Now for a Reality Check-in
Who doesn't yearn for five-star hotel treatment? Lavish bathrooms piled high with big white towels, little soaps and the obligatory triangle fold on the toilet paper. Little touches that bring so much more to life. However, so too can we ache when we see the bill at the end.
Hotels stand for an escape from reality. What they don't sometimes stand for, or rather stand by, is their advertising literature. It's the best fiction available. Particularly if you end up in a resort that looked fantastic in the brochure and was praised by the travel agent, but when you get there the "ocean views" have turned out to be far-off glimpses, provided you stand on the sagging bed.
Photographs in hotels' brochures, unlike breakfast cereal boxes with their serving suggestions, come with no warning or waiver. One hotel employed a much sought-after international photographer. Enhancements employed included lighting at the back of chairs, beds, plants and behind closed curtains. The photographer had rearranged the furniture so that any prospective guest would need to be a gymnast to get around it in real life.
So the inviting photo of your hotel room, complete with a happy couple sitting on the bed or an executive type in the background, surrounded by dozens of flowers is often in stark contrast to reality.
Size does matter. What appears in the brochure to be a bed the size of a landing field can turn out to be an overdressed tatami mat.
To the Japanese, the size of your hotel room is considered "great face". So small are hotel rooms in Tokyo that while using the toilet you can simultaneously turn down your bed, manually change television channels and open the door to the hallway.
At the extreme opposite, in the Middle East, where space is as endless as the desert, one room I had was so large that by the time I got to the door to answer room service's knock, they had usually given up and left. My attempt to convince the room service manager that I was in my room eagerly awaiting my food was a dumb show worthy of Fawlty Towers.
Combine this with things that don't work in a hotel room, or can't be found. One big hotel group never has the hair dryer in the bathroom. It's "located in the bureau" and welded to the socket, so you have to stand in the middle of the room to dry your hair. The same room has electric curtains that sound like a Scalextric slot-car set. My children had a lot of fun with those bedside buttons. It kind of made up for the fact the room backed on to a freeway.
So why do we leave the comforts of home – where we know we won't be allergic to the soap, have 121 cable channels and, most important, cant lock ourselves out without the embarrassment of asking a bewildered front-desk clerk for a replacement key while standing in our dressing gown? (I've lost count of how many times this has happened to me, and no it's not what you think.) Simply put, we leave the cosy confines of our inner sanctum for adventure. For the unknown and for something different. After all, nothing beats getting out of the house for a few days, just as nothing is better than the feeling of coming home. We leave for the joy of returning – but is it to our home or to a hotel?
Hotels stand for an escape from reality. What they don't sometimes stand for, or rather stand by, is their advertising literature. It's the best fiction available. Particularly if you end up in a resort that looked fantastic in the brochure and was praised by the travel agent, but when you get there the "ocean views" have turned out to be far-off glimpses, provided you stand on the sagging bed.
Photographs in hotels' brochures, unlike breakfast cereal boxes with their serving suggestions, come with no warning or waiver. One hotel employed a much sought-after international photographer. Enhancements employed included lighting at the back of chairs, beds, plants and behind closed curtains. The photographer had rearranged the furniture so that any prospective guest would need to be a gymnast to get around it in real life.
So the inviting photo of your hotel room, complete with a happy couple sitting on the bed or an executive type in the background, surrounded by dozens of flowers is often in stark contrast to reality.
Size does matter. What appears in the brochure to be a bed the size of a landing field can turn out to be an overdressed tatami mat.
To the Japanese, the size of your hotel room is considered "great face". So small are hotel rooms in Tokyo that while using the toilet you can simultaneously turn down your bed, manually change television channels and open the door to the hallway.
At the extreme opposite, in the Middle East, where space is as endless as the desert, one room I had was so large that by the time I got to the door to answer room service's knock, they had usually given up and left. My attempt to convince the room service manager that I was in my room eagerly awaiting my food was a dumb show worthy of Fawlty Towers.
Combine this with things that don't work in a hotel room, or can't be found. One big hotel group never has the hair dryer in the bathroom. It's "located in the bureau" and welded to the socket, so you have to stand in the middle of the room to dry your hair. The same room has electric curtains that sound like a Scalextric slot-car set. My children had a lot of fun with those bedside buttons. It kind of made up for the fact the room backed on to a freeway.
So why do we leave the comforts of home – where we know we won't be allergic to the soap, have 121 cable channels and, most important, cant lock ourselves out without the embarrassment of asking a bewildered front-desk clerk for a replacement key while standing in our dressing gown? (I've lost count of how many times this has happened to me, and no it's not what you think.) Simply put, we leave the cosy confines of our inner sanctum for adventure. For the unknown and for something different. After all, nothing beats getting out of the house for a few days, just as nothing is better than the feeling of coming home. We leave for the joy of returning – but is it to our home or to a hotel?
