1y ago

And the good stuff will be gone fast

123 comments

It's specifically timed: you get up and get dressed for the free breakfast, get back to your room and you're like, "Well, I'm already up and dressed and everything, I might as well hit the road!" And you leave, conveniently leaving the room available for Housekeeping to clean for those early arrivals.
Amusement parks will do something similar: time a fireworks display in a central-ish area near the end of the night. Everyone comes to the fireworks, they end and everyone looks at tl the time and is like, "Well, there's just enough time for one more ride / snack / set of games", and then we'll have to leave," ignoring the way you've been collected to a central(ish) location and primed to leave, making the job for closing security much easier.
- Places like Disney do the opposite. Fireworks are late so people stay and spend more money on food, drinks, and extras.
  
  I know when I was younger and went to Disney in Paris that they still had parades in the themed zones like an hour before closing. So I can believe that.
  
  Fireworks at most amusement parks, but especially Disney, just gather everyone outside of restaurants and gifts shops, so those can try to start closing up while the fireworks are happening. Fireworks end, everything is closed, everyone takes the hint to use the restroom one last time and GTFO.
- A lot of it is also timed for workers. That's why many places have later breakfast times on weekends.
  
  It's sad to say this, but I'm glad there's the occasional point when our employing overlords' incentives and the employees' incentives are lined up
- Everyone comes to the fireworks
  Everyone stays for the fireworks. People show up late just for the fireworks. It makes everything harder because of the crowds. Without fireworks people would slowly leave before closing which would be much easier on the staff.

I stg it used to be (probably around pre 2020) that even the shitty hole in the wall motels had like pretty comfy solid breakfast - bagged eggs (my guilty pleasure) and cool steampunk communal toasters and shit. now it's like mini cereal boxes and maybe bagged muffins.
getting old is hell. everything gets worse and most people just try to ignore it
- I was going to a Day's Inn yearly for a river floating trip, and each year their breakfast got shittier and shittier.
  They used to have a Texas shaped (self-serve) waffle maker, muffins, toast, juice, and jam. Now it's single serving cereal boxes and room temperature OJ ¯(ツ)/¯
- I feel the breakfast buffet was another victim of covid. Hotels probably realized the cost to re-open the buffet wasn’t worth it.
  
  Which is ridiculous. Why should people self serving themselves eggs and bacon and toast be cancelled due to the pandemic? They didn't shut down hotels, and fomites weren't a vector of infection.
- What the hell are bagged eggs?
  
  Testicles come to mind, but are not the answer.
  
  Inquiring minds want to know.
  
  Pasteurized frozen scrambled eggs that come in a flat bag the size of a sheet pan. They are thawed and cooked in the bag, then sliced out of the bag, given a few chops to break them up in the middle of the resulting cloud of egg scented steam, and then dumped onto a steam table.
  
  Like this
- What are bagged eggs?
  
  haha i mean like these sort of scrambled eggs: https://www.webstaurantstore.com/martins-quality-eggs-5-lb-frozen-boil-in-bag-scrambled-egg-mix-case/873331035.html
  they have a particular flavor / consistency / vibe that i find comforting
  
  They're just hard boiled eggs that have been shelled and stuck into a little bag that's then heat sealed. I assume they're produced by the big food service distributors like Sysco. I find them pretty unappetizing.
  
  I have the same question.
  I searched real quick—it looks like you put eggs in a ziploc bag, optionally with veggies or other omelet ingredients. Close the bag and dip it in boiling water for a couple minutes. Then you end up with sometime like an omelet or scrambled eggs. Honestly I’ve never seen that at a hotel breakfast.
  But I’d still like to know what OP means
- Hotels have gotten worse. I travel for work often and I can see it. Housekeeping every day isn't a given anymore since Covid and the breakfasts have continued to decline. Pretty much all I will get at hotel breakfast these days is an apple and nuclear reactor temperature coffee.
  
