Gadling prompted the brain cells to start working with their post on the questions you should as when you check in and here are TravelGator’s additions to the list.
1. What floor is the fitness center on? We’re a bit fanatical about working out but for some reason the location of the fitness center is always buried in the information books in the rooms. So save yourself the hassle and just ask!
2. Is the room near the elevator? We recently learned this one the hard way when we got a room right next to the elevators and had to listen to them squeak all night. This one is even more important in old hotels where the elevators might not be quite as “whoosh” quiet as they should be.
3. Is the room near the WiFi port? WiFi strength drops as you get farther away from the base station and so does your access speed. If you are close, you’ll get solid performance (assuming of course that your fellow guests aren’t downloading movies from iTunes).
4. Does the room have a flat screen TV and if so how large? Flat screen TVs have ports into which you can plug your iPod or iPhone via a handy cable that Apple will sell you. Voila, movies for $4.99 rather than $15.99. One trick – sometimes you need to unplug the control cable from the hotel TV system to get control of the TV back and allow you to tell it to access the port you’ve plugged into. Of course bigger TVs are better!
5. What type of bed is in the room? If you don’t ask you might get stuck with two double beds, which is fine if you are traveling with a buddy but sucks if it is your better half. Even solo, small beds make you feel like you are twelve again.
6. Does the room have a window that faces the street? More often than not if you take advantage of the deal price you’ll get stuck in a room that faces an alley. They are smaller and face it, not nearly as nice. Sometimes all it takes is a smile directed towards the person checking you in to fix it.
7. Any upgrades available? If you stay in the same hotel more than once and they haven’t figured out you are a repeat, remind them and see if they’ll bump you up to the next level. It usually works for us!
Happy travels!
