Most people don’t plan on spending a lot of time in their hotel during their vacations. Even so, choosing the wrong hotel can have major ramifications on the quality of your entire trip. You don’t have to look around very hard on the internet to find tons of horror stories regarding poor hotel choices that came back to haunt the customers.
First of all, decide what factors are most important to you. Will you have your own car (or a rental car) and need convenient access to parking? Are you planning on taking a pet with you on your vacation? Do you need to sneak in a little work at the hotel from time to time, making complementary Wi-Fi a necessary perk?
In these cases, you’ll have a much easier time deciding upon which hotel to book, because you have non-negotiables that will whittle down the list of potential choices considerably.
However, you really don’t want to neglect other factors that can play a huge part in your ultimate satisfaction upon the completion of your stay. Simple things such as the proximity to local attractions, the availability of in-room refrigerators, and whether breakfast is served at the hotel can really enhance or detract from your stay.
Still, the real information that you need about the hotels you’ll be considering won’t be found on any company website or bullet point list of features. To get the real story on the quality of the hotels you’re looking into, you need to delve into customer reviews.
Reviews are absolutely indispensable when it comes to getting an understanding of the actual customer experience at a certain establishment. Things such as the hotel’s cleanliness, the friendliness or helpfulness of the service staff, or even the quality of the neighborhood that the hotel is located in will be covered in customer reviews. It’s nice to get free breakfast in the morning, but nothing will ruin your hotel stay faster than checking into a room that is visibly unclean, after all.
Take reviews with a grain of salt. Some people just can’t be satisfied, and you’ll be able to tell if someone is exaggerating in their negative reviews. However, if you see a trend among reviews noting a particular problem, you’ll know that where there’s smoke, there’s likely to be fire, as the saying goes. If a number of reviewers tend to complain about something that you know is a deal-breaker for you, it’s best to consider other options.