  Yeah,same for me. I avoid non-chain-operated hotels for that meanwhile - they are usually worse and often the owners are on such a high horse that they expect you to be thankful to spend your money there. With hotel chains you at least have a central customer support you can complain to.
  Last highlight: Was in a mid-market private hotel (no chains around there) and on the first evening my toilet seat broke. I mean, yeah, I am a little bit overweight but not nearly enough for that being the cause normally, so very likely it was just wear. Happens, no biggie.
  The reaction of the owner was the reason why I will never visit that establishment again - and neither will any of my staff: First they tried to ridicule me/accused me of intentionally vandalism, then they tried to make me put it through my insurance (won't fly, they won't pay a thing unless they can prove proper maintenance). And then she took 5 days to repair the bloody thing.
  Saw her treat her staff incredibly bad as well...so..
  Yeah, neither my staff nor me will come back. That makes them lose around 10k in income. But hey, it's just "that remote working thing" and "everything getting more expensive". Nope. It isn't. It's them.
  
  I never wanted housekeeping every day anyway so it just means I don't have to tell them to fuck off as often for me.
- I've noticed the IHG family hotels (Holiday Inn) usually has a pretty well done breakfast, even at their budget Holiday Inn Express hotels
- What does a steampunk toaster look like?
  
  A 50s standard metal toaster with extra copper rods soldered on the outside.
- Outside the US almost everywhere has a very good breakfast. Substantially better than the ones "nice" US hotels serve.
  
  I loved being a kid with the fam on holiday and getting the free continental breakfast if we stayed in a hotel.

Hotel: Advertises full breakfast
Me:I'm so hungry, its great that I don't have to cook
Breakfast: We have pre-made heat lamp eggs, Bacon and sausage are only served til 7am, the toaster doesn't work at the moment, all the fruit was eaten but you can have all the cereal and shitty hotel muffins you want!
- Our coffee is set to violent diarrhea, for your enjoyment 🙂
- As someone who almost exclusively eats those shitty muffins: come on, at least they're packaged on their own usually!
- The oddly shriveled sausage ain't too bad.

And you better be up at 6:30 to put your towel on a pool chair. We tell you not to do it but do nothing about it. Enjoy!
- Of course a German would post this.
  
  Why would you think I'm German?
- I throw towels. I won't tolerate that sort of silliness. You're not here? I am.
  
  I'm too afraid of confrontation to do that. I wish I could though.

My favourite one so far offered breakfast & brunch until 1pm.

"The best stuff" at a Continental breakfast anymore is prepackaged, unfortunately. The eggs are gross, the baked goods are stale, and it's always disappointing. I barely even try it anymore and bring my own stuff rather than suffering through that crap.

That's okay, hotel breakfasts are almost always awful in my experience.
- “continental” “breakfast”
  
  If there's bacon and sausage, no matter how sad looking, it's American breakfast.
  Continental breakfast is European style — bread, butter, and jam, pastries, maybe some yogurt. Hardboiled eggs if you're lucky.
  
  I can taste the continents already
  
  That's not continental, that's American breakfast.
  Also, is that a disposable plate? Never seen such thing in a hotel, you must stop booking on Airbnb.
- FREE hotel breakfasts are almost always awful.
  
  If I'm going to have to pay for breakfast anyway, I might as well go to a restaurant that specializes in breakfast.
  
  Dame, where in the world are you staying. Most hotels in my country have good to amazing breakfast and I have never heard about paying for breakfast.
  
  At least in America yeah unfortunately
- Gross eggs, overcooked bacon, burnt waffles. Not my style either. Your right

Most hotels I've been put up in for work don't even have a free breakfast. If your lucky you'll get some coffee and maybe a free cookie from the lobby if they have them out.
- Best we can do is some nice iced water with a lemon wedge in it ¯(ツ)_/¯
  
  They even skimp on the forearm now.
- Huh, I stayed at a Hyatt recently and they had fresh scrambled eggs, “fresh” cooked sausage, fresh fruit, a waffle maker, cereals and bagels. All pretty mid quality, but it worked
- Most lower end hotels suspended their breakfast buffets during the pandemic in lieu of handing you a muffin and a yogurt, and somehow never went back after it was over. I consider this a form of shrinkflation.

