Working in the hospitality industry is hard enough as it is without any curveballs. However, sooner or later, they’re pretty much inevitable. Have you ever had a hard day at work, only to be completely taken by surprise at how much worse things could get? Like, on a scale you couldn’t even have imagined. At that moment, you might have thought to yourself that you don’t get paid enough for this.
Redditors who have worked in the hotel industry opened up about the most bizarre experiences they’ve ever had. In a candid r/AskReddit thread started up by u/Slider-678, they revealed not only how extremely odd some of the guests were, but also how strange their own colleagues were. Are you ready to go down the rabbit hole? Hang on to your hats and scroll down for some of the most peculiar hotel stories.
#1
I have a friend that owns a small motel just off a highway. I would hang out with him and chat on some late nights. One night, he got a call that one of the guest heard a loud crash in the room next door. Checked the computer and saw that the room was unoccupied. Friend and I go to check it out. We knock and there is no answer. He opens the door and there was a cat in the room. It knocked over a lamp and smashed it. It was super friendly and came right to us. We took it back to the office and looked at the room records. The prior person that was in the room abandoned the cat when he checked out three days earlier. He was already on the other side of the country when we called him, and he said he was not coming back for the cat. My friend took ownership of the cat and now she is the motel cat. She walks all around the property and takes care of any mice or critters. She even has her picture on the wall as one of the "employees". Not sure why the maid service did not see it when the room was being cleaned. We think that the vacuum scared the cat and she hid somewhere. Still was a d**k move of the old owner to leave the cat behind.
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318points
#2
Working at a small boutique place, just starting my day shift at about 6:30am. Hadn’t even had my coffee yet.
A woman came to the desk, visibly shaken. She tells me “ I can’t find my husband. He’s not in the room, and all his clothes are still there. He’s a sleepwalker and Im worried that he has wandered into another room.” At this point I am starting I start to chuckle a bit to my self, but quickly stop with the thought of a screaming woman finding a naked stranger in her room. First thought is to check the CCTV.
We head up to the first floor. Our CCTV is actually in the back of our linen storage, and I bring the woman with me, not even sure why I did, probably because she wanted to come. Soon as I got the door open and the lights on, there was her naked husband sleeping spread across our bundled duvet covers, with one open half covering him.
She woke him up, and of course he had no f*****g idea where he was. She wrapped him up and took him back to bed.
They checked out later, and the dude was bashful as hell. I told him not to worry about it as he gave me a great story to share, and let him know I would tell anyone who would listen. And I plan to!
227points
#3
Former Hotel Manager here. One time I was checking someone in, and they wanted a reduced rate. Now, we had discounts for AAA, AARP, Veteran, etc, I just had to see proof of something. So, I respectfully ask if he had his membership cards for anything. He then starts yelling, saying how “I have the mother f******* power, to just put it in the system”. Then he spits on me (yes during Covid), and pulls a gun on me. Next thing I know, he gets tackled from behind because one of my weekly regulars just walked in who worked in the police station. (Not 100% sure what he did but he did have to travel a lot between precincts). That guy saved my life.
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191points
The mark of any good hotel worker will be their sense of hospitality. They will do their best to accommodate their guests’ wishes and ensure they have a memorable stay, while still maintaining their own dignity. You want to be warm, welcoming, and professional, without seeming clingy or overly intrusive. It’s a fine balance to maintain. One that takes years and years of experience to master.
Your hotel’s aesthetics and cleanliness certainly are important. You’ve got to maintain standards to help your guests feel completely at ease instead of making them wonder who slept in their bed the day before and how many bedbugs there are, hiding under the floorboard. However, it’s not details like gold-embellished furniture and free toothbrushes that are going to win everyone over. Only excellent customer service will do that.
At the end of the day, you want your guests to leave with good memories of their stay. That way, they’re more likely to return. It’s through interacting with the hotel staff that their enjoyment of the trip can be improved. People notice when others go beyond the call of duty to make their stay comfortable.
