Hotel etiquette: how to do it right

We are all well-mannered people or want to appear as such in polite society, and for this we need to know and follow certain rules. This also applies to hotels, where, if you behave correctly, you can not only make a good impression, but also receive pleasant bonuses. It is important to know some nuances in order to simply successfully integrate into the algorithms of the hotel business.

Reservation and check-in

Of course, you can book a room at the last minute, but it is better to do it in advance, which guarantees that you will receive accommodation of the optimal category at a favorable price. Most hotels only ask for a passport upon check-in, but it’s still worth taking your reservation confirmation with you, either electronically or printed. Prepare all documents in advance so as not to delay administrators and other guests awaiting check-in. Be polite and don’t make trouble, even if some difficulties arise - as a rule, everything is decided in favor of the guests.

How should you leave your room when leaving the hotel? 6 recommendations from maids:

How to behave when visiting

Firstly, if they invite you to visit, you need to give an exact answer whether to expect you or not. People can expect a certain number of guests. You need to come to visit on time, you shouldn’t come earlier, but you also shouldn’t be late. You are allowed to be late no more than half an hour. If unforeseen circumstances arise due to which it will not be possible to arrive at the agreed time, you should warn your friends and inform them of the time of arrival. To express gratitude for the invitation, it is advisable to give your friends a gift. This could be a box of chocolates, a bottle of champagne or flowers. If you are invited to visit for a birthday, then you need to prepare a gift in advance to please the birthday person.

When entering an invited house, you need to say hello not only to the owners, but also to the guests present. If there are unfamiliar faces among those present, it is worth introducing yourself. The main thing is not to be familiar and not to touch strangers with your hands again. It is also not advisable to bring strangers, children or relatives with you without first asking the owner of the house about it. This will cause bad emotions and a negative impression. You should not closely examine the design of the room and criticize it. It’s better to praise the interior, say something nice about the house.

When everyone is gathered and the hosts invite you to the table, it is recommended to take the offered seat without insisting on your choice. The following things cannot be done at the table:

shake hands across the table;
bother with your conversations (it is recommended to listen to other guests);
twist a foreign object in your hands;
notify the whole room about a dish you don’t like;
talk about health problems and illnesses;
fix your hair or appearance in front of everyone.

If you become bored and uninteresting, then you don’t need to tell everyone about it or sit with a stone face, constantly yawning. It is better to try to join the conversation or help the owners. There is a time when a guest will spill sauce on the tablecloth or turn something over. A well-mannered person should not pay attention and pretend that he didn’t notice anything.

If you took a child with you to the feast, you should explain to him the rules of behavior when visiting. We need to explain to children what is ugly:

scream at the whole house;
pick your teeth in front of everyone;
do not greet other guests;
interrupt;
cough without closing the mouth;
run around and check other people's closets.

If you urgently need to leave, you need to quietly inform the owners about this, and quietly say goodbye to everyone, waving your head. Also, you should not stay late and abuse hospitality. It will be inconvenient if the owners of the house begin to hint about your leaving. When leaving the premises, do not forget to express your gratitude to the owners.

Tips

A decent guest should always have a small amount of money ready for the hotel staff. But there are also rules here. It is enough to leave a tip for the doorman upon arrival and departure; you do not need to do this every day. The receptionist is thanked for small services, such as helping with luggage. We give the concierge a bonus at the end of their stay, the parking lot staff at every meeting, and we leave a couple of coins in a visible place for the maids in the morning. We treat waiters in a hotel restaurant like in any other - 10% when paying the bill.

Hotel workers share the worst guests they've ever worked with: first-person stories.

Common areas

Do not talk loudly in the corridors, especially from 22:00 to 8:00. When using the elevator, let others pass first; press the button for the desired floor only after everyone has entered the cabin. If you are traveling with luggage, try to place your things as compactly as possible - in a corner or against a wall.

