Hotel Motel Income & Expense Survey: Fill & Download for Free

(1) Get onto campus and then get your ‘stuff’ into your dorm. Once your ‘stuff’ is in there, make sure your bed is set up. This means sheets, pillows, blankets, and a small 8″ fan (Trust me, heat is in exceess in dorms, cool air in in short supply)(2) If you are not instant friends with your roommate, walk into the middle of the (likely freshman rich) quad and yell out “I’m a _____ major” and befriend the first person that approaches you. Even if they are not in your major. That person likes your style. Congrats you just made your first friend. Be congenial when you meet them.(3) Walk around campus. Bring your class schedule and at most 2 friends. Find the location of where your class will be and remember them. It’s key to note the walking/traveling distance to the class so you can properly time your leaving/arrival times. You also don’t want to be ‘that’ lost freshman wandering around with no place to go. If your campus locks its buildings at some random earlier hour at least you can find the building. Find the exact room the first day of classes.(4) While you are walking around be sure you locate (i) Downtown. This is where college ends and the ‘real’ world re-begins. It will be most likely the place you go to find Bars(at some point) , hotels/motels for visiting campus, and convenience stores such as groceries, pharmacies, and clothing. Not to mention take-out/delivery food places! (Grab menus)_ and (ii) The Student Union. Even if you aren’t unionized, most University campus have one. Its full of eateries, some shopping, campus services, and general study spaces. The Student Bookstore is almost always nearby if not part of this building.(5) Go back to your dorm. Make sure you know where the bathroom are, the showers are, and the stairs/elevators down and their relation to your room. This for safety (fire, etc) reasons but also common sense.

Motels do not have a surcharge for single occupancy.Hotels rarely have a surcharge for single occupancy, the exceptions being hotels in Italy in July and Aug and hotels next to DisneyWorld or a similar family resort destinationEven when hotels do have a surcharge it is rarely double, as is common in the cruise industry.The advertised price in the cruise industry is based on double occupancy. The cost to the cruise line is the same if there is 1 or 2 people in the cabin. Then there is the expected added income from the other person for internet, mini-bar, alcoholic drinks, casino gambling, gift store etc.The backbone of the largest chains , such as Marriott, is the single business traveler. Hotels in Italy in high season have obligatory meals included, based on double occupancy. The better ones are not modern they are converted palaces or mansions that have a wide variety of room sizes. There is always a small room, the surcharge is for the lost income to the restaurant.

Well, in my case, the only time I’ve done it, it was at a Motel 6 near Charlotte, NC.We had booked a 3-night stay for a hurricane evacuation. It was shady and seedy, but that’s by no means a deal-breaker for us. We are restaurant workers, we don’t make a lot of money, and we hadn’t really planned on having disposable income to burn at that moment, so we couldn’t even afford the hotel we were at, let alone a better one. Still, we had stayed in plenty of cheap places before, but nothing like this.What we saw in that motel room was beyond the pale. First, it was dirty. Like, maybe they swept, but it hadn’t been deep cleaned in a very long time. Second, despite the fact that we had booked a non-smoking room (we both have asthma, mine’s mild, my wife’s, severe), the whole place absolutely reeked of cigarette smoke. Third, the hotel advertised free cable, but the cable was out. Fourth, the hotel advertised free wifi, which didn’t work.We went to the front desk and complained, attempting to cancel our stay, but we’d booked it through an online booking service, and all reservations were final. Also, it was late, like midnight, and we’d been in the car for 8 hours. It was a rough 8 hours, too, as we had spent the previous 6 packing up everything that was valuable into our tiny, old Honda Civic, along with our dog, and hurricane-proofing our house. Since it was a hurricane evacuation, they were very full, so they couldn’t put us in a better room, and they couldn’t fix the electronic issues. We begrudgingly stayed that one night, and got another hotel for the next two. We contacted Motel 6 corporate, and they told us that they couldn’t do anything about refunding us, because it was a franchise, with independent owners. Or, to put it a different way, Motel 6 doesn’t hold its franchise-holders to reasonable standards of decency or honesty, and won’t back their brand when challenged. They charged us for all three nights, including the two where we didn’t stay with them.Fuck you, Motel 6. We are never, ever giving you one penny of our money, ever again. Upvote if you, too, will never give Motel 6 money ever again.If any Motel 6 owners want to PM me and discuss this, I’m all ears. Let slip the dogs of war.