Saturday, February 17, 2007

Travel Blogging - Pet Peeves

I think this is a post that I'll keep adding to over time just to gripe about, and hopefully at some point, someone who can actually make a difference will pay attention.

Hotels

Plastic wrapped soap -
for the life of me I can't figure out why even five star hotels wrap their soaps in plastic. I instinctively reach to wet my hands before grabbing the soap - which is a problem when it is wrapped in slippery plastic and sometimes even double wrapped! Hotel Harbour Plaza Metropolis (HK) does this as does Novotel (Guangzhou).

Toilet paper dispensers that require gymnastics to reach - I was surprised the Novotel does this. You have to do a near 180 behind you if you're sitting on the throne in order to reach the toilet paper. It's a flippin' new hotel too. The dispenser sits immediately next to the flush chamber or whatever it's called.

Employees who care more about their own convenience than those of their customers - Admittedly I haven't seen this at any 0f the five star hotels I've stayed at but it's a costless thing that all employees in hospitality should know - i.e. hold the elevators for customers particularly when you're the only one in there and particularly when there's only one elevator and it's slow as heck.

Airplanes

Unexplained in-flight acrobatics - Sometimes turbulence causes you to drop a few feet out of nowhere - which I am told is not unusual, but it would help if the pilots came on to explain it to the frightened passengers afterwards. Plus side - unusually compliant passengers for the rest of the flight .

People who don't care about the people in front and behind their seats - I'm one of those people who don't think it's worth travelling business class in general. Hook me up with an aisle seat and an electrical plug (yes! they have those now in AC economy), and I'm pretty happy. But it's annoying when people in front of you are fully reclined, they get up and they slam themselves back on the seats - it's even more annoying when you're fully reclined sleeping and the person behind you struggles pulling themselves up using your seat as leverage.

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