With all of the guests hotel employees see and meet day after day, there are bound to be some stories. Workers from all walks of the hospitality industry recently took to Reddit to share some of their strangest guest encounters, so we pulled a few gems proving there’s no knowing exactly what’s going on behind closed doors (until someone calls room service). Ahead: seen stories straight from the sources mouth.
1. “A CEO of a large TV Corp who would ask to have a tray of cookies sent to the room every night. She would chew every one of them only to put them back on the tray.”
2. “We had a guest we ended up calling ‘Pie Guy’—he would come into the hotel without a reservation, pay in cash + the $100 cash deposit and the next day we would find his bathroom and bathtub full of the remains of several expensive pies. He never came to the desk for his deposit, as he knew he wouldn’t be getting it back. We added his name to our ‘do not rent’ list but he kept coming back and using different names. One time we found a torn up list in his room with the words ‘pie’ and ‘pants’ scribbled over and over again.”
3. “This one lady came into the lobby around 11 pm, asked for the workout room so I opened it back up for her figuring she was one of those 24hr workout people. I went back in around 3 am to close it up again, and she has set up a bed for herself on the treadmill. Ended up giving her our last room after she had a fight with her husband and was refusing to sleep with him.”
4. “I had a weird guest who was part of a land survey crew that would come in every week. One time she called the front desk and said, ‘There are bubbles in my toilet. Why are there bubbles in my toilet?’ I told her they might have flushed the water pipes. She then says, ‘Hold on, I’m going to bring some down.’ I said, ‘Ma’am, that’s really not necessary,’ but she was already off the line. About 5 minutes later she comes down the elevator with a wineglass full of clear water. ‘Well, it was bubbly a minute ago!’ I had to walk in the back and beat my head against the wall for a bit.”
5. “We had to kick some burger convention attendees out when they dumped mayo and relish into the hot tub.”
6. “We once had a couple check in at reception and they were given a park and display permit for their car. The hotel only had three car parking spaces, which are usually reserved during booking. Others have to park on the streets around the hotel, displaying the permits which are provided at cost by the local council. About 40 minutes later the husband comes to reception shouting and complaining that he’s received a parking ticket and the permit he was given was obviously no good. We couldn’t understand why, there was no way the permit wasn’t valid. We asked, did he display it in the window as we had told him to do? He said, ‘Of course.’ He put it in the window as soon as got upstairs to the room. That’s when we realized he’d put it in the bedroom window and not the car window.” (Credits go to www.travelandleisure.com)
7. “I work at a self-service buffet in a hotel. We have these little signs with the name of every dish except the very obvious ones. I am carrying drinks when a middle-aged guest comes to me and points to the bread aisle.
Guest: “What is this?”
Me: “Emm… bread, sir.”
Guest: “How do I know this is bread? There is no sign at all.”
Me: “Well, it is obviously bread; it looks like bread, after all.”
Guest: “What if I never saw a piece of bread before? How do I know this is actually bread? You can’t expect us all to know that this is bread. Bring me your manager.”
Me: *fetches the manager*
Manager: “Sir, is there something wrong?”
Guest: “Why is there no sign for bread?”
Manager: “Well, it’s obvious that it’s bread.”
Guest: “This is ridiculous! You think we all have Oxford doctorates here? And you treat us like fools? That’s it! I’ve had enough! I’m filling in a complaint!”
(And he actually did…) “
Do you have any funny hotel stories to share? Let us know by commenting on our LinkedIn post.
The PR Medical Events team