please empty your brain below
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"Half an hour of wi-fi access is how much?"
PAYG dongle. T-mobile. £2 a day, or £15 a month. Sorted. Vodafone also do one. About £25 but first 30 days worth usually included. Check coverage on website first.
Blue Witch | Homepage | 02.02.11 - 7:06 a.m. | #
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Never walk barefoot in a hotel bedroom. Your feet will become a DNA map of the world.
Waterhouse | 02.02.11 - 7:48 a.m. | #
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Superdrug and such retailers do travel sized - i.e. teeny weeny bottles of your favourite soaps, shampoos etc. You'd never buy one though as the per ml cost is SO HUGE.
B | 02.02.11 - 8:12 a.m. | #
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Good for the Hampstead pub. Maybe they have one of those (illegal) mobile signal blockers.
Gavin Baxter | 02.02.11 - 8:13 a.m. | #
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In my local Asda they sell small 100ml bottles of shampoo and shower gel. Though for the prices they charge if you are going to be using that size with any regularity you would probably be better off buying empty travel size bottles and decant your normal shampoo and shower gel into them.
Barry | 02.02.11 - 8:22 a.m. | #
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My entire village has no mobile reception, unless you're on T-Mobile and even then only in parts of the village. And we're in East Sussex, not halfway up a mountain in Mongolia.
Some pubs are in old buildings with thick walls. My old local when I lived in Chichester had no phone signal indoors, simply because it was 500 years old and had walls that were 14 inches thick.
Bottled water in hotel rooms - I've seen this for a tenner, which I think is quite extraordinary.
graybo | Homepage | 02.02.11 - 8:24 a.m. | #
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OMG English plumbing!!!! I had heard bad things about it but when I visited for the first time I realised that some stereotypes are true. Arriving by plane my first experience of my mother country was a flooded toilet at Heathrow, spewing some else's turds on the floor. Then I discovered this amazing system of showers where one has to variously dial for water or shift some blue/red mechanism for temperature whilst turning on taps, or, more bizarrely, turning on an electrical current to make the thing work at all. Then one either got a dribble or a torrent. And on one occasion I had to get room service to turn the damn thing OFF. I mean come on guys your country is renowned for being WET. You have scads of water. It falls from the sky - even in summer .... can't you get a single, easy and consistent system for your bathrooms? You are forgiven, though, because you are my spiritual home after all, and also because you make the best beer in the world. And chips.
Antipodean | 02.02.11 - 8:43 a.m. | #
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Most times I have stayed in an hotel various shampoos have always been supplied in the bathroom.
Now that digital TV is replacing analogue and all new TV's have digital (Freeview in UK) reception built in I found during my stays at several UK hotels last year that they just provided a flat screen digital Tv and the Freeview selection of channels, which will include the News channels with "red button", (by the way I detest the red button in the corner of my screen and always remove it, you can do this on Freeview by pressing the green button on the remote control).
As for using the water from sink in room in old systems where a storage tank is used it may not be too good drinking it straight from the tap, but most new systems have cold water taps straight from the mains.
In an very old hotel in may be worth remembering that lead was once used for water piping.
With regards to breakfast I have found that you normally help yourself to cornflakes orange juice etc, and that while you eat these you eggs, bacon and all will be cooked to order.
I have also found that many hotels provide a clock/radio near the bed(s).
So I'm wondering what sort of hotel dg stayed in.
My main complaint about hotels is noise from other guests late at night, so I normally ask for a quite room then if it is noisy I can complain.
John | 02.02.11 - 9:06 a.m. | #
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Charged for an alarm call??!!! That's a new one on me...
Tim | 02.02.11 - 9:39 a.m. | #
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Hang on -- they seriously wanted to charge for a wake-up call?
I've seen some pretty stupid hotel charges but that's a new low.
And yeah, lots of places do small 'travel friendly' bottles of stuff, just wait until there's a decent deal on them.
SpaceDog | Homepage | 02.02.11 - 9:41 a.m. | #
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I'll never forget the hotel in Germany that I stayed at with some friends, a few years ago. The guy I was sharing a room with was new-in-love and used to use the phone in the room to call her every day (awwww)
The manager would give a beaming smile every time he saw him. By the end of the week I think his bill for the phone was about as much as his share of the room!
