Who opened the flood gates??

[alias annie]

We have had wedding party guests this weekend and last. Med student, power line student, and military guests will be keeping us steady for a while during the week. The weekends are hit or miss with guests.

 

[Arks]

Had a call late last night - wanted 2 beds in the room. Nope.

Yeah, I get 'em all the time requesting a room with 2 queen beds, like I'm a standard motel/hotel. They don't read the room descriptions, or anything else, of course. Mainly, they never do an availability search or they'd KNOW I don't have availability. I keep hoping as time goes on the younger generation will know how to use websites.

 

[gillumhouse]

Well yesterday afternoon, I got a call from a town across the mountain asking for a room. When I found out where they were I kept trying to give them the number of the B & B in THAT town. I wondered if there was something wrong with them so while I waited for them to arrive, I texted her. Turns out, SHE was out of town, something they must have already determined. Really nice people. Gave the military discount and they paid cash - MORE than what rack would have been. Then she liked the salsa so much that she bought a jar of that and a mug this morning! The other couple - here on a special rate we did not tell them they were getting (visiting one of the girls in the office at City Hall), also gave a honking tip!

Now off to plant my flowers on Granny, Pappy, & the rest of the fandamily - have to take a friend to & from her dialysis tomorrow cuz the buses do not run on holidays. So the tomorrow got moved to today.

 

[Morticia]

Reverse floodgates yesterday—$2500 in cancellations in ten minutes. Ouch! One was from a person who was rude on the phone (mumbling replies to questions, then getting snarky when I asked for a repeat of the answer), so I was happy to get the multiple emails saying he canceled weeks ago and why were we still emailing him reminders.

 

[GoodScout]

I have lots of guests who thrill me when they call to cancel.
I also have wedding prospects who make it clear to me before they every book that I should be hoping they pick someone else.

 

[Generic]

OMG... now 3 reservations on the books. Okay, one is from another country and the border isn't open, but it's a few months from now anyway.

 

[Northern Dreamer]

Is anybody else experiencing this "problem". I've suddenly never had so many reservations on the books. About 3 weeks ago I had 3 or 4/week, now I'm full almost every night, about 30/week for my 5 rooms. A ten-fold increase over just a few weeks ago.

My door keypads can each hold 19 codes at a time, but I never knew that the software that keeps up with all the keypad codes also has a limit. But lately I keeps saying it just can't handle any more code for any keypad, unless I delete a few. So for far-off reservations I'm having to keep a list and will add their codes closer to arrival date. I've never had this problem before.

I suspect it's related to all the people who have been stuck at home for a year and are now free to travel, so I'm not foolishly expecting it's a permanent shift.

We've had a minimum of a booking a day (sometimes more) since the end of March! Summer is already here and BUSY! Turning folks aways for some weekends already full! I've heard it called "revenge tourism"!

 

[alias annie]

Is anybody else experiencing this "problem". I've suddenly never had so many reservations on the books. About 3 weeks ago I had 3 or 4/week, now I'm full almost every night, about 30/week for my 5 rooms. A ten-fold increase over just a few weeks ago.

My door keypads can each hold 19 codes at a time, but I never knew that the software that keeps up with all the keypad codes also has a limit. But lately I keeps saying it just can't handle any more code for any keypad, unless I delete a few. So for far-off reservations I'm having to keep a list and will add their codes closer to arrival date. I've never had this problem before.

I suspect it's related to all the people who have been stuck at home for a year and are now free to travel, so I'm not foolishly expecting it's a permanent shift.

We used to just use holidays, anniversary dates, birthdays to give to guests, but this past year we are using the last 4 of phone numbers. It's hard to keep up with who is been entered and not, so when we get a break in guests, I will just empty and re-enter our code.

 

[Arks]

It's hard to keep up with who is been entered and not, so when we get a break in guests, I will just empty and re-enter our code.

The software I use to enter codes into the locks stores the Username, which is always displayed on my computer screen, and the key code, which displays as **** after I enter it. So I can see whose codes are currently in the lock, but can't see what code I assigned (I store that in my reservation software). I go ahead and enter names and codes when the reservations come in, then I can forget about it.

