Coming To Attention
“I was a Chief Petty Officer berthed in the temporary Bachelor Officers’ Quarters. Two rooms shared a bathroom. In the morning I entered the bathroom, undressed, for a shower. At the same time, also undressed, entered a very buxom female. Assuming she was an officer, I quickly came to attention (embarrassingly all of me) and saluted, turned around and returned to my room.”
The Bathroom Disaster
“Before my weight loss surgery, I was 110 lbs overweight. Three other teachers and I went to a conference and had to share a hotel room together. I was getting super constipated because I was uncomfortable using the restroom to poop while in such close proximity to my coworkers. The last day I could no longer take it so I got up at 4 AM while they were still sleeping. It was hideous, I strained and pushed for what seemed like ages… nothing. Finally, I dug my feet into the floor with all I had and pressed my back against the back of the toilet and gave it my all. CRAAACK! The frickin toilet cracked from one of the bolts and all up the pedestal!!! Water was leaking everywhere! All three of my coworkers came running to the door to see if I was okay. Humiliating. I had to call the hotel desk and pretend like the toilet cracked out of nowhere. Everyone was so nice, I don’t think anyone believed me for a second. The worst part, I was still constipated.”
One Too Many Long Islands…
“Luckily this happened before social media got big, but it did not happen before camera phones… Years ago two friends and I got a hotel room for the night. We went drinking all day long on empty stomachs. To make things worse, the bar had a special on giant Long Island Iced Teas that would put down a horse. A few hours and way too many long islands passed, and Friend 1 passed out on the bar and was dragged out by the bouncers and put into a cab, unbeknownst to me and Friend 2. We went looking for him, eventually making our way back to the hotel. He was there alright, completely passed out dead to the world and had flipped the latch on the inside of the door that prevents you from opening it from the outside. After much banging and screaming, we were able to get the superintendent to help us. I was 10 long islands deep at this point, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I passed out on the floor while the super was removing the door. I don’t remember anything that happened next. But apparently I was hot so I took all of my clothes off and used them as a pillow and sleeping mat. Around 7 AM, the super had finally removed the door and let us in. I woke up hugging the toilet later still undressed, wondering where my clothes were. When checking out, we were riding the elevator down with a couple of other people from our floor, and they were whispering to each other and laughing uncontrollably. Finally, one of them tapped me on the shoulder and asked me if I was the one who was passed out in my ‘birthday suit.’ To which I could only respond ‘Probably.’ They laughed hysterically and said ‘You’re famous!’ Not what I was expecting to hear. They reached for their phones, then proceeded to show me picture after picture of them and some other strangers propping me up and taking group photos with me. Meanwhile, Friend 2 was just laughing and enjoying the spectacle.”
Be Careful Where You Hide Your Toys
“On frequent business trips to a particular city, I would rendezvous with another executive who lived there. The arrangement was passionate but strictly hooking up, and it was very much a secret. We always met in my suite at the same hotel. He would come in through a side entrance and then take the stairs to my room in order to protect both our reputations. On one highly anticipated weekend, I had a shipment containing hundreds of dollars worth of lingerie and adult toys sent to me at a local friend’s house, then I brought it to my room. This stuff made 50 Shades look like the bunny slopes. After our night together, I packed it all back into the box, buried in the packing materials so housekeeping wouldn’t be disturbed by any of it. Well, somehow they assumed the box was empty and threw it out. I got back to my room, saw it was gone and panicked. I called the front desk to have it returned to me, hoping the housekeeper would remember the box and quickly identify it. It turns out they discard LOTS of boxes, and in order to find which one was mine they ended up opening and sorting through all of them. I will never forget the smirking expression on the face of the bellman who brought it to my room. I am 100% certain rumors spread among the staff, as every glance followed me every time I crossed the lobby, and male employees to this day still greet me with extra enthusiasm. In retrospect, it’s likely they thought I was a professional dominatrix or something of the sort.”
Please Knock First
“My boyfriend and I went on holiday together to South East Asia. The first morning at this hotel we went downstairs for our home-cooked breakfast, and got talking to the lovely lady who was cooking it for us, and who would also be our room cleaner. We told her all about our plans for the day, including grabbing a bike and heading into the town center for a bit of shopping after breakfast. She assumed that we headed out as soon as we left breakfast. Little did she realize that we were planning to have an after-breakfast ‘quicky’ before heading into town. So here we are going at it like there’s no tomorrow. It was wild and passionate. Right in the middle of it all, we hear the door-handle rattle and see the handle pushed downwards. I cannot tell you how fast we snapped into action – one minute we’re on the bed and the next we’re pushing the door closed in our birthday suits and praying to God she didn’t see too much! Although making excuses, it was very obvious to her what was going on behind the door! It was pretty awkward seeing her an hour later as we were finally leaving the hotel, but all-in-all I think all three of us had a pretty good laugh about it!”