And if anything goes wrong, the staff can always apologize, comp the stay, offer a discount or even an upgrade. Meanwhile, the best of the best will also follow up with their guest to ensure that their stay was, in fact, excellent. If not, they can then learn from their mistakes and adapt accordingly.
#4
I have some longer stories, but I have a short crazy one. I worked at a waterpark hotel, and for Easter one year they decided to host a massive Easter Egg hunt with over 500 eggs, including a smaller Golden egg that was worth a cash prize. They went ALL OUT for the marketing campaign on it; it was all over the website, tv and radio ads, they even went so far to get local news stations to mention it at the end of segments. The hype was huge, locally and otherwise.
The planners unfortunately overlooked a massive detail: one of the major perks of staying at the hotel was guests could enter the park 2 hours before the general public. The big day arrived, and it only took minutes to realize their mistake as hotel guests immediately began hunting down the eggs. By the time the doors officially opened to the massive crowd of excited kids and expectant parents 2 hours later, ALL of the 500+ eggs had already been found. To top it off, the heating system for the water broke down. So the park was packed to capacity, no eggs, and without heat in snowy Minnesotan April, the water was ice cold.
The backlash was spectacular.
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182points
#5
Working at a luxury hotel, I once got a call to remove a snail from a guests room as it was “coming after them” and that they were “afraid for their young child”
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178points
#6
I worked in a decent hotel in college, was the night auditor. One night the police came in and went directly to a room around 2am. They escorted a prostitute out and asked to speak to the manager.
After they were done speaking with my manager the officer handed me the phone and she told me to go in and clean up the room. I never made beds or did any of that so I wasn't sure exactly what she wanted. I went to the room and there was trash everywhere. There were uncapped syringes, used packages that had contained drugs and general filth everywhere. I called the manager back to tell her that I wasn't touching anything because of the uncapped syringes. They were literally all over the place and I wasn't going to pick up piles of clothes or move blankets.
The manager said that if I didn't clean the room I was fired. I said fine, you have a half an hour to get here because I am leaving. I was the only one there overnight. As she pulled into the parking lot a short time later I walked over to my car, didn't even wait for her to get inside.
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170points
According to Workforce Australia, great hospitality workers will be team players, flexible and able to multitask, perceptive enough to notice small details, and aware of new trends in the industry as a whole. Meanwhile, the best employees will also have high emotional intelligence and be able to interpret their guests’ needs between the lines. For them, problems are there to be solved, not something to avoid.
However, as things stand now, some hotel employees might have their work cut out for them. No single person can do the jobs of several of their colleagues. According to a January 2023 survey of hoteliers conducted by the American Hotel & Lodging Association, staffing challenges “have continued to plague” hotels in the United States. A jaw-dropping 79% of respondents said that they have staffing shortages. Meanwhile, 22% said that this issue was severe. The situation has improved since the AHLA’s survey which was done in October 2022, but it is still very serious.
#7
I worked night shift, and was the only employee in the entire hotel from 11pm to 6am. Around 3 am I get a few calls about a fight in an upstairs hallway. I grab a pair of scissors and tuck it up my sleeve and make my way upstairs to see what is going on. When I get there there are 2 guys having a full on brawl. I'm 6,2 and very broad shouldered, but these guys were taller and ripped as hell. As I approached a 3rd guy, just as large as the other 2, comes out of a room with a knife yelling "get the f**k off him". I stop a ways away and just shout at them. They all stop immediately and look at me. I'm getting ready to run for it when they all just deflate. Knife guy drops the knife, the others let go of eachother, they all hang their head, and one mumbles "I'm sorry." under his breath. They looked like a bunch of toddlers who had just gotten caught stealing cookies. I told them they would have to leave right now, or I would call the police, and they all just nodded. They followed me onto the elevator, and spent the whole time apologizing and pouting while I escorted them out. I have never seen a situation go from 100 to 0 so fast.
