By the end of this year I will have spent more than half of it travelling, most often staying in hotel rooms. So, I’ve developed a bit of a… routine.
One of the first things I do when I check into a hotel room, after I immediately drink all the free water bottles (flight dehydration is real!), is fill out the door hanger for room service breakfast in the morning, requesting it arrive roughly an hour before I need to leave the hotel in the morning. I do it first because I’m probably going to be out late and I don’t want to run the risk of forgetting to fill it out later.
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There was a time where I considered ordering room service anything as a luxury that only rich lazy people did, but it’s become a staple for me for a number of reasons:
A Food Alarm Clock
While you can certainly answer the door in your PJs to collect your room service, it’s not something I’m going to do. I don’t need to be in full makeup ready to walk out the door to deal with a room service delivery, but I do want to be relatively decently dressed.
Knowing that my eggs are arriving at 7:30am means that I’m going to resist the urge to press snooze one more time when my alarm goes off at 7am, and instead will actually get out of bed and into the shower pre-delivery.
The deadline is good for me. If it wasn’t there I would likely snooze until 15 minutes before I actually needed to leave. Now not only have I not gotten breakfast, but I also haven’t taken a shower and I’m in a rush out the door. Having a food alarm clock of sorts forces me to start moving at a decent hour, affording myself a much more leisurely morning.
You Eat Breakfast
You know that old saying “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” I don’t know that I buy into that all the time, but if you’re travelling for work and will be in meetings all day, you’ll be happy you had that delivery eggs and toast come 11am. Getting that breakfast delivered means you’ll actually, you know, eat before you head out for the day.
You Can Avoid Chatty Colleagues
I am not a morning person. Inevitably, whenever I try to head to the hotel restaurant for breakfast I run into one if not several other people who are attending the same conference or working as part of the same group. These people are great and I would love to have beers with them in the evening, but over a cup of coffee at 7am I want to talk to absolutely no one. When you go to the hotel restaurant you open yourself up to these people wanting to chat, or worse, wanting to sit with you and eat breakfast together. Room service breakfast affords you a peaceful breakfast with yourself (if that’s what you’re into), and it’s grand.
Get Some Work Done
I always feel a bit awkward pulling out my laptop in a hotel restaurant, but in my room there’s no one to care. I find breakfast time to be a great time to catch up on the morning news and respond to emails, something that’s a lot more easily accomplished from my (literal) bed than out and about.
Obviously, if you’re on vacation and can afford to have a leisurely breakfast by all means go to the hotel restaurant (or even a restaurant nearby) to grab breakfast. If you’re travelling on a schedule though, I highly recommend giving room service breakfast a try. You’ll pay a tiny premium for the service (usually around $US5 ($7)-$US10 ($14), depending on the quality of your hotel), but it’s oh so worth it.
Comments
One response to “Why You Should Always Order Room Service Breakfast On Business Trips”
Whenever I travelled overseas for work, I was basically given a daily budget that was used for food etc. I never ordered room service, but if I did, this would have come out of my daily budget (or out of my own pocket), giving me less allowance to use for the remainder of the day. This seems like a waste of money to me when the restaurant breakfast is included as part of the room and therefore doesn’t cost anything extra.
The only point here that might be an actual valid one is if you really, really don’t want to converse with other people while eating. Which I guess is fine if you’re that was inclined (I personally didn’t mind it even though I’m naturally introverted, but each to their own). The other points in the list can easily be achieved by using the restaurant. You wouldn’t walk down to the restaurant in your PJs…you’d change and shower if that’s your thing before leaving the room. You’d eat. And even if you think it’s “awkward” (I dunno why) you can take your laptop and answer emails if you really think you need to (I personally don’t, they can wait another 20 minutes while I eat breakfast).
If you want to spend money on room service, and your company doesn’t mind, then it’s your prerogative I guess.
The hotel restaurant breakfast isn’t always included in the room booking though. It’s been a couple of years, maybe more hotels are though and certainly it’s often only a few dollars more than the room service anyway, for a much better breakfast (unless it’s a stupidly fancy hotel).
Last time I personal booked accommodation for myself, I got the breakfast free because I booked directly with the hotel.