Employees At Fancy Hotels Divulge Their Best Secrets

Cross-Contamination

"During housekeeping, hotels use different colored cloths to wipe your drinking glasses, cutlery, toilets, and sinks to avoid contamination. They just didn’t bother separating these cloths after wiping and moving to the next room."

- curry-sauce

The Secret Lives of Guests

"I did valet at an upscale hotel in Southern Florida, and the number of times I parked luxury vehicles with drugs haphazardly or precariously stowed in obvious places always blew me away."

"Not surprisingly, those guests were great tippers as they learned who to trust."

- lazerayfraser

Attention to Detail

"We take notes on your reservation profile. Everything from anniversary information to favorite cocktails and foods. We add notes to pass along to other staff."

- dez_navi

Four-Legged Stowaways

"$2k per night and this place has a serious rat problem."

- prof_dynamite

"Could be worse. My hotel has silly rats."

- snapwillow

What in the Mortuary

"It's pretty common to have a dead guest. There's a standard procedure for it and we take care of it quietly."

- Why_am_I_here033

Casino Funds

"I have a pretty interesting one. We know criminal enterprises have funded casinos in the past. I worked at Revel Casino (now Ocean) in Atlantic City before and after its opening."

"One thing they kept mentioning in our onboarding was that the triads were funding the casino. I thought it was super strange that these execs were just openly telling brand new hires."

- hornet_Critical

Like-New Beds

"I only work as a housekeeper at a regular four-star Hotel, but probably about 25% of people either bleed or leave s**t stains on the beds. It's truly atrocious how disgusting people are, especially when they know someone else is cleaning it up. Even the wealthier guests."

"And the best tippers are the cleanest people."

"If someone fully s**t on the bed and used towels to wipe, drank heavily and puked on the carpet in multiple places, and clogged the toilet, that person will not tip at all."

"But the person who barely used the full bed and didn't use the shower at all and was super clean and polite, now that's a good tipper."

- kpo987

Endless Supply of Gossip

"We turn a blind eye to drug dealers more often than you think. They hardly complain and usually pre-pay huge bonds happily. Also, we don't give a s**t if you're having an affair."

- NotTheGary_JustGary

Odd Celebrity Stories

"I worked cooking at an ultra-exclusive resort in Utah ($3k-$12k/night)."

"Nothing that exciting happened in my year there. I found a bottle in the tallboy (large fridge) labeled 'Kristen Belle's Breastmilk. DO NOT USE.'"

"I had put in my two weeks' notice and was really drunk on a day off, and made a post on Facebook about how Gordon Ramsay was coming and I hoped he wasn't filming 'Kitchen Nightmares' with us. I was fired within 24 hours, lol (laughing out loud). I did get to cook fish tacos for him and his family, though, and I heard he complimented the dinner kitchen crew directly (partially open kitchen), which is cool."

- OM3N1R

Poor Cruise Care

"A good friend of mine is a pilot. It's his first professional job. He flies an air ambulance. It's not typically picking up unstable patients in need of urgent care. More like repositioning stable patients."

"The vast majority of people he flies come from the cruise ship industry. If you get sick or injured on a cruise ship, they will dump you at the next port. It doesn't matter if the port doesn't have the kind of medical help you need. They just need you off the ship."

"It very well is up to you to arrange a private flight with medical crew to reposition you from Tobago to Tampa to get the medical help you really need."

- DoctFaustus

Collecting Stories

"We had an entire wing of the hotel infested with bedbugs. They just move through the walls from one room to the next. We waged a war of attrition that took years, and cost a lot of money, but we never stopped renting the rooms."

"We had one old guy though who was rich, divorced several times over, he just retired in the hotel. He had a room on the ground level right around the corner from the hotel bar. I don't know what he paid for it, but it wasn't cheap, and he furnished his own room."

"Everyone on staff knew his habits, knew his drink, knew when to leave him alone or when he wanted to chat. The funniest thing was, after he passed, he'd pre-booked his memorial at a totally different hotel. He liked his privacy, I guess. RIP, Hal."

- machuitzil

Bed Bug Horror Stories

"I worked cheap hotels and this is super common; even heat treating rooms professionally and quarantining nearby rooms they would always pop up somewhere weeks later through an air duct."

"When I check in to any motel or hotel, the first thing I do before bringing my bag in is lift the mattress and check the seams for bed bugs or blood spots. You can learn how from Youtube if you don't get first-hand experience."

"The crazy thing is if they spent a few thousand to bag every mattress they'd cut down on it significantly."

- galkasmash

Wild Stories

"I worked in room service at a very chic hotel in Miami. One guest requested that a specific waitress (not a room service worker) always deliver him food. Not exactly sure what went on in there, but he tipped her with a big bag of weed each time, which she would promptly bring back to share with the room service staff."

"I can confirm that the concierge will get you WHATEVER you want..."

"We had a local couple, who were staying with us to avoid being served for a lawsuit. We weren't allowed to say that they were staying there. The police eventually showed up for them."

"There were several times when guests would come to the front desk claiming the maids had stolen something from their room. They would be irate, demanding we call the police. Every. Single. Time. They found the item either in their luggage or car or their travel companions had moved/packed the item."

"One gentleman claimed that he forgot his very expensive camera in his room. My manager pulled up a video that showed him packing up his car, placing the camera on top of the car, and driving off without realizing it."

- SnarkyVamp

Questionable Christmas Bonus

"I used to work in accounts receivable for a couple of luxury hotels that were owned by the same LLC. We would open blocks of rooms for GENERIC SPORTS SEASON about eight months in advance."

"Due to high demand, these reservations had to be a two-day FRI, SAT stay. The payment was made in full (450-800 depending on room type). Refunds were available only if you canceled a month before the arrival date."

"When I first started in the position, I discovered $63,000 worth of reservations that had been canceled on time but were never refunded."

"I showed it to my manager, an absolutely incompetent woman who couldn't check in a guest if she needed to, she got back to me after discussing it with one of the owners."

"I can't remember how exactly she put it but I was told to just forget the matter and not to mention it to anyone. I got a $500 dollar cash Christmas bonus that year."

- Weirda**mustache

Secret Security

"Not a hotel employee, but associated with a popular convention that everyone would recognize."

"The convention attendees get so out of control that the hotel will only host the convention if they have a private security force."

"Since the private security isn't law enforcement or licensed, they do pretty much whatever it takes to keep trouble out of the public eye. Mostly it's locking people up in rooms or escorting them out of town, but they can get rough at times."

"But none of the convention attendees know they are there and the hotel staff pretends they don't see them. Even those who run afoul of them don't know exactly who it was that grabbed them."

- rusty0123

While everyone might think that staying at a fancy hotel would be great fun, it may not be such an enjoyable experience for those who work there. With all kinds of questionable behaviors performed by guests, not to mention the messes that need to be cleaned up, that fancy hotel may not feel so fancy for very long.