After traveling all over the world for thirty years, I have plenty of stories about strange events occurring. Some of these things happened in or around hotels.
Many years ago, I was staying in a high rise hotel in Akron, Ohio, that had a fire. It was early in the evening and I was lying on the bed watching the television after a long day. The fire alarm started ringing loudly. I walked to the door and looked out. The man in the next room was doing the same thing. He looked at me and said, “They don’t have fire drills in hotels, do they?” We didn’t say anything else, but we closed our doors and quickly got dressed.
By the time that I was walking down the hall, the building was filling with smoke. Three or four people were waiting for the elevator and I got on it with them. I learned a lesson that evening. When the elevator stopped, it was starting to fill with smoke. The fire fighters who were waiting to get on had breathing equipment in use and they were carrying axes. Note to file: Never get on an elevator in a burning building. It turned out that a mattress had caught on fire causing smoke damage to the entire building.
A few years ago, I had flown to London from Houston. I was able to check in to my hotel early and I did not have a meeting until mid-afternoon. Conventional wisdom is to take a long sit-down bath when you have the time to get over the way you feel. I was preparing to bath, walking around the room without any clothes on my body.
I guess the housekeeping staff does not worry as much about people being in a room at that time in the morning. The door opened and I was standing five feet from the woman who was going to check my room. I am not especially modest, but I did tell the hotel manager that if the same event had happened to my wife or my daughter, they would have needed years of counseling.
My favorite story happened to a good friend. She was a very proper career woman, nearing retirement age. She had checked into a quaint English hotel. In most of Europe, the person who checks you into the hotel also accompanies you to the room.
There is always some difficulty speaking with the British, in spite of the fact that we supposedly use the same language. She mentioned that she needed to be awakened early the next morning. She had noticed that the hotel did not have telephones. Her host replied, “Fine, Madam, I will knock you up at seven in the morning”.
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Holiday Travel: 10 Hotel Safety Tips