Matt Preston reveals his biggest hotel gripes

“The devil is in the detail” and “Less is more” – both these sayings were coined by one man (well, the former is disputed), leading 20th-century architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Like me, you’re probably mouthing “Who?”

He was the director of Germany’s influential Bauhaus art school and the bloke who helped shape the elegant minimalism that many hotels aspire to. Fittingly, I’m most likely to mutter Mies’s sayings when confronted by a poorly designed hotel room. “Less is more,” I’ll mutter when I can’t find the master switch for the bedroom lights among the plethora of switches by the bed or, “The devil is in the detail,” when my room has half-height hanging spaces where long dresses and frock coats are scrunched at the hem.

These annoying little flaws aren’t hard to fix, yet it’s a rare cause for celebration when somewhere gets them all right. These don’t include those ugly issues such as being given a room above the bar’s dumpster that’s emptied at 6.15am in a roaring, car-crash cacophony of breaking glass; like someone’s been smoking cheap cigars in the bathroom or left a little knot of pubic hair by the kettle; or when the view out the window is of a grubby flyover and a distressed parking lot. These are the little things that irk when it comes to a hotel stay.

Power points

These should be universal so you don’t need a travel adapter and easily accessible next to the bed. Too often they’re hidden under the headboard or behind the bedside cabinet and I’m slithering round like a freshly-fed python, randomly jabbing the wall in the hope of hitting the socket.

The other big no-no is when little thought has been given to where to plug in the iron. Ideally this should be at waist-height so the flex doesn’t tangle and in a spot where the ironing board is out of the way. Recently I collided with an ill-positioned ironing board on the way to the bathroom in a dark room where the light switches were hard to find and flipped the iron onto my right foot. Distracted, I then cracked the top of my head on the lintel of a surprisingly low bathroom doorway in this Indian heritage hotel. Like all the gripes here, this is a painfully lived experience.

Iron and ironing board

Both should be mandatory. Especially when that hotel might charge more to press a shirt than the national debt of a small Pacific nation (see laundry charges).

Laundry charges

Recently at a business hotel I paid more for my laundry than a night’s stay. And it’s not unknown for the cost of laundering underwear to be more than replacing it. That’s why the cheapskate in me loves those bathrooms with a retractable washing line, rails or hooks where hand-washing can be hung to dry. Especially when there are those big signs insisting nothing must be hung on the balcony.

The smoke alarm

Profit isn’t the only reason why some hotels ban irons. I once stayed in a Sydney hotel during fashion week and twice had to evacuate because the steam from showers and irons tripped overly sensitive smoke alarms. Maybe improve bathroom ventilation or don’t place that perfect-height power point for the iron under the smoke alarm.

Pillows and sheets

While I’ve never used one of those much-vaunted pillow menus I appreciate their presence for more picky travellers. However, I’m more concerned about the number of pillows on the bed. Too many (I’ve encountered more than five) and I wake up feeling like I’m being buried in marshmallows (not as fun as it sounds); too few, however, especially in a hot climate, and I won’t be able to flip a pillow to find a cool side. It’s a given, obviously, that sheets should not be stained, or so worn that you have to clip your toenails before slipping between them for fear of shredding them like the iceberg for your curried-egg sanger.

Bathrooms

Let's start with a couple of non-negotiables. I’m not sure we ever need to see glass toilet doors or toilet doors that don’t go all the way to the ceiling again. Ever.

And I know interior designers love to froth about rain showers, big heads and massage jets, but these are all pointless without proper water pressure. It’s also good if the shower head is high enough so someone over six foot doesn’t have to crouch to get under it.

Worse are the “innovative” taps or mixers that don’t have an “H” or “C” on them, or are some weird twisting dials that might, if you’re lucky, get you the temperature you want without scalding you or sending an Arctic torrent down towards your nethers.

And please put the controls near the door to the shower rather than on the far wall so we’re hit by that initial jet of cold water when turning the shower on. Basically, shower controls should be intuitive enough for me to operate successfully without thought.

Now, while I know that “every penny counts”, please supply at least one proper cake of soap for those of us who never feel really clean when we use the liquid stuff. Liquid soap makes me feel like a dinner plate being washed without the joyous bubbles of dish-washing liquid.

Suitcases and cupboards

I appreciate the advent of folding luggage stands and broad benches for your suitcases but could they always be wide enough to hold an open suitcase? It’s also great to have somewhere to store the empty suitcase – especially if you’re an inveterate unpacker like me who only feels settled in by putting everything away. This is not me marking my territory. Honestly, it isn’t.

“Putting things away” requires enough hangers (at least eight), decent hanging space for long dresses and short shirts, enough drawers so two people don’t need to mix their smalls, and an end to the trend of just having open shelves and hanging space. This might look great on the website, but never looks neat when the guts of your 25kg suitcase have been emptied into them.

Let’s also campaign for room safes to be no lower than knee height for those of us with fading eyesight, or who don’t want to join the slithering classes to lock away Great-Aunt Mary’s ring and our passports.

Also, is it too much to ask that porters take your luggage to your room by the time you’ve checked in, got to your room and enjoyed the view of the bus depot from the window? Nowadays I always wheel up my own bag – I find it really frustrating waiting 20 minutes for them to deliver my bag. After all, there is territory to be marked.

The electrics

Could we have key cards that work? Most hotels get this right now, but when they get this wrong they get it badly wrong. Few things are more frustrating than trudging back to reception when all you want to see is your bed.

Equally annoying is the absence of a master control for all the lights by the bed. I once stayed in a too-cool-for-school hotel where the master control was by the door so you had to memorise the position of the glass coffee table in the middle of the room for the perilous journey back to bed. I got this right most of the time, missing its skin-slicingly sharp corners. I bear the scars of when I didn’t.

While I’m at it, is it too much to ask for a real printed room-service menu and list of services rather than having to cascade through some complex app architecture to find out if the club sandwich comes with fries?

Room numbers

Another bugbear: room numbers that are too cool to be easily deciphered. This is less of an issue for someone forgetful like me who likes to take a photo of my door so I can find it again. Then when the key card doesn’t work at least I know I’m not at the wrong door. Although there was that time when I checked in to an Adelaide hotel and opened the door to my room to see my faded old Birkenstocks were magically already in there. Even the large hairy feet protruding from the end of my bed looked like mine. However, the South African who grunted, “Who’s that?” certainly wasn’t.

Matt Preston