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157points
#8
White dude, 6'3", long gross dreadlocks and a Rasputin beard. Black gunky fingernails like a fairy-tale witch. He was all greasy and covered in what looked like soot. But hey he had an ID and a valid matching credit card so I said sure I'll check you in. Don't judge a book by its cover. This man dragged in a military duffle bag and went to his room. Our desk was directly adjacent to the elevator with the doors just to our right so we see everyone who comes and goes. Dude comes down about every 20 mins to "have a cigarette". Walk out our front doors and we have smoking stations on either side of the door. You know those little sand pits for cig butts... Dude lights a cig. Takes a drag, gently sets it down in the sand. Walks over to the other side of the door. Lights another. Drags it. Sets that one down. Proceeds to walk back and forth dragging only once at each cig before returning to the other. Goes on like this for about 10 mins. Maybe he lit some more cause I feel like two cigs won't last you 10 mins at the rate he was going. Anyways, then he goes back to his room and comes back 20 mins later and does it again... And again all afternoon. Guy comes out once more around 5pm and just blankly stares through the doors at the desk agents while he does his ritual. Then he just walks off. Disappears. Never comes back... Now I'm curious. So I go up with security to see if he destroyed the room. We open the door and immediately get a blast with the smell of bleach. The duffle bag he took up was on the bed. The bag was filled with like plastic Walmart bags. About 12 of them all tied up tight but filled with clothes literally soaking in bleach. Then we started to notice all these post it notes all over the place. Tons of them, like more than 100. Tucked in the corner of mirrors and picture frames and under the bed and taped all up inside the bathroom. All folded up. Naturally we open a few to see what they contain. Idk if this is some Magic the gathering lingo or dungeons and dragons talk but they all said like "+6 sword damage" "-3 mana" "+2 intelligence" and my personal favorite "x10 power to the 4th Mage" so we took to calling this dude the 4th Mage. Guy never came back for his murder clothes or what ever the hell his bleach soaked menagerie of t shirts was about... Anyways, if you ever see the 4th Mage in the Midwest, tell him he forgot his bag in Minnesota
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126points
#9
Lots of hotel guests were in for a conference. One night (about 10:30pm), a guy walks down from his room to the bellhop desk in nothing but tightly whiities, a bed sheet wrapped around his body from head to toe, and blood dripping from his face. This guy sounded out of it, either from being concussed, inebriated, high on drugs, or a mix of the three. He informed security that he and his boyfriend got into a fight. So, two security officers (one a supervisor) went to the room to question the other boyfriend, while another security officer waited with the bloodied boyfriend behind the bellhop desk for an ambulance to arrive.
Up at the room, security was informed that the bloodied boyfriend had been passed out drunk and had pooped in one of the beds when the other boyfriend had walked into the room with his wife and two kids, all of whom had been enjoying a night on the town. Both men were coworkers who were in for the conference. Supposedly, the family man had given the suite room key to his boyfriend with the expectations that they'd do the deed during conference hours, all the while the wife and kids explored the city during the day.
Back at the bellhop desk, the security supervisor relays the discovered info to the bloodied boyfriend, which sets the guy off. He tackles the security supervisor to the ground. Blood and c**p stained the hotel carpet and the supervisor's suit as he finally cuffed the bloodied boyfriend. Cops are called, and the guy gets taken away before getting inspected my medics. The moral of the story: if you want to cheat on your wife with someone else in a hotel, do your business in the smaller, uglier room, and not the large, expensive suite you share with your family.
Tldr - family man catches inebriated boyfriend in c**p stained bed, kicks the boyfriend's half naked a*s, who then proceeds to get his half naked a*s kicked again by the security supervisor.
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124points
There comes a moment, at any job, when you’ve had such an awful day while on the clock that you seriously consider quitting—right then and there! In these cases, a dash of perspective can help you out. Truly awful guests, just like amazing ones (who appreciate you and tip very handsomely), are pretty rare. Most of them are either decent people or grumble a bit. Some will be rude because they’ve had a bad day. Others might act a tad entitled.
