What to do in hotels

i'm obsessed with them

Have you ever heard of hotels????? It’s like staying with a friend but if you accidentally piss in the bed nobody will know. Or being at home except nothing like being at home. It’s the restaurant of the sleeping world, if that makes sense?

I’ve never been in a hotel that I’ve hated, which shows how little I’ve travelled. Sure, I did a short film in Essex earlier this year and they set me up in a Campanile that looked like a scene from one of those torture-porn horror films I can’t watch (so how do I know it looked like that? A paradox!) and each night the smell of weed emanating from the vent in the bathroom was so strong my eyes watered (plus one night there were three blood-curdling screams at about 2am which turned out to be incredibly precise three-part boning) but I lit a scented candle and went to sleep listening to audiobooks feeling like the luckiest person alive. I brought my own mattress topper.

Oh actually, there was one time I didn’t enjoy myself. I was watching the news last year about Paris’s bedbug outbreak while in a (very fancy) package holiday (ok quite fancy) hotel in Fuertaventura (ok very normal, but fancy for me) and ended up sleeping on the floor on a towel for two nights because I ‘could feel bugs on me’.

And also the time I arrived at an airbnb in Bristol for a little writing jaunt but the first thing I saw on Tiktok (yes, I used to go on Tiktok. I don’t anymore) was a guide to hidden cameras in Airbnbs. I didn’t get to sleep til 4am convinced the mirror was two-way because my finger reflection had no gap when I poked the glass. It wasn’t until the last day (and a week of awful insomnia) that I realised the wall the mirror was on was outside-facing so unless the mirror was being surveilled by pervert birds I was fine.

Other than that, god I love them. Especially when travelling for work which I’ve done loads this year (spanning from ‘very exciting’ to ‘not exciting’ to ‘why did I say yes to this’ and no, the short film where people next door boned in triptych wasn’t the worst thing I did at all, it was actually quite fun) so I’ve had a lot of time to work out my Hotel Vibe.

Throw stuff everywhere

Like fucking trash that room. No I’m joking, I am very respectful of the soft and hard furnishings, but I do relish being a bit messy. Bathroom stuff goes in the bathroom, work stuff goes on the little desk, books and glasses and phone charger go on the bedside table, clothes go eveerrrrryyyyywhere.

Currently I am lying in a hotel in Newcastle (howay, etc) and can see a coat on the chair, a top underneath the chair, a sock on the windowsill and the rest of my outfit is outside the shower in a formation implying spontaneous combustion. Also I mean right outside the shower, the trousers concertinaed into the shoes, the shirt piled on top of the trousers, like when the Snowman melts and England weeps.

This is probably a personal thing - and if I’m somewhere for longer than three days I end up tidying and putting everything away - but I spend a lot of my energy at home trying really hard to be tidy in order to be untidy. It used to be an absolute state so we’re getting there, but the effort I make is still far too exhausting for my partner to continue finding yoghurts in the bathroom cabinet.

In the hotel? I’m king. A delightful messy king. The sort of king that is so messy nobody gets to see it because I put the do not disturb sign up the entire time.

Leave little notes

Also the sort of king that is too pale (so all of the English ones then), requiring fake tan to be applied the night before and washed off the morning after. Which means the sheets go orange. Which means I leave a little post-it note saying sorry. I think fake tan comes out really easily, but still? I don’t put that on the note, I say ‘I’M SO SORRY ABOUT THE FAKE TAN I HOPE IT COMES OFF :-)’

I didn’t realise tipping was a thing

I know tipping is a thing in general - tipping one’s hat to a lady, for example - but I didn’t realise you’re meant to do it in hotels. Other than when you’re staying in a penthouse suite at The Ritz and a bellhop shuffles his feet saying ‘excuse me m’lud’ and you tuck a crisp fifty into his embroidered pocket. I’ve seen the films, yeah. I’ve seen Trolls 2.

I tip in restaurants (in the places where you don’t order at the till, get your own cutlery, your own drinks and cook the meals yourself etc), I tip my hairdresser, I tip my dog’s hairdresser, but I guess I thought hotel tipping was for rich people.

If I’d given it one iota of thought, I would obviously have left money alongside my tanned sheets rather than a tiny post-it note. Mad that I carry post-it notes with me but I won’t be explaining myself.*

*I accidentally put post-it notes in my bag in 2021 and haven’t been arsed to remove them.

Either miss breakfast or Go To Town

Love being on holiday and getting told by the receptionist that breakfast is between 6.30am and 9am. Love hearing about the local myths and legends.

When I’m working, however, my call time is usually in the 7s or 6s (as in 7am or 6am. I hope you understand, I struggle to refer to these times normally because they are against my culture) so I get to go downstairs and eat twelve cold fried eggs, beans, mushrooms, tomatoes and hash browns next to two men saying ‘how’s the Northampton branch hitting those numbers?’ with so little passion as to be heartbreaking.

Recently I was at a Crowne Plaza and they did hardboiled eggs that were still warm, so we’d fill our pockets with them for the rest of the day. Nothing like a surprise pocket egg to really give you and those around you a boost. You can also play ‘Guess what’s in my pocket’ because nobody is going to say ‘a small old egg’.

Get the room really cold

Nothing worse than an overheated hotel room. Makes me panic in the night and have bizarre dreams - last night I accidentally turned the heating up rather than the aircon and dreamt I was running from the government with a friend (although on reflection it might have been Chris Pine?) who had an elephant trunk on his face. We escaped from prison with me holding onto his trunk and dangling out of the window, and the trunk felt like very cheap foam.

Light a scented candle

It’s not going to set the fire alarm off (especially not in the Campanile, where the fire alarm is made of drugs) and it personalises the experience. Currently I’ve got a Gingerbread on the go for the festive season. Earlier in the year I had Ocean Breeze which smashed in my bag (it was in a glass holder) and now my bag smells of wind.

Order chips on room service

One thing you should know about me before I get into this: I have astonishing water retention. If I eat late, or eat at a normal time but the food is very salty, I swell like a pumped tire and have to remove all my rings and socks.

I also really, really, emphatically don’t mean this in that way women who are naturally slim feel the need to remain relatable. I mean I wake up in the night with pins and needles in my feet because my socks have become too tight due to my ankles swelling up, costumes that fitted me the previous day no longer fit after a Wagamamas (why have media types started calling Wagamamas ‘Wagas’? I hate this. I’m going to start calling Nandos ‘Dos’), and I need to bring replica bras in two sizes to every shoot so as to avoid Four Boob Syndrome. Please don’t comment if this water retention thing sounds like a terrible disease, I don’t want to know.

A huge reason I don’t want to know is, if there’s a 24 hour room service at the hotel I will order salty chips at 2am. It is one of my great joys and the accompanying feeling the following day of looking like someone put a blonde wig on a swede (the turnip, not the People) is worth it.

It’s also absurdly funny to me that there’s an additional £3.50 minimum room service charge applied, so your £4 chips end up being £7.50. What a waste of money and everyone’s time. What an unprofessional move. But this is the fabric of life.

I do leave the room in a good state

I promise. It sounds like I don’t, doesn’t it? But apart from the orange bed, chip plates, arctic temperature and possible errant pocket eggs that’ve rolled underneath the bed, I do leave it looking ok. Plastered with post-its saying I HOPE THIS OKAY HAVE A NICE DAY I’M SORRY.

Tomorrow I’m staying in a dog-friendly hotel with my actual dog and I’m incredibly excited. They provide water bowls and a separate little bed even though she’ll probably just sleep in my bed, on my head, with her arse up my nostril.

Goodbye everyone see you next week for more high octane, boundary-breaking, unflinching observations.