How to Piss a Hotel Full of People Off In 10 Easy Steps

It's interesting to me how many of you were all over learning of ways to piss off an airplane full of people in 10 easy steps.  I got more readers on that than on anything I have posted in weeks!  I can do tons of research on really amazing places, but it turns out that you just want to know how to piss people off.....  Well... if that's what you want to know, you have come to the right place my friends.  I have more knowledge on that topic than any other I am likely to ever write about.  I'm practically an authority on the topic.  Ask anyone I have ever dated, most of the people I have worked with or my parents.  I'm like an idiot savant when it comes to pissing people off.

So now I'm trying to figure out what other areas of travel people can be pissed off in.....  Well, it turns out that it's quite easy to piss people off in hotels.  Believe me....  It's happened to me on more than one occasion.  I'm pretty sure I told you all once before about the time when people kept me up very late one night at the old Sheraton Park Central in Dallas when I had to be at an early meeting the next day.  That was the occasion when I set the alarm for the radio to come on just before 7 AM with the volume turned up to the max just before leaving the hotel and placed the alarm clock in the drawer of the night stand so that it wouldn't be easily found and then checked out.  The thing is that if you plan to party as loudly as possible on a week night in a nice hotel that business people frequent and do so until after 3 AM, you should also plan to be awake at 7 AM when those business people leave for their meetings that they were trying to rest up for.  With that said, I'll now tell you about 10 other ways to piss a hotel full of people off without even really trying.....

10.  As a hotel, take a reservation, insist that if the reservation isn't canceled prior to 6 PM on the day of arrival the customer will be charged.  But when the exhausted traveler arrives at 8 PM for the reservation, inform him/her that you have no rooms available.  REALLY???!?!?!?!  You've charged me for a room that I am not allowed to sleep in?????  When this happened to me, I had a reservation for 4 nights.  The hotel informed me that they would send me off to a much nicer hotel for the first night of my reservation at their expense but then I would have to come back to their hotel for the other three nights.  You would be surprised at how forceful I can be when you tell me that you've charged me but given away my room and now I have to get back in my rental car and drive down the road to a nicer hotel, but I have to come back this "miserable rat trap" in 24 hours hoping that you haven't given my room away again (Okay, I'll admit now that the Sheraton in question was actually a very nice one and was not a "miserable rat trap" but for the purposes of my argument at the time, I might have exaggerated slightly.  Hey!  Don't judge me, it won the argument!).  I wound up in the nicer hotel for all 4 nights at the Sheraton's expense.  Thanks Sheraton!

9.  Immediately following a very long week for many adult business people schedule a prom in your hotel and make sure that you have no one watching the fire alarms near where all the drunk teenagers are imbibing.  For me one Saturday night this resulted in not one but two walks down 14 flights of stairs after midnight while firefighters walked around looking for a non-existent fire and drunk kids stood around giggling.  Fun times....

8.  Make sure that the photos you post on your hotel website are from just after the last remodel sometime in the 1970's.  After all the hotel always looks it's best right after a remodel and nobody wants to see photos of the unsightly rooms as they actually look now.... right?  You're doing the customer a service!

7.  As a hotel guest, bring as many kids with you as you can find when you check in.  Round up the neighbors kids if necessary.  The key to pissing off the other occupants of the hotel is as many rowdy kids as you can find.  So bring them all with you and insist on a quiet room as far away from the elevators and ice machine as possible (you know, so the precious little ones aren't awakened during the night).  Then approximately every 30 minutes throughout the night, have a group of the kids race down the hall stomping and screaming to get another bucket of ice out of the machine that is conveniently located right against the wall that my bed butts up to.  Ahhhhhh.... kids are precious, aren't they?

6.  Can't find kids to bring with you?  Worry not, adults work just fine.  Go out.... have a few drinks!  Then come stumbling back into the hotel at approximately 3 AM.  Once you get in the hall just outside of your room, remember suddenly that you forgot to tell "Joe" who you are traveling with but whose room happens to be on the other end of the hallway, to meet you downstairs for breakfast at 10 AM.  But here's the thing.  You should never inconvenience yourself by walking down the hall and speaking to him quietly or by walking in your room, picking up the phone and calling his room.  Nope!  Just shout down the hall, with as country of an accent as you can muster up yelling "HEY JOE!!!!  MEET ME DOWNSTAIRS TOMORROW AT 10 IN THE RESTAURANT!!!!"

5.  Once you have made your breakfast arrangements with Joe, proceed to walk into your room letting the door slam behind you for effect.  Then turn your TV on and make sure the volume is at the max so that you can hear it while you shower.  Your neighbors will LOVE this!

4.  Does that hotel room you are staying in have a balcony?  Then you are probably going to want to slide that door going outside open and closed at least 50 times throughout the night.  Make sure that each time you close it, you close it extra hard so that no air escapes the room... in the 50 times that you open and close it.  While you're out on that balcony, be sure you have several very loud conversations.  If there is no one in your room with you to talk to on the balcony, then just start yelling at the people walking around on the ground.  Whether you know them or not, just shout out.  They'll probably stop and have a conversation with you.

3.  Are you staying in one room while your friends are staying in another?  Pick up the phone and call them at all hours of the night.  But here's the key, make sure that you let the phone ring at least 30 times before you come to the conclusion that they must not be in the room and hang up.  After all the room is almost 100 square feet in size, so it's probably going to take them a while to get to the phone after they hear it.

2.  If you are staying on a upper floor, make sure that when you walk across your room you do your world famous elephant impersonation.  You know the one where you stomp along and people can hear you coming from miles away???!!?!?  The people trying to sleep below you will get a real kick out of that.

1.  NEVER, EVER, EVER.... use your inside voice.  Inside voices are for children, not adults and don't you go forgetting it just because you have checked into a hotel with paper thin walls and other people who might want to sleep.  After all, you paid for that room.... you should be aloud to talk as much and as loudly as you wish!  It's all about you and you should NEVER forget that!