Canadian Olympic gold medallist and Winnipeg mom Jill Officer gives us a twice-monthly look behind the scenes of her dual life in her blog, Jill’s House.
I was lying in my hotel bed, reading my book when I realized I had read the same sentence five times without it registering.
I started again and a few minutes later, I realized I was still doing it.
I was trying to read my book to relax, and wait for the heaviness in my eyes so I could easily go to sleep, but there was a distraction…a noisy hotel hallway.
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This past weekend I was curling in a mixed doubles event and was sharing a room with another female player. We both lied there reading sentences over and over until we decided that the noisy hallway was too much at 10:15 p.m. at night (quiet time starts at 10 p.m.)
I dialed the front desk. No answer. I read the same sentence five times. I dialed again. No answer. I continued to try to read.
I dialed again and finally they answered. I explained that there was a fair amount of noise in our hallway where we could clearly hear conversations, the pounding of kid’s feet running, parents yelling their names to tell them something and the banging of latched hotel room doors.
The receptionist told me that security was already up there asking the group to quiet down but they would come up again.
Then, clear as day, right outside our door, security had a conversation with one of the male adults that was part of the group overriding our hallway.
Security told the man that they could go downstairs to use one of the seminar rooms so as not to disturb the other guests in the hall.
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The man said, “There are only two rooms in this hallway that are not part of our group. Can’t they move?”
Pardon me? It’s now 10:30 p.m. at night! We are in our pyjamas and have been settled into this room for three days and you expect us to move?! Plus, it was a specifically designated quiet hallway! How rude!
Then he says, “Well, we are a hockey team, maybe they just have to deal with the noise.”
Excuse me?!
Fine, I understand you like to hang out, have some drinks, etc., but can’t you do it in your room instead of congregating literally right outside our door?
Designated quiet hallway or not, as far as my hotel etiquette rules go, all hotel hallways should be respectfully quiet!
Trust me, there have been many a time I have been at a hotel room party, but the party is never in the hallway! I can handle a little bit of noise when I am sleeping as I am a fairly deep sleeper and always wear earplugs, so if the hallway noise is still keeping me up, then you know it’s an issue.
Security left and my roommate and I eagerly anticipated the group of hockey parents and players to head down to the seminar room that was offered, but another 30 minutes went by and the noise continued.
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We could even see the people through our peephole having drinks and just standing around right outside our door. And in and around that time, there were two blatant “bang, bang, bangs”, once on the wall by our door and then actually on our door.
Both times, no one was there (I looked through the peephole).
Are you kidding me? How immature and vengeful are you that you choose to bang on our door because you know we are the ones complaining?! And how much more disrespectful can you be?
So after four phone calls of actually speaking to the front desk, numerous other times trying to get through to them and almost 90 minutes after the first phone call, the group finally went downstairs at 11:40 p.m. at night…kids and all!
Noisy hallways and doors banging against latched hotel room doors are two extreme no, no’s
But the point of my rant, besides letting off some steam, is to give you a sense of what I think is proper hotel etiquette.
As I said, hallways are not for parties and congregating. All hotel hallways should be quiet out of respect for everyone else trying to sleep or otherwise.
If you latch your door, please, please, please do not let the door bang when you are going in and out of your room.
And finally, if the hotel staff and security ask you to quiet down because there have been numerous complaints, be a grown up, take your medicine and shut the heck up!
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