So when you think about the future of your career, keep in mind that you probably won’t have to deal with terrible experience after terrible experience… unless you’re incredibly unlucky, your managers are really incompetent (or the hotel is low-key cursed). If you can, shake off the bad day as best you can. Take a long walk. Vent to your friends or even a therapist.
But if you realize that you’ve fallen out of love with the job itself, have to deal with a toxic boss, and are constantly overworked, it might be best to look for other lines of work, besides the hospitality industry. Heck, if you’re posting about how awful your job was on Reddit, you might have already done exactly that.
#10
My mom worked in a number of hotels across Austria and she has seen some stuff.
She told me a couple of stories of guests taking a shower in the middle of the bathroom and floding the whole place, on numerous ocassions, because it was apparently against their believes to stand in the shower to wash themselves.
She also told me that the pretiest and *cleanest* looking women were the most disgusting people to clean after. From used tampons on the walls to s**t on the floor, she has seen everything.
But she also told me a story about a rich guy and his family pulling up to the hotel without any luggage. They went shopping, purchased the most expensive jackets and skiing stuff you can imagine (Moncler, North Face etc) and when they were leaving they left it there for the staff to take home and they were super polite and friendly. They left her the biggest tip she received as a receptionist.
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110points
#11
I used to work at a hotel. I post on these guests often and I always intend on doing so. Three guests come to mind:
1) Guests wiped in the towels, smeared it on the walls, and laughed at housekeeping when they came in for service
2) Young lady (who was certainly no lady) stuck her used tampon on the bathroom wall, the blood acted as a glue and cemented itself there. It had to be pried off
3) Guests left three week old expired milk in the fridge. But they were only in house for three days so that means it was already two and a half weeks expired when they checked in. Who lugs around rotten milk?
105points
#12
Was just about to start my shift in the morning, and was chatting with a co worker outside while she had a smoke.
It was still dark out, and out of nowhere this guy muttering something about his dead family came up to us with a 2x4 and raised it up to hit my co worker in the head, I just reacted and stepped between them and raised my arm to take the blow... and the guy just stopped mid swing. He was face to face with me, with this 2x4 raised baseball bat style, and then he just ran off and dropped it.
My co worker ran up and grabbed it after so he couldnt use it again, and when we brought it inside, thats when we realized it was full of nails. Very glad neither of us got hit with that!
I have plenty of other crazy stories, but that one takes the cake for the scariest for sure.
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101points
#13
Not in the industry any longer, but I picked up a "red crayon" that ended up being a used tampon. In the middle of a damn hallway.
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89points
#14
I'll keep these as short as possible because i have a ton.
Cleaned a family room, which had a main double bed and a separate room for 2 singles. The singles' bedroom was littered with lingerie of every type and colour, crazy stuff. When we were walking out of the room, we bumped into the family of Mom, Dad - and their 2 14/13 year old daughters - the lingerie belonged to the daughters.
A woman got fired for poopin' in the guests' room, she got caught because the guest came back to the room and found her.
Had a local "rockstar" stay for a while - on their last night they trashed the room in ways that still amaze me, didnt know cocaine was meant to be mixed with feces for an abstract art piece on the curtains.
Had a very. VERY. High profile celebrity stay in the hotel, kind of a hero of mine so i worked up the courage to go speak to them, knocked on the door and eventually let myself in under the guise of "housekeeping inspection" - found the celebrity playing für elize (however you spell it) on the grand piano - took it in and left shortly after.
Had a very high networth individual stay at the hotel for over a month, about 2 weeks in they snuck into the staff access areas and found their way to us, 2am and doing closing - he apologised and asked if he could have a peanut butter sandwich and just chill for a bit, so we sat with this person who was worth Billions while he chewed on a PB and we spoke about sports - he claimed he had had too much fancy food and s**t company and just wanted to chill with "real people"
Security body slammed a prostitute who was 3 times his size because she refused to leave after the guest got cold feet.
Had a prostitute inflict thousands of dollars worth of damage to a room because her mark refused to pay her her usual rate. Her exact words "pay me what I'm worth or I'll destroy this place".