Before visiting a gym, jacuzzi, or swimming pool, study their rules. They are usually described in detail on information boards. If the time for using services is limited, try to respect it and not make others wait. When relaxing with children, carefully monitor them so that they do not get hurt and do not disturb anyone.

In the room

During your stay, you cannot spoil or break things in the room - you will be asked to reimburse the cost of repairs. If you find that something no longer works, immediately report it to the reception so as not to become the culprit of the breakdown in the eyes of the hotel staff. Try not to turn on loud music and TV; perhaps the hotel has poor sound insulation, and people are relaxing in the next room. If the situation is the opposite - the neighbors are noisy, do not create a scandal: contact the administrator, let him solve the problem.

Under no circumstances take anything from your room when checking out: bathrobes, towels, slippers, dishes and any other reusable items are hotel property that you simply steal. If you really want to take something as a souvenir, take cosmetic accessories - shampoos, soap and other consumables. And if you like a robe or slippers, offer to buy them at the reception desk.

An important rule of behavior when visiting children that should not be broken (according to one mother)

Such guests do not bother me at all. We have a fairly large nursery with lots of toys, and I let them do whatever they want in there.

As a rule, we don’t go to visit, but guests come to us. This doesn't bother me either. I love to give my guest mothers coffee and cookies. This is no problem for me. I hope that when my sons grow up, we will always have a house full of their friends.

In short, I love receiving guests. And I’m not annoyed by a crowd of children who leave crumbs everywhere and break toys. Seriously. I'm not angry with them.

My son is two, and all his friends are about the same age. We all know how children of this age feel about order. You launch them into a clean room and after 15 minutes it’s like an atomic bomb exploded there.

But this is what surprises me. Most children this age don't even realize that cleaning up after themselves is an option. My son, for example, cleans up after himself. Not always, of course. Sometimes he resists and doesn’t do it. But I’m at least trying to convey to him the idea that cleaning up after yourself is necessary.

And this is exactly the only thing that infuriates me about mothers who bring their children to visit us. They feel that cleaning up after their child is not necessary.

But it’s disgusting to leave the guests, leaving a hellish mess there. I host you, let the children play whatever they want, treat you to coffee and feed you lunch. Your child is eating my child's cookies. I don't feel sorry, really! But why don't you clean up after yourself before you go?

When my son goes to visit someone, when I pick him up, I always insist that he clean up everything he has scattered. And nine times out of ten he won’t refuse. God, he cleans up after himself better when he’s away than at home!

I'm not asking you to pick up every piece of Lego or give me a wet clean, but damn it, can you at least do something? How about giving your child a hint, like, let's clean up after ourselves? Some mothers don't even consider it necessary to pick up the cookie wrappers that their child has thrown from the floor. Hey! This is where I really have to make an internal effort and remind myself that I invited these guests primarily for my son. Because they piss me off!

Seriously. Do you want people to look at you askance when visiting? Or did you think that your children were ill-mannered? Don't think.

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Communication with maids

Cleaning rooms every day is hard work that deserves respect. Try to follow simple rules for communicating with maids. You should not enter into conversations with them; it is better to leave the room so as not to disturb them. If cleaning is not part of your plans, use a special sign. If you forgot to hang it on the door handle, politely refuse to clean it or ask to move it. And under no circumstances open the door undressed.

To make the work of staff easier, do not throw things around, especially garbage. Place dirty towels in one pile and leave those that don’t need changing where they are.

Guest etiquette

Ask yourself a question: do you know how to behave with people and be pleasant in communication? Do you follow the rules of behavior at home, at a party, on the street, at the theater, at a party? After all, each social circle requires compliance with its own rules. It is easier for a well-mannered person to achieve success and make a career, because he will fit perfectly into any society. Therefore, try not to neglect the lessons of good manners, which will allow you to feel free in any situation.