Pretty much every holiday inn I stay at for work has had a decent breakfast. They run 6:30 to 9 and keeps things well stocked at least until 8 (I'm never there later)
They've all had the same "menu", plus or minus a few things. They tend to rotate the hot items every otherday.
An omelet thing, cheese or veggie
Scrambled eggs
Home Frys
Gravey and bisket
Sausage and/or bacon
A 1-minute pancake machine that usually works...kind of
Ceareal
fruit
A juice machine
Coffe
Hot water
Hot cocoa packs
Tea pouches
Milk cartons (these are usually terrible, a lot are weird "organic" brands or "skimed to be 90% water")
Yogurt
Bagles, English muffins, and toast
Cinnamon rolls
Muffin
- Taking it easy means waking up around 10 and hitting the lobby at 11 or 12 for breakfast. Also 8 is literally sunrise depending on location/time of year
  
  If you're expecting a breakfast buffet at lunch time, you have some odd expectations.
  And yes, 8 is often still dark, but work doesn't change their start time for the sun.
  However, I do understand the pains of the late risers. Having breakfast pre-made, ready when you wake up is very nice, no matter the time.
  
  I agree with you but, at most hotels in the US, checkout time is 11am.
- You're not wrong but after having this exact breakfast at HIE and Hampton Inn about 50+ times, it's crap. Bland and repetitive and usually cold but somehow over cooked or the most undercooked eggs/bacon. My company always strongly recommends booking a room with breakfast included, but f that I'll go find a $10 diner and have real bacon.
- Why the fuck are you sharing this information?
  
  Why shouldn't they? O.o
  I mean, it's pretty on topic?
  
  Many others in the thread talked about their hotels that give them a bagged egg and stale cereal, so I decided to share my relatively consistent experience with a hotel chain. These forms are the last place for hopefully actual reviews/information. The alternatives are ad-infected paid 'reviews' or a pile of google/yelp reviews that basically amount to "if I could give 0 stars I would because the hotel internet went down during a hurricane" or "10/10 recommend"
  Is Holiday inn the cheapest option? no. Is it possible I've just lucked out with the ones in my region? yes.
  But clearly some people value breakfast at hotels, and I choose to share an option in detail.

A belgian waffle machine that is caked in burnt dough
The bacon is flimsy and under cooked
Plain bagels stiff from being left out too long and a load of white break next to a toaster you have to cycle 3 times
The kids leave a plate full of waffles floating in a pool of syrup, 4 bites taken
Half the 4 seater tables are taken up by 1 person, with plenty of 2-seaters wide open
Regular and decaf coffee that tastes burnt, and only powdered creamer, offers tea but it's so picked over it's 2-3 types of fruity chai or chamomile, green tea.
- And most of this is stuff the staff can't do anything about:
  Waffle Machine: some doofus walked away and burnt a waffle in it, fucking things up for everyone
  Bacon: flimsy because brand standard, "undercooked" because it goes straight from being cooked to a steam table. Goes from being soaked in hot grease to humid and never crisps up.
  Bagels: cheap hotel management doesn't let staff throw out stale bread unless it's moldy. Also it came out of the freezer.
  Toaster: Management knows it's broken and doesn't care.
  Kids: are kids.
  Tables: people are inconsiderate jerks.
  Coffee: Brand standard.
  Creamer: Brand standard.
  Tea: Black tea goes quick, and breakfast is understaffed, often by one person who has to make sure there's sufficient undercooked bacon, fresh burnt coffee, stale bagels, fruity tea, and powdered creamer to go around. And cleaning the sticky 4 seat tables the kids left before they're occupied by a single person. And emptying the overflowing trash multiple times per breakfast.
  The only thing that happens when guests complain is that the hotel blames the staff.

It's easy, really. Just sleep in enough and start with lunch, at least that's what I do whenever I can.
- What hotels are you going to that offer free lunch?
  
  None, I didn't even know you can get any food for free.

Uh, yeah, we got a raisin... Oh it's just raisins. We've got raisins. Ope, that kid just took them.
- Ope!

This is a myth. Unless you are dead tired and utterly exhausted, you'll never sleep all that well in a hotel room because in the back of your little mammalian brain you'll always "know" that it's not "home," and you won't ever feel entirely comfortable until you've slept there for a few nights.
So it's not really like the "escape" herein described.
Unless you travel all the time, in which case again, it's not really an "escape" and is just more of the same.
- Skill issue
  But in all seriousness, it's not a universal condition. I can sleep fine. I haven't travelled that much in my life, but this year I was on the road for half of it. Hotels with thin walls, car traffic with an open window, the lot. Never had problems sleeping.
- Idk I've never had issues sleeping while traveling, and I don't do it very often.
  
