5-Star Hotel Employees Spill The Tea On Hotel Secrets, And Some Get Really Dark

paperconservation101 wrote:
"My SO worked for a fancy hotel. The building owners (not the chain, the actual building itself) came to visit. He was on the Forbes billionaire list.

He was a nice man who had buffet lunches everyday and tipped every staff members he saw a crisp $100, every time he saw them.

House keeper walking past? $100. Bar tender setting up? $100

Shift swap? 100 on the way in and out."

Hungboy6969420 replied:
"This is how you billionaire"

"When we see 'instagram influencer' on your booking, we roll our eyes."

Cool-Lemon-7662 wrote:
"A lot of lonely people going on vacation to end their life. Happens a lot but is never mentioned on the news."

Zebidee replied:
"I've left the 'do not disturb' sign on the door all day because I wanted a quiet day alone, and around 4PM housekeeping plus a manager came and knocked to do a welfare check for this exact reason.

Note that I've spent a lot of time in hotels and have only had that happen once, but it makes sense I guess."

"We don’t want you to know that the people who stayed in the room before you were nasty.

Housekeeping gets the brunt of it. I’ve seen them carry out bags of used s*x toys, peel used condoms off of every surface, and scrub sh*t - actual human (presumably) - off places there’s no reason for human sh*t to be.

The worst, though, was the couple that wanted a home birth but not, you know, at home (because gross). we had to deal with that hazmat situation. Screwed them as hard as we could with penalties and fees, though."

nintendorks0401 wrote:
"As part of our training as bellman we are to ask open ended questions to the children to make sure they aren't being used for s*x trafficking when bringing in luggage to "Dad and daughter" types. My dad works in security in the same hotel so he often gives me a heads up if the guest with the child is already under suspicion regarding their behavior at the front desk for check in. It rarely happens but hotels are the breeding grounds for s*x traffickers."

chibinoi replied:
"That’s so sad to hear, but I’m glad to hear hotel staff at your place have training to look for signs of s*x trafficking."

"I spent 10 years in the boutique and 5 star hotel world. Got stories for days. But here is my favorite that sums up hospitality (former anyways).

Our concierge was Les Clefs D'or, had all the connections, this dude could get you into the French Laundry same day. He would often greet guests with sangria and sprigs of mint from his garden. Sometimes he had lemon slices from his tree too! He loved to tell guests all about his garden and they ate it up.

Yeah that's all nonsense. Mint, lemon, and any other garnish we got from the local grocery store. The sangria? Cheapest boxed stuff we could find. But he sold the story like no other. At the end of the day, it worked."

"I was a valet in college at a very swanky resort. The members had a certain sticker on their car and the owners/partners have a black sticker (which I had no clue) but knew they belonged. When a guy pulled up in a very nice Benz I said, “welcome back (not knowing his name). He was so p*ssed that I didn’t know who he was, he was an a** to me but I couldn’t care less. Moments later another younger guy pulled up to valet and asked me what the guy said to me. I hesitantly said he was mad I had no idea who he was. The young guy (looked disappointed) and said “that’s my father and he is an a**hole, don’t worry about him at all.” Then he gave me $20 to park his car and was extremely nice to every employee who ever interacted with him."

"I worked in 3.5 Star properties and it was the same. I actually had someone say "do you know who I am? I could take one of your stats away." The stars are for amenities not quality. I told him the same thing, that every guest regardless of who they are gets the same service."

"My husband worked at several luxury hotels and residences (rich people who live at the hotels) and besides how absolutely disgusting everything inside the rooms actually is... I was most shocked by the behavior of the ultra rich.

I’m not talking businessmen and doctors. I’m talking Saudi Princes and Heirs to Dynasty families. The level of comfort and technology these people have come to expect is things we cannot imagine.

“What do you mean there isn’t there access to intercoms next to the bathroom for when I need services while going potty?” “The television inside the shower is only a 40 inch and there is no gold in this room I need a better suite”. “I’m gonna need you to go out, buy me better bedding, remake my bed, and then do it again tomorrow because I won’t sleep on the same bedding twice”.

And that’s just the tip of the icebergs."

ApostrophesAplenty wrote:
I’ve always wanted to know: how does a celebrity’s alias for a booking get advised to the hotel? Does their assistant or whoever makes the reservation say that the booking is for JeffMegaStar (or whatever the celeb’s name is), but they will be travelling under “Phil McCracken” or whatever?

And how does the person doing the check-in know that the person standing in front of them (who they may or may not recognise) is going to be under “McCracken”?"

OldheadBoomer replied:
"I've worked with a few celebrities and athletes in the past, in a different capacity than hospitality. The ones I worked with always used fake names, plus their room was actually reserved and paid for by their assistants so their name never showed on paperwork. However, since they were listed as staying in the room, their name was added to the card, and that's where the fake name comes in.

