What Hotel Workers Don’t Want You To Know
A Reddit thread recently asked employees of 5-star hotels what goes on that management doesn’t want the public to know. And the answers were more than I ever wanted to know. At the time I’m writing this there are over 12,000 responses. So what exactly is it that hotel workers don’t want you to know?
Disclaimer: proceed with caution-you may never look at a hotel the same way again.
Turns out a lot more people than you would expect die in hotel rooms. A common theme is people booking rooms and taking a fancy bucket-list vacation only to end it afterward. Most of the time the stories never get out as it would be bad publicity for the hotel.
You can get away with a lot as long as you don’t disturb other guests and you spend enough money. There were many examples of this mentioned. A couple of notable ones: “We don’t bat an eye at prostitution or whatever goes on in the rooms as long as it doesn’t affect other guests. Half the women that come to the bar are working girls looking for a sale. The only thing that the hotel industry ever really reports is human trafficking.” NaniBakaNani
User mchop68said “I worked in security for one and housekeeping called us all the time for drugs they’d find in a room. The first thing we’d ask for is the room number and we’d look up the name of the guest. If it was a VIP or someone important to us we’d tell them to leave it there and “we’d take care of it.”
If the guest was someone we didn’t know and not important to us we’d go up there and take it out of the room, then threaten to evict them from their stay if they did it again.
The clues/hints we would use: -what’s their status tier? Diamond members almost always got a pass -how did they book the room? If it was a 3rd party like Expedia…no pass -how many times had they stayed at our specific property? 5 or more…pass -how much had they charged up? If they were spending money on property outside of the room rate…pass
Basically, you could have cocaine in your room if you spent enough money.”
Bed bugs are something that every hotel has dealt with. A user named Tkieron said that when dealing with the issue the hotels “they go scorched Earth on the room. Steam cleaning, massive chemical cleaning, bagging everything up etc. Cleaning companies come in etc.”
Those chocolate fountains? Yeah, not the most sanitary. Picture this: it’s an expensive Sunday brunch. Well, little Timmy just double-fisted strawberries directly into that chocolate, bit into both strawberries then triple dipped into the chocolate AGAIN! And some old rich lady just sneezed on it. And somebody else just dropped their snack into it. The best part: that chocolate gets strained and saved for the next week’s brunch. Chocolate is way too expensive to throw away. According to user Unusual_Form3267.
Influencers are some of the worst guests. Most users said that celebrities were most always gracious and nice and just wanted to be left alone. The worst guests according to many users were “Instagram Influencers”. Most wanted/expected things for free in exchange for posting their location. And unlike the A-list celebrities (or even C and D list) it is observed that they have the biggest “do you know who I am argument”.
The thread also evolved from just what hotel workers don’t want you to know. We also got just some good stories and things people witnessed. A user CandyBarKiller worked in a Beverly Hills hotel. Here are some of the things they observed.
Worked in five-star hotels in Beverly Hills.. boy do I have stories:
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Sheikh picks up a hooker in the bar, takes her to his room. She roofies him and steals tens of thousands of dollars of cash, watches, and valuables
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Husbands who will say hello to staff with their mistress on their arm on Thursday night and their wife on Friday night
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Famous teen celebrity left a room full of needles and various drug paraphernalia behind for housekeeping to clean up
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Middle eastern royalty ships in multiple Ferraris and Lamborghinis to the hotel from their home country to drive for the week; caught drag racing later that night by the cops in the neighborhoods of Beverly Hills
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Largest checkout bill I’ve ever seen was roughly $2 million for guest who rented out an entire floor of suites for three weeks, promptly paid via wire transfer
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Had to procure $100k cash for a guest whose wife wanted to shop on Rodeo Drive the next morning, the local bank doesn’t even have that much. Had to get an armored car from the central LA bank branch to deliver
These are just some of the things that hotel workers don’t want you to know. And honestly, it’s probably better off that way.
Read the full thread here