  I'm now in my third week of my trip, I've slept in at least six different places, and I've yet to feel comfortable sleeping. There's a feeling of uneasy I can't shake off .
- The trick is get drunk before sleep. Or sleeping pills
  
  This is so fucking true!
  Also, if you've got a long series of flights, get drunk the night before and you can save yourself a lot of trouble by sleeping through most of the nonsense.
  Ask me how I know.
- I havent really experienced that tbh. But unlike (seemingly) most people these days I don't really have issues with falling asleep in general. I fall asleep just fine in hotels. Personally my issue with hotels is that it usually gets quite messy due to the limited space and also I sometimes get a sore back from the too soft beds.
- Wrong!!
  If you are depressed enough you can sleep anywhere
- I sleep great in hotels, as long as they have good pillows and a comfortable bed.

The best one is airport hotels you can get an full-on breakfast at 4:00am in the morning it's fantastic. Especially useful if their 4:00 a.m. is your 3:00 p.m. and you can have an afternoon snack.

Image Transcription: Twitter Post
Cullen Crawford, @HelloCullen
HOTELS: this is a place to relax, unwind, and take it easy
ALSO HOTELS: we stop serving breakfast at sunrise

I've only had this happen once, and it was at the cheapest, grungiest motel I've ever been in. I don't think I would have wanted their breakfast anyway.

park inn break rule

Also the definition of breakfast is best applied to pets and small animals because the amount and quality of food given is not meant for a full grown human adult.
- Found the American.
  Besides that, most hotel breakfasts I've seen in Europe were buffet like. Which is all you can eat usually.
- For the sake of your health I just need you to know, you don't need to eat your entire body weight worth of food at every meal.
  
  Lol .... I guess everyone thinks I'm a 300 lb land whale.
  I've traveled a lot over the past 20 years and stayed in lots of places of varying quality from the cheapest sleaziest highway motels, jungle huts in Thailand all the way to five star hotels in European cities.
  The common thing I've encountered is American and Canadian hotels that consider breakfast is just a muffin or a piece of toast and some cheap coffee. I've stayed at three star and four star places that cheaped out on their breakfast to only serve prepackaged muffins and cheap disgusting coin operated machine made coffee. And on many occasions was told I was too late for breakfast as all the food was now gone, even though it was just muffins and coffee.
  The best hotel breakfasts I've ever had were always in Europe where they have a tradition of serving great breakfast. Even cheap places to out of their way to give you at least good coffee.
  So my complaint is North American Hotel breakfasts... and no I'm not a pig, at least not a 300 lb one.
- I often eat at six am and at 8 pm. I need a largebreakfast since theres usually a 12 hour gap minimum between my meals. Also people do manual labor jobs for example, I ate a lot more when I was wroking at an amazon warehouse. Nearly the sam amount I ate in middle school.

I'm sorry but this is some Boomer ass shit. Why would to eat food made in a hotel? Its really basic and made poorly because they are offering it for free. I'd rather get something cheap from a fast food place being real. No time limit, you get whatever you want, and its cheap.
- Why would to eat food made in a hotel?
  because they are offering it for free.
  Answered your own question there, bud
  
  But it’s some boomer ass shit. Gotta throw that in there for no reason. Also they don’t have avocado toast.
  
  Nothing is free, you've just already paid for it whether you eat it or not.
- Where do you live that fast food is cheap?
  
  The 1990's, maybe.
- Man, just stay at nicer hotels if you care about the breakfast. It's not hard to make a decent enough breakfast, and my understanding is hotels don't really want to mess up the breakfast because they'll scare off the lucrative travelling worker demographic that doesn't have time to go and find a better breakfast outside the hotel.
  Idk maybe I've just been lucky with the hotels I've stayed in, though the standard seems a bit lower in the USA compared to everywhere else if you're from there
- I'm a big fan of just getting something fresh from the local bakery. Often cheaper than the hotel breakfast too.

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