DM
Dan Michels
Oct 11, 2025
I just met the nicest, most awesome front desk person in all of hospitality. Seriously!
Getting to check in 2 hours early is a rare gift that's enormously appreciated.
Many hotels, especially the busy ones, fiercely protect those 4 hours, between 11AM check-out and 3PM check-in.
This is because what's actually half of a standard 8-hour shift is often all the time they have to get rooms cleaned and ready to put their best foot forward with their guests.
Only a few minutes spent reading hotel reviews online is all it takes to understand a large segment of the general public appears to have unrealistic expectations of the accommodations they seem convinced they paid outrageous sums to rent for a night.
The reality is most properties survive on net profit margins between 5 and 10 percent. Yes, there are companies in certain industries who would kill to net 5%, but their revenue volumes are exponentially larger than even the biggest hotels.
The hours from 11AM to 4PM are typically the most busy, often chaotic hours of the day for someone who works the front desk, and if you notice - they're frequently there by themselves.
The phones ring constantly, there's often someone at the desk and several others impatiently waiting behind them, and stressful multitasking becomes a way of work life.
At most hotels, it's entirely up to the discretion of the front desk staff regarding whether they will take time out from their hurried preparations to check the system for rooms ready prior to 3PM.
They always have the option to tell people who call, or drop by the lobby, they're sorry, but no - they don't/won't be able to accommodate any early check-in requests.
And you can trust me when I say "no" is the answer you can count on getting to that 'early check-in" request from at least 90% of all hotels all over the country.
This is especially true of the busiest locations or during peak seasonal travel periods, when their properties may be legitimately 100% booked every day for a week or more.
Knowing all this, and having experienced pretty much all that's possible from hotels overall, doesn't stop me from asking about the possibility of an early check-in. Sometimes your funky schedule lands you at a hotel at 1PM regardless of your attempts to avoid it.
Trust me: few things can be as painfully boring as waiting around for a couple hours to check-in.
So, when an attractive young woman, who's obviously as busy as she is smart, stops down to do all she can to get you in a room a couple hours early, it really is a much bigger deal than most people realize.
Knowing this hotel has people like her, who do their jobs with passion, because taking the best care they can of all their guests, is important to them on a personal level, should be all you need to know about whether this place is worthy of your consideration.
That's my opinion anyway, and I'll bet if you choose to stay here, and especially if you get to meet her, you'll agree she absolutely really is all that!