Had a tour group stay in the hotel and gut the rooms, took everything - phones, curtains, mirrors, EVERYTHING!
A piece of construction equipment failed and crushed a construction worker infront of a group of staff that reported to me. The hotel's response was to buy them mcdonalds and tell them to stfu about it.
Many many more. Hospitality is a f****n' wild profession
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82points
#15
Worked in a restaurant that was part of a hotel, so I guess this kind of counts.
Had a sommelier (wine expert) who worked in our restaurant - 50's, couple of kids, divorced, living in a ski town for the past 15 years. One night a guest came in, and over the course of about 2 hours, ordered around $6,000 worth of wine (he bought 3 $2000 bottles, not totally unheard of in our fine dining restaurant, but not common either).
Our sommelier sat down and drank all of it with him, getting absolutely hammered drunk, while running up a huge food tab (again, not uncommon for the som to have a glass of wine, but not three bottles). Overall bill was around $8000 with tip, and my manager was stoked on the big sale. About an hour later, he's flipping out - our som left with the guy to 'go get his credit card at the hotel' and never came back.
Manager has one of our bussers track the som down. Turns out the guest was a disgraced exec who was in a massive amount of debt and couldn't pay the bill - when the som found out, he was too embarrassed to come back and face the music. Our manager fired him.
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77points
#16
Oh lord, where do I begin...
1. One resort I worked for had a guest order ice cream from room service. I don't recall exactly what happened, but the guest was pissed about something with the order, and proceeded to deliberately dump the ice cream out of the bowl onto the floor and told the attendant it was his job to clean it up. When he went to get a towel from the cart, she blocked the door and told him he couldn't leave until he cleaned up the mess she made. Poor guy used the sleeve of his uniform shirt to do what he could. The following morning, the guest was "invited" to the resort manager's office where she was told that she was no longer welcome at the resort for the remainder of her stay and would not be welcomed back in the future under any circumstances.
2. Booked a group of high rollers from a well-known casino hotel in Vegas once. One evening they went into town for a night out. About an hour after arriving back to the resort, a group of ladies who could best be described as "entertainers" showed up at the security gate, claiming they were invited to "visit" the group. Turns out to be true, so they were allowed to stay.
3. A colleague was at the porte cochere late one evening, when a female guest came running up in nothing but a teddy, hysterical and bleeding copiously from a head wound. She got into a fight with her boyfriend who then threw her off a second floor balcony.
4. During a rehearsal dinner, the mother of the groom got into a fight with her husband. She was totally s**t-faced, and started to beat the poor guy with her high heel sandal. My friend was the conference services manager handling the event, and he literally had to carry her to a golf cart to go back to her room...and then carry her from the cart into the room, while her husband apologized profusely.
5. Finally, my personal favorite: we received a guest complaint about noise by one of our pools. Come to find out that a woman staying in a suite near the pool was locked out on her patio and was screaming/pounding on the sliding glass door. Rooms director and head of security go to the suite, and find a man sitting on the sofa calmly watching TV. The two of them had gotten into a fight and he deliberately locked her out on the patio. The best part though, was the final line on the Guest Incident Report: "Mr. and Mrs. X are celebrating their honeymoon and will be with us for 3 more nights."
2. Booked a group of high rollers from a well-known casino hotel in Vegas once. One evening they went into town for a night out. About an hour after arriving back to the resort, a group of ladies who could best be described as "entertainers" showed up at the security gate, claiming they were invited to "visit" the group. Turns out to be true, so they were allowed to stay.
3. A colleague was at the porte cochere late one evening, when a female guest came running up in nothing but a teddy, hysterical and bleeding copiously from a head wound. She got into a fight with her boyfriend who then threw her off a second floor balcony.
4. During a rehearsal dinner, the mother of the groom got into a fight with her husband. She was totally s**t-faced, and started to beat the poor guy with her high heel sandal. My friend was the conference services manager handling the event, and he literally had to carry her to a golf cart to go back to her room...and then carry her from the cart into the room, while her husband apologized profusely.
