{"id":7667,"date":"2015-12-03T20:08:07","date_gmt":"2015-12-03T19:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mentor.com\/colinwalls\/?p=7667"},"modified":"2026-03-26T16:47:34","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T20:47:34","slug":"hotel-pros-and-cons-and-why-i-forget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/2015\/12\/03\/hotel-pros-and-cons-and-why-i-forget\/","title":{"rendered":"Hotel pros and cons and why I forget"},"content":{"rendered":"

I stay in a lot of hotels. In general, it is not an exciting experience. People, whom I encounter, who have no experience of business travel, think that it is like being on vacation all the time. Staying in a hotel is generally an OK experience. Indeed, I find most hotels amazingly forgettable – possibly within minutes of checking out. For the most part, I only remember a hotel if it is very bad [and there have been a handful of those over the years] or it is exceptionally good [and, I am pleased to say, a few are].<\/p>\n

However, I might remember a place because they made a brave effort …<\/p>\n

This week I am traveling and stayed in a couple of hotels. One of them [which I am not going to name or even say which city it is in] was, for the most part very nice. The room was comfortable, there was a bar with a reasonable atmosphere and a health suite with a nice pool. Overall, there was nothing to complain about. But what makes a hotel special is its attention to detail and a few things stand out in this place.<\/p>\n

Internet connectivity in hotels is very variable. I expect to get a reasonable WiFi connection at no charge and I am rarely too disappointed nowadays. This hotel offered a free service, with limited performance, but it was good enough for me. I connected with my iPad and it required me to enter my room number and name. Once I was connected, I never needed to log in again. So far, so good – it is very hassle free. I connected my phone too and that was fine. Later, when I went to connect my laptop, the system announced that I could only connect two devices to the free service. I thought that this was an unreasonable constraint. I am unlikely to be using the Internet from more than one device at any time. I was traveling alone, but, if I travel with my wife, I can easily imagine us having 7 Internet connected devices between us and I do not think that we are particularly unusual.<\/p>\n

Although I like hotels which have contactless keys, which just need to be in close proximity to the lock, this place had the next best thing – a swipe card. These are just fine when they work and mine did work flawlessly. I was surprised, when I first tried to charge something to my room, to be asked for my key card in stead of my name and room number. They swiped it and a check was printed which included my name and room number. This was quick and efficient, which was pleasing. However, I realized that the design has a fatal flaw. If I lost my key or it was stolen, until I noticed and reported the loss [which could be a while], someone could easily make charges to my room, as I did not see how they could verify a signature. Worse still, having made a charge, the illegal possessor of my key would see them room number on the check and pay a visit. Although I never assume that a hotel room is impregnable, this would be rather too easy.<\/p>\n

There is some good news. They fixed something that I find very irritating. At almost all hotels, to request \u201cDo not disturb\u201d, I need to hang a card on my door handle. These almost always blow off as I open the door and I have to bend down to replace it. Not a big deal, but annoying nevertheless. These guys have the problem nailed. Above the door handle is a small magnetic disk.<\/p>\n

\"Evernote<\/a><\/p>\n

On the top of the DND card, there is another one.<\/p>\n

\"Evernote<\/a><\/p>\n

The magnet is powerful enough to hold the card in place however briskly I opened the door.<\/p>\n

\"Evernote<\/a><\/p>\n

Well, at least they got something right …<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I stay in a lot of hotels. In general, it is not an exciting experience. People, whom I encounter, who…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71677,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spanish_translation":"","french_translation":"","german_translation":"","italian_translation":"","polish_translation":"","japanese_translation":"","chinese_translation":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[302],"industry":[],"product":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-7667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-off-topic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71677"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7667"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10422,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7667\/revisions\/10422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7667"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=7667"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=7667"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=7667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}