cheapest." Not "most reasonable." There's a vast difference.

I won't book a room without checking average star rating and, more importantly, customer ratings, and reading at least a handful of customer reviews. Pictures don't mean jack to me if few people have good things to say about the place.

I use Hotwire sometimes if I'm on a budget, but only if I'm not too concerned with proximity to my destination or being in a very specific location. Results are usually decent.

Edit: I prefer not using Hotwire, however, primarily because the hotels typically sell them the low-end rooms. I like a king sized bed and mini-fridge (gotta have beer on business trips), which I only seem to get if I really luck out.

Timber-Rider said:

The worst thing about that is that same room cost $295.00 a night depending on what day and what month it is. To me, that's just wrong. But, they get away with it.

It's wrong to charge what people will pay from your product?

Didn't you see where he doesn't understand supply and demand?