5. Finally, my personal favorite: we received a guest complaint about noise by one of our pools. Come to find out that a woman staying in a suite near the pool was locked out on her patio and was screaming/pounding on the sliding glass door. Rooms director and head of security go to the suite, and find a man sitting on the sofa calmly watching TV. The two of them had gotten into a fight and he deliberately locked her out on the patio. The best part though, was the final line on the Guest Incident Report: "Mr. and Mrs. X are celebrating their honeymoon and will be with us for 3 more nights."
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65points
#17
Saturday night, downtown metropolitan area, big chain hotel. 22 year old me is MOD. Booked out for a little girl’s dance competition.
Plainclothes officer flashes his badge, “we need to talk.” Oof. He proceeds to show me a Snapchat video clip of people waving around guns and various substance abuse, my hotel room as their backdrop.
“We’ve been tracking these guys for weeks. We wanna get them here.”
GM won’t answer phone. AGMs won’t answer theirs either. Too young to know how to say no to this kind of authority figure.
Throw the plainclothes officer into a houseman uniform and give him a clipboard. Let him go on weed-sniffing duty to track down this perp’s room number. No luck. Reviewing security footage didn’t yield anything either, we allege a friend of perp’s booked the room.
Officer sees the perp in the lobby. Asks me to get his attention to “say he won a drawing or something for a free hotel stay and get his room number.” Lol, I’m not doing that.
An hour later perp walks up to me and explains he lost his wallet. Awesome! “What’s your name so I can verify the ID in the wallet it gets turned in? And what’s your room number? I’ll give you a call with any information.”
Hand this over to plainclothes officer. His undercover name is Hash. He has a buddy cop with him now. They explain they’ll execute a SWAT raid shortly.
Um. I didn’t agree to this? Too late to back out now I guess. Still no answer from the A/GMs.
Assemble the staff and review active shooter protocols. Stay on site until SWAT arrives at 1am. Lead the SWAT raid up to the floor through the service elevator.
No knock explosive round to the door. Smoke everywhere - the hotel chain has open air atriums with rooms lining it. Fire alarms going off. Children and mothers sobbing.
No live gunfire though!
Permanently lost the dance group for the Sales Team after that. :) Glad I don’t work in hotels anymore.
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53points
#18
My dad works at nice hotel. He’s head of maintenance. One early morning he got called in because there was a huge leak coming down into the lobby. They figured out which room was above the leak and go knock on the door. No one would answer so they open it but the chain thing is locked. They hear the shower on and yell if anyone is in there. Finally a guy comes over who had just been woken up from being passed out drunk, opens the door and he opens the bathroom door… his gf was passed out in the shower on top of the drain! They thought she was dead. Drunk/hungover guy starts freaking out. They have to call the cops and ambulance. Girl ended up being ok.. just super drunk. Anyway, the hotel immediately charges their credit card on file the max amount. It was like several thousand dollars in damage. They were obviously banned from ever staying at the hotel again.
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53points
#19
I have the most boring one in the thread:
One night when I was a Doorman/Concierge, I had to bring up luggage to a guests room. I knock on the door and it's three guys and one girl in there. They have red solo cups and the big a*s bottle of grey goose. He asks me to join them and I politely decline, he is persistent but I stood firm. I'm trying to excuse myself and he digs in his pocket to tip me but only has 100 dollar bills. I say that's fine don't worry but he says no don't go anywhere. Then he opens up the room safe and grabs a handful of candy and gives it to me with a wink. I thank him and gtfo. In the elevator I got a closer look and realized it was a handful of jolly rancher candies with THC.
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50points
#20
Cleaning rooms one summer, entered checkout guests bathroom and noticed rolled up towels on the floor, pretty common. I start picking them up, hidden underneath, pile of human s**t. I open the shower curtain as I begin to smell an over powering stench of s**t, I find at least 10 dumps in the shower, mixed with p**s. The toilet, clean as f**k. Doesn’t looked like it was even used. I quit that day.
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49points