Traveling with kids/disclosing number of people in hotel room

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:American hotel in the continental US? I don’t think it matters at all.

I would not do in a different country.

I do know someone who was denied their reservation while they were checking in-- I think they had four kids with them (reservation made for 2 adults, 3 kids). There wasn't anything else available, it was late at night. They just had to drive the last 3-4 hours of their journey, middle of the night. SOL. This was in OHIO.

When I heard the story, I was shocked. I worked as a front desk clerk for a large chain hotel. We never would have left someone out in the dark because they had an extra kid. So, I believe it would be highly unusual to be denied your reservation, but definitely a possibility.

[Anonymous]

We have 3 kids - the only place we've encountered this as an issue is in Philly where we always had to get a suite

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Call them. They have a right to charge per occupant. Would you also sneak in a pet?

Not op but I actually don't get why "they have a right". It's one room. Whether 2 or 4 people are in it should not matter. And people are not pets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:American hotel in the continental US? I don’t think it matters at all.

I would not do in a different country.

I do know someone who was denied their reservation while they were checking in-- I think they had four kids with them (reservation made for 2 adults, 3 kids). There wasn't anything else available, it was late at night. They just had to drive the last 3-4 hours of their journey, middle of the night. SOL. This was in OHIO.

When I heard the story, I was shocked. I worked as a front desk clerk for a large chain hotel. We never would have left someone out in the dark because they had an extra kid. So, I believe it would be highly unusual to be denied your reservation, but definitely a possibility.

This happened to me in Phoenix. I said I would sleep in the car and then the woman relented. I actually would have been fine sleeping in the car with the seat back but whatever. Our fifth was a baby at that point so was not even sleeping in a bed — was in a pack n play.

[Anonymous]

I don't understand your plan. Is it for the kid to sleep in the king bed with you?

Or are you trying to bring your own sleeping bag or something?

If you're open to not using the hotel just email and ask if they provide rollaway beds for small children for the king rooms. If they say yes, you have an email saying you can all stay there. I would think they would do this.

[Anonymous]

In Hawaii fire code limits 4 to a regular room..5 needs 2 rooms or suite.

[Anonymous]

European hotels are really anal-retentive about this.

[Anonymous]

This is why I love hotels that let you check in and then use your phone for a key

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would go with a different hotel. We briefly considered this recently but decided against it and we’re glad we did because they absolutely verified room occupants when we checked in.

In the US? Bizarre. I've never seen this here.

[Anonymous]

I often just forget to enter "3" in the box when I'm searching for hotel rooms. I often use hotels.com to book and they generally default to double occupancy. A lot of individual hotels do this too. Often I'm just looking to get a feel for prices or come up with options for us to decide among and then wind up booking in the same session and don't think to go back and change it. It's never been an issue.

However I generally do look to see what the occupancy rules are for any room I might book. This is as much for our comfort as anything else. We used to book rooms with one king because when DD was a toddler the three of us would fit in a king really comfortably. Now we prefer two queens. The vast majority of hotels will view rooms like this as allowing 3-4 people but I always double check because I don't want to wind up trying to cram the three of us into a queen or something.

When we travel in europe I always make sure to be specific about room occupancy but again this is for our benefit -- european hotel rooms tend to be smaller and especially to have smaller beds. Also a lot of European hotel chains offer "family" rooms which are great -- when we traveled through Scandinavia last year all our rooms had a special bed set up for our daughter. It was very comfortable for everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:European hotels are really anal-retentive about this.

We learned this the hard way in college during study abroad.🤣. It’s been like that for a long time!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:European hotels are really anal-retentive about this.

We learned this the hard way in college during study abroad.🤣. It’s been like that for a long time!

I understand they have strict occupancy rates because if fire code regulations? They hotels can be fined or something so they follow the rules.

[Anonymous]

If there is a pool area of note, they may use wristbands for access, towels. Your sneaked in kids won't get them if you have more people than stated occupants.

[Anonymous]

you post all occupants and it will ask for children. Some jurisdictions have different occupant rules for for children vs adults

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’d probably have one parent check in and the other being up the kid a few minutes later

Because you are dishonest?