One guy, the late author Tom Clancy, always used the name of his lead character, Jack Ryan when getting a room."

"NEVER EVER EVER (I REPEAT!!) USE A CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN FROM A HOTEL OR BANQUET HALL!!!

Picture this: it’s an expensive Sunday brunch. Well little Timmy just double fisted strawberries directly into that chocolate, bit into both strawberries then triple dipped into the chocolate AGAIN! And some old rich lady just sneezed on it. And somebody else just dropped their snack into it. The best part: that chocolate gets strained and saved for the next weeks brunch. Chocolate is waaay too expensive to throw away.

Chocolate also does this thing where it’ll seize if it has the wrong moisture content (from people dipping fruit, and the juices going into the chocolate.) So it’ll get so thick it won’t run through the machine. Wanna know how they fix that? They add canola oil until it’s smooth again.

So, yeah, next time you’re at a wedding and they have a chocolate fountain, think of this post. Think of this post when you dip into that dirty watered down with oil chocolate."

"Did maintenance at some hotels as pure grunt labor.

People will flush anything down a toilet.

Towels, sheets, giant sh*ts that no human could have possibly downloaded, pillows, paper, food, bottles, and just about everything else.

Best one ever, got a call to snake a toilet in a room. Twitchy Latin guy tells me it is super important I be careful to not damage said flushed item. Gotcha. I managed to fish out his bags of various powders and pills out without breaking a single bag open. He offered me some product as a tip, and when I declined, just handed me a stack of $20s and ushered me out the door. It was an $1,800 tip.

Oh, and ladies, tampons and pads do NOT get flushed down the toilet.

And for everyone else, flushable wipes, aren't."

"As soon as you walk in ask tons of questions about every aspect of the hotel. Always order a specialty cocktail with dinner or lunch, and use every outlet of the hotel. They will immediately flag you as a forbes shopper. Everyone in the hotel will know your name, and a picture we stole from your Facebook will be all over the hotel behind the scenes.

You'll get the best service you've ever had."

northwesthonkey wrote:
"Not a 5 star hotel, but I worked at a Hilton in Seattle and we had a furry convention.

One of the cats pooped in the elevator."

OSRSgamerkid replied:
"By "cats" do you mean...?"

Soullikeether wrote:
"Bedbugs. Every single hotel from run down motels to 5-star resorts has dealt with bedbugs."

AninOnin replied:
"And I've never seen one. How do they deal with them so quickly and effectively?"

Tkieron added:
"Massively exterminate them by cleaning the entire room.

Hotels have a protocol for dealing with a bedbug infestation because it can destroy the hotel/corp reputation and even bankrupt the company. Bad news travels fast. So if it gets out it's incredibly bad for years.

So they go scorched Earth on the room. Steam cleaning, massive chemical cleaning, bagging everything up etc. Cleaning companies come in etc.

They take it as serious as anything else bad that can happen. It's a terrible issue PR-wise."

"Used to work in one as well.

Would often get famous guests trying to break the rules because it was convenient for them or because their children wanted it.

I don’t care who you are, rules are rules, if we say no open flames in an area, we mean it."

"Was in room service. If someone buys a bottle of booze and doesn’t open it (e.g. they leave it out for us to take), policy is to bring it back to the kitchen to put into inventory to be resold. A coworker shared that the record, as far as they knew, was one bottle of champagne that was re-sold 7 times"

"I use to work events at hotels and one time we had a guest break their wine glass inside a water refill barrel... I left work for two weeks to go on vacation and when I came back, all the glass was still piled inside the water refill barrel. People must have been drinking out of it because there were events booked while I was gone."

"I am a subcontractor that works in the It business and the W hotel in Miami beach has seen some things. One day I come in to work and there is a big scramble at the upper floors(that is were the penthouse are). Seems this kinda known millionaire, had a little too much drugs and god knows what else and was destroying the room. He was actually throwing furniture out the balcony, ripped everything out of the fridge, might of even thrown a mattress out the balcony. It was a big deal at the time but they keep it hush with no police involved, a guy that’s paying 9k-13k a night is not going to be arrested. When the team finally got into the room, there was cocaine all over the tables, bottles everywhere, and a couple of high class call girls that were in true fear. Next day they book the same room to Jennifer Lopez."

"Never trust glass in rooms. GRAs are so stretched thin on time that they will clean the glasses with the same rags they clean the bathroom, after all their goal is to make the room look clean.

I worked as a GRA in a five diamond for years and there was over a year period that went by where we didn’t get a clean glass delivery. We didn’t have dishwashers in the room, so management was complicit. This was in a five diamond, one of the top resorts in the world. Never trust glass in hotel rooms."