Cable TV woes at a hotel

[greensinestro]

Just my kids and I went to Cocoa Beach last weekend. As we were checking into the Days Inn, I had the privilege of hearing a phone call from one of the guests who had called the front desk. Now, I did not actually hear the guest themselves, but got a gist of what was going on:

"Yes, maam, we do have HBO in our rooms. Yes, maam, it's on channel 42. No, maam, you should be able to see it. Well, I apologize, but that's the channel everyone else has it on here. No, maam, CNN is channel 39. Oh, you found it? Well, that's great. Well, yes, ABC is channel 25. No, you have turn to channel 15 to see Nickelodeon....."

Finally, after about two minutes of this hotel clerk holding the guest's hand over the phone, the clerk finally told her, "Maam, there is a card on your nightstand that lists all the stations. Have you looked at it? There should be one there. Everyone's room has them, and we make sure missing ones are replaced before people check in....."

By this time, the other hotel clerk had checked me in, and I was on my way to my room. And, thank God, my room had the channel guide card on my nightstand. I wonder how long that call lasted, because that clerk was still talking when we walked out the door.

People like this need to get a life.

[bainsidhe]

How many times has the front desk been asked this that he/she remembers all the channels.

[bendertiger]

They are at a hotel and want to watch tv....

[Nohbody]

They are at a hotel and want to watch tv....

Eh, I don't think that's too odd, depending on the circumstances. For all we know, the SC could've just gotten off of a long time on the road, and wanted to relax a little.

Doesn't make them any less of a moron, though.

[AccountingDrone]

Damn ... the first thing we do when we get into the room is find the channel card and the remote. Then we pee, and set up a coffee maker for a pot of coffee

Since my dad died last summer, mrDrone and I have been trying to go visit my mum in Rochester NY, from Connecticut once a month. So I tend to take him to work in Hartford from where we live in the east end of CT. At 5 I head back to pick him up, and we drive to just outside Albany [about half way] and stay in a particular motel. It has a fantastic handicapped room, so we make sure to reserve it ahead of time. Since we have it down to a science, we know exactly what amenities the room has, and plan accordingly =)

I adore rooms with a mini fridge, microwave and coffee maker ... we pack everything we need for dinner and breakfast, and don't have to deal with travel food digestive issues and it saves a bit of money. The motel is family owned, and the kids work it for the parents. I am convinced that the private owner franchise motels can be maintained a lot better than some of the corporate motels [pride of ownership]

[greensinestro]

How many times has the front desk been asked this that he/she remembers all the channels.

I'm sure it happens every day. On the other hand, the clerk probably lives in the city with the same cable company and might have all of the channels memorized, assuming she has cable at home. It just galls me though that people can't do what I do.....just flip through the channels and who gives a monkey's behind about what numbers the stations are on. I'll find them by surfing.

[thehippie777]

And situations like this are far too common....desk clerks have more then this to deal with.

I live in Montana, and Aug. is the wild fire month basically. There was smoke outside tonight. It was clearly from a fire, but no where close to our location. A guest called down & asked about the smell of smoke...clearly freaked out. I told him what I just stated above, and that if it had been a problem inside the hotel the alarms would have sounded.

[Geek King]

I've been in hotels with no channel card. If there's something specific I want to see, I flip around until I find it. I've yet to find the hotel with so many channels that I can't find what I want if they have it.

If someone wants to front me a room to prove me wrong, though, I'm game!

[Bright_Star]

Whenever I've gone to a hotel & find that there's no printed TV listing in the room then I take the time to go through each channel & write it down on a piece of paper. What's so hard about doing that?

[Chromatix]

When my parents set up part of their house as a self-catering hostel, I was the one to sit down and tune all the TVs to the locally-available channels. Since it was still analogue, and in a borderline area, I had to find the strongest instance of each channel - and on the roof there were two antennas, pointing in different directions, and a signal booster in the attic.

I also went through the entire FM and MW radio bands with the "good" radio (which had RDS, making station ID easier) to make a list of frequencies for tuning the cheap radios we put in the rooms. A fun job to do once, in a backwater area that has a sensible number of stations. Not so fun in Helsinki, which has an almost completely full spectrum and the stations use at least three fairly obscure languages natively.

[Sheldonrs]

... Then we pee, and set up a coffee maker for a pot of coffee ..]

There is something VERY wrong with that statement!

[Ben_Who]

It may be someone who actually doesn't know that different cities will have different stations. So they turn to channel 47 or whatever HBO is on, and it's CNN.

It's like moving a dog's water dish.

Love, Who?

[PepperElf]

yeah im not surprised at wanting to watch some tv at a hotel
i dont watch tv normally ... just when im visiting my family
but i know enough that... if i dont see (or think to look for) a guide i just flip the channels or find the guide channel