Oh, Hotel Industry. Don't Let Terrorism Make You Lose Your Damn Minds.

by Ryan Vagabundo

This post was prompted by happening to see a local news report last night about how the new year has brought a change in policies at some major hotel chains when it comes to accessing rooms.

To sum it up as succinctly as possible, some are going to barge into your room to do a "visual inspection" at least once every 24 hours. Others have instructed their housekeeping staff to snitch to security if a "do not disturb" sign is up for anywhere from 12 to 72 hours.

Disney is the headliner, because their policy is the most egregious by far. They've declared they are entering your room at least once per day to snoop around, even if you don't want housekeeping.

You kind of expect this sort of thing from Disney, as they have a creepy cult-like history and they cater almost exclusively to upper-income American families with kids, AKA the most scared-of-their-own-shadow people on Earth. If it was just them, it would be no big loss to the general "no fixed address" community. Unfortunately, it's not just them. They're the worst of the bunch, but some other major chains are implementing snitch-based policy that isn't looking much better.

A few other major chains have implemented a slightly less intrusive policy, but one that still sucks. They've instructed staff to snitch to security or management if a "do not disturb" sign is on a door for a certain period of time. At Hilton properties, it's 24 hours. The Wynn in Vegas will flag you as a Commie Terrorist if your sign is up for 12 hours. And Boyd, who have casino-hotels in Vegas and a few other areas, regard you as a threat to freedom, liberty and the nation's vital fluids if you have the sign up for more than 48 hours.

So Why Is This A Big Deal?

As a "no fixed address" traveler, I regularly have long multi-day stays at one particular hotel. Most of the time I immediately throw the "Do Not Disturb" sign on when I check in and don't take it off until I check out.

Why? Well, I don't need housekeeping, for one. And they always want to come in at some random, unpredictable time that never ends up being good for me - often I'm working in the room all day, and they may wind up interrupting something. I also like to take midday naps, right when they are usually going through cleaning.

If maintenance needs in for some issue, they can coordinate a time to do it with me. I've spent thousands of nights at hotels in my life and cannot think of a need for maintenance to just pop in unexpectedly with no prior notice outside of some major, unusual emergency.

Also, frankly, I don't trust the staff. There are lots of housekeepers and maintenance people out there who are honest, and safe to leave your stuff with. That said, there are also bad apples, especially in a low-level, low-entry-barrier, high-turnover job like cleaning up at a hotel. Read any reviews online of pretty much any hotel that has been around for some time and you'll see some sort of reports of stuff disappearing from rooms at some point. Look at some of the hidden cam vids people have posted on Youtube too. It happens.

Maybe your particular hotel doesn't have any dishonest staff, but I have no way of knowing that. That sign being up is at least some sort of deterrent against casual theft, or a housekeeper leaving a door ajar while they run off for some cleaning supply and some tweaker sneaks in behind them. It also keeps potential room invaders guessing as to whether someone is actually in the room or not. It's more security for ME.

Finally, I don't want people in my shit, or barging in at some inopportune time. While a only relatively small percentage might be willing to steal, a lot more are fine with snoopy-snooping if they think they can get away without consequence.

How The Hell Do They Even Keep Track Of This?

My prediction - this is going to get quietly and almost totally walked back at these hotels by the end of 2018. Due to mass customer complaint when poorly-trained low-intelligence staff inevitably overstep their bounds and do something disrespectful / rude, combined with maybe some lawsuits for the same.

We'll set Disney aside, because they're the one entity crazy enough to not only keep doing this but to even double down by putting active cameras in the TV or something (because Disney thinks they own the f'n world). Let's just consider the other hotels with the new "snitch on long-term DND sign" policies.

How the hell does the hotel staff even know exactly how long a sign has been up when it comes to a period of multiple days? People change shifts, people have days off. They pass by infrequently - how do they know it wasn't up just during the time they last passed, then went down for a while?

So Why The Hell Are They Even Doing This?

Well, the short answer is, Because Terr'ism.

Specifically, because of the bad PR for the hospitality industry generated by gambling loony Stephen Paddock last year, who shot up the south end of the Vegas Strip for reasons we may never know.

Paddock was the edge case of all edge cases, though. It's not like there's a rash of this stuff - it was just him. And he was part of a pretty small demographic in both being a multimillionaire, a gun nut, having some sort of mental issues and also being a "high roller" who played through millions at the MGM properties.

This is all a PR stunt, effectively. If the argument is "more frequent room checks would have stopped Paddock", it's an incredibly stupid one. MGM was giving this super-high-roller carte blanche to such a degree that they let him use the staff freight elevator to haul all his guns up! Hey, here's an idea - instead of arbitrarily busting into everyone's rooms at random, why not just investigate giant red flags like that one?

And let's say MGM ignored his DND sign and "visually inspected" his room against his will. Again, this is a super high roller that they bend over backwards to cater to. They see some guns laying around in his room. Are they going to call the cops, or are they going to just shrug it off as more eccentric rich gambler behavior, and not do anything for fear of pissing off one of their "whales"?

Hotels are doing this just to give the appearance they're doing something to make guests feel safe. What they're actually doing is pissing off literally their entire client base over a virtually non-existent threat. This is bound to fail, it's just a question of the degree these properties want to drag these stupid policies out before they collapse.

I went through something similar to this in the military years ago. A guy living in the dorms at some base (not the one I was at) was cleaning his gun and it went off, going through his ceiling and killing someone. The guy in charge of our base dorms immediately flipped his shit and announced there would be random room inspections with drug-sniffing dogs, drawer tossing and the whole nine - because of something that happened in another state. In the face of mass complaint, his response was "WELL I HAVE TO LOOK LIKE I'M DOING SOMETHING FOR THE PARENTS."

Well, concerned parents weren't the only affected parties. More directly affected were the hard-working people having their rooms tossed by smelly dogs at random-ass times after putting in 12-hour shifts in a wartime environment, and were afraid to "get intimate" in the privacy of their own home for fear of someone busting in on them. All for something they never had any control over anyway, and was a one-in-a-million occurrence.

(The dogs never ended up appearing - apparently, in the face of mass complaint, somebody backed him off this insane idea.)

Fortunately, not everyone has lost their minds. Caesars has actually gone in a more rational direction, despite having properties on the Strip just blocks from where the shooting took place. Starting last year they have an "opt out of housekeeping and get $10 per day in dining credit for your stay" policy, which has continued into this year. Not only do they stay the hell out of your room, they pay you for the cost savings!

I strongly suspect sanity will similarly prevail across the hotel industry, once it is shown that it makes a whole lot more money.