Don’t be surprised by this question, because many people don’t even suspect that visiting people must follow certain rules. On a wedding anniversary, you don’t go to friends’ houses in formal mourning attire, and you don’t go to your neighbor’s for a cup of tea in an evening dress. In addition, think about where the saying “An uninvited guest is worse than a Tatar” came from. Not out of nowhere! Of course, there is another saying: “A guest in a house is a joy for the owner.” But here it is very important to determine which guest and which host.

If you were not invited, and you decided to follow the example of the wonderful Winnie the Pooh, then it’s better... call or write a letter (you can email). It is undesirable to rush out of the blue even to the closest people: perhaps even a visit from an adored daughter or beloved grandson at this very moment can disrupt some important plans of the owners. Yes, your close friends or relatives will probably be glad to see you at any time, but you can pay an impromptu visit only when there is no technical possibility to notify you of your arrival. In order not to put yourself and the owners in an awkward position, remember that an unannounced visit is permissible only in cases of extreme necessity or urgent matter.

If these are few or complete strangers, then simply a warning cannot be done. It is necessary to have an official invitation, agree on a specific time of visit, and clarify the nature of the event to which you are invited.

But, as the famous joke says, there are all sorts of cases. Therefore, if you still have to go without a special invitation, you should remember that people do not go to visit early in the morning and late in the evening. Forget what Winnie the Pooh taught you: whoever goes to visit in the morning does not act wisely, but completely tactlessly: you never know what kind of things the owners had planned. So take a walk somewhere before noon if you have absolutely nothing else to do. Well, after the “admiral’s hour” - with apologies, good reasons and **in no case empty-handed. **A flower for the hostess or a beautiful biscuit for the table will never be superfluous.

After eight o'clock in the evening, it is also better not to visit without a special invitation. Only very young companies or people with a bohemian lifestyle can afford such eccentricity, but they have their own rules, their own etiquette (or rather, the lack of it), and you and I would like to be known as respectable and secular people, right? True, all of the above applies only to visits to private homes, so-called “open social events” again have their own rules and, again, are not yet necessary or interesting for us.

But let’s say that “a terrible thing happened,” you came without an invitation and immediately realized that you had greatly violated the plans of the forcedly smiling hosts. Urgently look for an excuse to leave as soon as possible (“remember”, for example, about some urgent matter). But it’s better and easier to apologize for the inconvenience caused and arrange a new meeting, at a more convenient time, and possibly in a different place. In such a case, you should not be deceived by the cordiality and politeness of the owners of the house, no matter what kindnesses they lavish on you. When you leave, as they say, leave.

But **if you come, then you need to follow the rules even before the door is opened for you.**When you approach the apartment door, call briefly. Short! Don't press the bell button as if it were a fire alarm button on a ship. If they don’t answer the door right away, wait a while and call even more timidly. Perhaps no one is home, or perhaps the owners do not respond to the call because they do not want to respond to it. And excessive persistence will indicate that you are simply not educated enough. If the owners of the house want to open the door for you, two calls will be enough to do this.

If one of the family members opens the door, and the person you came to is not at home, but they will explain to you where he can be found, you should not do this unless absolutely necessary. You run the risk of stepping on the same rake again and arriving at the wrong time in yet another place where, perhaps, they don’t know you at all and don’t want to know you. Only in case of extreme necessity (a matter of life and death) can you go looking for the person you need from other people. But in general, the telephone was invented so that you could call whoever you need.

**Under no circumstances should you take strangers with you on a visit unless this has been previously agreed upon.**Under no circumstances! It is better to call the owners and postpone your own visit than to bring into the house a person who is a complete stranger to the owners of this house, and then be responsible for his actions, which may turn out to be quite peculiar. It is always better to answer only for yourself.

If your visit coincides with lunch or dinner and the hostess invites you to the table out of politeness, it is best to thank and refuse, citing what you recently ate. If the housewife is persistent and installs an additional device, she should not persist. It is indecent to leave immediately after eating, because it may give the impression that you were simply using your friends’ house as a free cafe.