RogerW | 02.02.11 - 9:41 a.m. | #
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same hotel we were in DG? BW I have a vodafone dongle and it would not work in hotel this weekend. I wonder if they have something that blocks so you sue their internet? However Internet access was cheap compared to one of same group in Essex. NW was £5 per 24 hours, Essex £15.So no standard charge for the chain then? Hotel we stayed in was billed as fabulous views over canal and yes it would have been if the double glazed windows weren't faulty so misted up and no view available. We didn't ask to be moved as they had just moved us from room with nailed up windows, not good for asthma sufferer who needs fresh air.
ambermoggie | Homepage | 02.02.11 - 11:38 a.m. | #
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Charged for an alarm call?
Kirk | 02.02.11 - 11:49 a.m. | #
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There is no mobile phone reception in my ground floor flat in the middle of Edinburgh - an issue I put down down to thick walls of the Victorian tenement building and a residents campaign to restrict the number of mobile phone masts.
I have just stayed at a Travelodge in Reading for £29, though I had to pay an extra £10 to be able to leave my luggage in my room until 3pm (the reception staff refused to look after it), and £4 for a 'continental breakfast bag'. My mobile broadband worked OK in the room though.
James | 02.02.11 - 12:36 p.m. | #
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The shower thing is even more of an issue if you're long-sighted, as you need to wear glasses in the shower until it gets going.
I don't stay in hotels very often, but rare is the time that I don't need to call reception to complain about something, or at least have something that ought to be simple explained.
Wayne | 02.02.11 - 1:47 p.m. | #
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"Work of Art" by Sinclair Lewis is a splendidly satirical take on hotels, their staff and guests!
Richard | Homepage | 02.02.11 - 2:43 p.m. | #
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Always use two of those teabags. And take your own milk.
Sarah | Homepage | 02.02.11 - 4:46 p.m. | #
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My hotel bedroom dilemma is always with the pillows.... One is not enough and two is too many.
Cxx
Christian | 02.02.11 - 5:47 p.m. | #
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I never go anywhere that requires a hotel stay *sigh*
Though maybe I'm not missing much!
CornishCockney | 02.02.11 - 6:35 p.m. | #
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At least you did not have to search for bed bugs! They lurk under the mattress, headboards, under drawers (the furniture kind) and in dark corners.
I've never heard of a wake up call fee or Ceefax.
A very interesting read this morning DG! :D
kabinga | 02.02.11 - 7:47 p.m. | #
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DG,
Stop being a cheap-skate. Book yourself into a decent hotel and take all of their 'free' toiletries* when you leave, then you'll have some for your next stay in a cheap hotel....
* some of them even 'give' you a little sewing kit!
;-)
Simon
Simon | 02.02.11 - 7:56 p.m. | #
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Kabinga: "ceefax" is a teletext service running on the BBC's analogue signal
Timbo | 02.02.11 - 10:15 p.m. | #
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Sorry to say it, but you're spoilt! You should have stayed in a central Moscow hotel, c. 1962, with four to a room and the bathroom down the corridor with, mysteriously, no bathplug (you had to put a sock over the outlet to keep the water in). Also a Transylvanian hotel in a main Romanian city, 1996, with mould in the corridors and black and white TV - just how Transylvania should be, not at all like Surrey. In spite of all this we had fascinating experiences travelling around.
Vivien | 02.02.11 - 11:20 p.m. | #
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Timbo, I had to "google" Ceefax. Now I "Cee" what it is. Thanks!
kabinga | 03.02.11 - 12:44 a.m. | #
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As I sit in a hotel room far away from home, having despondently decided that I'm going to have to give up on the idea of fresh air because I can't open the windows and I can't figure out how to turn off the air con that, yes, is sounding on the supersonic side...and having spent 20 minutes pressing every button on the TV and then completely rearranging the wiring so I could at least get some noise out of the thing...having asked Reception 'but the Internet was free last time. And you want me to pay how much now?'...
...this made me laugh like a lunatic.
Which had the edifying and bonus effect of quietening down the guests in the next room. Thank you DG.
Rose | 03.02.11 - 12:25 p.m. | #
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I went to a nice hotel once. It had a "nice" bill to go with it.
Still, beats a Premier Inn.
Andrew Bowden | Homepage | 03.02.11 - 3:13 p.m. | #
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another important question: When's the decent time to stuff all the towels, ashtrays, soaps and showercaps into your suitcase?
Ian Polmear | 05.02.11 - 1:49 a.m. | #
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