I finally figured out the best way to do it is to enter the Username like this:
Name 1234 9-7/9-12

Where Name is the guest's last name, 1234 is the key code I assigned, and 9-7/9-12 is the arrival/departure dates.

This makes it so easy to see what names and codes are in the lock, and at a glance I can see from the departure date when it's time to delete that code to free up space.

It would be horrible to have to reset all 5 doors occasionally and re-enter all the names and codes. The way I have it, I only remove the inactive codes.

 

[Morticia]

@Arks I usually do a full clean out Sunday afternoon. If anyone is still here, I put them back in. Tomorrow everyone checks out so I’ll empty the guest fridge and the door codes at the same time.

 

[Generic]

...I finally figured out the best way to do it is to enter the Username like this:
Name 1234 9-7/9-12

Where Name is the guest's last name, 1234 is the key code I assigned, and 9-7/9-12 is the arrival/departure dates.

Our software has a choice to hide or not hide the code, so we don't have it hidden. But instead of entering the dates we have it as the departure date. So: 28 June 2021 Name

Didn't see the reason to have both dates, since we needed to know when we can delete them.

 

[flyingace71]

We are having a banner year! it’s exhausting and this crowd of guests have done more damage to rooms, linens and grounds than any that have stayed in the past two years!! It’s a weird blend of people that are good easy going guests (70%) and awful demanding people that break stuff (30%)… what’s worse is that when I call them on it, they are rude and say I’m scamming them when I charge them for damages. In the past, when we had to charge for damages, they never debated it, they knew what they did… ugh. Did COVID change these people? Thankfully 7 out of 10 guests are still awesome!

 

[Jay Curci]

That's an awfully high percentage of unappreciative guests. In 8 years we have had almost no disrespectful Guests. If I feel they are a little rowdy and rambunctious I immediately remind them this is our home and I expect them to respect it. The usual response is Oh yes, yes of course. I have even let them know if they get out of hand and I have to remind them of this conversation they would be asked to leave! It works for us.

 

[GoodScout]

Only once in 8 years have I had to utter the words "You're clearly not happy here, and I don't want to continue to make you unhappy, so I would suggest you just pack up and go."

And yes, it felt so good.

 

[Morticia]

We are having a banner year! it’s exhausting and this crowd of guests have done more damage to rooms, linens and grounds than any that have stayed in the past two years!! It’s a weird blend of people that are good easy going guests (70%) and awful demanding people that break stuff (30%)… what’s worse is that when I call them on it, they are rude and say I’m scamming them when I charge them for damages. In the past, when we had to charge for damages, they never debated it, they knew what they did… ugh. Did COVID change these people? Thankfully 7 out of 10 guests are still awesome!

We talked about this after you posted. Our short experience from the time we reopened (April) to when we retired (last week) I’d say our guests were so happy to finally travel again that they were super nice. We had more reviews in two months than we usually get in a year.

We were wondering if some people are just overwhelmed with anxiety that is coming out in their behavior toward people they don’t know. (Obviously not every person behaves like this.) You may be seeing it more than we did.

I spent three days canceling 100+ reservations when we finally got a closing date. You can imagine the stress that put on some people. Only two people accused me of being a terrible, lying *****. That’s about the % of angry, combative guests we experienced every year of being in operation.

Hopefully you see an uptick in nicer guests as the season progresses!

 

[Jay Curci]

Only once in 8 years have I had to utter the words "You're clearly not happy here, and I don't want to continue to make you unhappy, so I would suggest you just pack up and go."

And yes, it felt so good.

8 years and thankfully never had to throw someone out!! I'm thankful for that.

 

[gillumhouse]

Never even came close in 25 years. Had a few I hope never find me again, but never had to tell anyone to hit the road.

 

[GoodScout]

And the sad thing was, they didn't leave. They stayed anyway. Then the next morning they stole two bathrobes when they left.

 

[Jay Curci]

Charge there CC and move on. Hopefully, you have something in writing to give to CC company if a dispute occurs.