Granny For The Win
“Most embarrassing moment: being asked by a 75-year old grandmother how I was feeling this morning whilst serving her breakfast. Why embarrassing? Well I was working in a hotel in the UK. The position was ‘live-in,’ meaning I had a room in the hotel. I was working in the bar and some of the local farmers along with around a dozen soldiers staying in a farmer’s barn were there. When the bar closed we all decided to carry on the drinking at one of the farmer’s barn. Several hours later I was well and truly ‘hammered.’ I decided to call it a day and headed back to the hotel. Horror upon horrors, I discover I’d left the hotel without my keys – so I’m now stuck outside, wondering just how rapidly I’m going to get fired if I wake up the General Manager to get back inside. Eventually, my wasted logic decided I could just climb up the outside of the wall, onto a guest balcony and from there get into my room via the open window. So at 3 in the morning I’m industriously, and, in my mind, totally silently, stacking up several large empty kegs. After several attempts I managed to build myself a ‘keg tower’ and started to climb. Got up and with one foot and hand on the balcony and the other foot and hand reaching out into mid-air, hanging above a rather long drop, I realize that my bedroom window was a bit further away than it looked from ground level. ‘Excuse me dear – are you sure you want to try that? It really doesn’t look very safe!’ My heart stops and I turn around to see an elderly couple peeking out of their balcony doors. ‘You’ll probably find it easier if you come in this way,’ she says, indicating the way into her room. Sheepishly, I haul myself back onto the balcony, mutter my thanks whilst staring at the floor, and make my way back into the hotel. The next morning I’m up serving breakfast whilst nursing the mother of all hangovers. Eventually, the elderly couple wandered in. I take a deep breath and walk across to them to apologize. Before I have the chance, this wonderful lady smiles at me and asks me ‘And how are you feeling this morning?’ I blush and glance across at the manager. She reads my thoughts and says ‘Oh, don’t worry about it. We’ve got three sons and seven grandsons. We’ve seen it all before. And we did have quite a laugh watching you try to stack those kegs.’ Needless to say, for the rest of their stay, that particular couple never had to pay for another drink in the bar.”
One Wild Night
“Three of my friends and I (all of us women) decided to book a room at the most upscale hotel in town for New Year’s Eve and do it up crazy style. We had gotten hold of some illicit substances and were all feeling fabulous and having a great time. At some point, we figured out there was a pool but we had not thought to pack swimsuits. A minor inconvenience, we simply went down in our underwear. And after having a rollicking good time we decided to take our dripping wet, underwear-clad selves back to our rooms. Well, what we had lost sight of was that in this very swanky hotel and there was a huge formal NYE event going on. Like wealthy people all decked out in tuxedos and ball gowns. It’s a real ‘old money,’ traditional kind of hotel. So imagine our shock and horror when we tried to very quietly and unobtrusively slink onto the elevator and find that we had to squeeze into a car full of immaculately dressed guests who all went dead quiet and tried to not so subtly press themselves against the walls. It was a veeerrrrry long ride up to our floor.”
A Bad Time To Shower
“My embarrassing moment happened when the fire alarm went off while I was in the shower. It was really a fire, not just an alarm, so I’m not naming the hotel or location. I had no time to grab clothes from my suitcase or even a towel as firemen swarmed the rooms. They found me in my birthday suit on the balcony where I ran to get air, as smoke filled the room quickly. Since then, I always leave clothes right outside the shower when traveling.”
A Honeymoon To Remember
“I was working the overnight shift at a hotel in Boston. At about 2 AM, a young Japanese honeymoon couple checked in. I saw their room had been preassigned by the day shift. I was hoping to get them a king bed, but only double rooms were still available at that point. So, I checked them in, offering best wishes and congratulations on the marriage. Unbeknownst to me, the gentleman in the room across the hall had had an issue and had been moved by the swing shift into the same room I had just checked in. The newlyweds, being young and in love, opened the door without turning the lights on and dived into the bed closest to the door. About 15 minutes later, I got a call of a disturbance on that floor. It turns out the moved guest woke up in the other bed at the penultimate moment, and hearing noises, turned the light on! I ended up moving everyone to the biggest suites in the hotel.”
Room Service Shock
“To be honest when you travel a lot on business and stay in different hotels every night it’s not unusual for the maid to walk in on you from time to time when you’re in various stages of undress. It’s not usually too embarrassing, they say a polite ‘excuse me’ and leave.
This occasion however… well. I was staying somewhere on the continent a few years back. I think it was France, though it might have been Germany. I was leaving early in the morning so I had ordered breakfast in my room — one of those little luxuries that make up for being stuck in hotels all the time.
So there I was, six o’clock in the morning, in the shower getting ready for the hard day ahead. It was one of those showers that are over the bath rather than a separate shower cubicle. Suddenly I hear a noise behind me, I turn round with a start and there is the maid, standing in the door of the bathroom holding the breakfast tray.
As I say, what would normally happen is ‘Excuse me’ and a quick retreat. No harm done. What actually happens is she shrieks and drops the tray with a loud clatter on the bathroom floor, smashing the glass and the crockery in the process.
So there I am, standing in the bath caught with no clothes on. The maid is on hands and knees frantically trying to sweep up the glass with her hands. I can’t even get out the bath as there are shards of glass everywhere. I’m terrified she is going to cut her hands on the glass.
‘Get a towel, get a towel,’ I yell in my best whatever language it was. So she grabs a towel and instead of handing to me starts sweeping up the glass with it. Which I suppose was better than bare hands.
Anyway, eventually, she clears up the mess to some extent and runs off leaving me still stuck in the bath with no clothes on.
I never did get my breakfast.”
Dazed And Confused.=
“This is probably one of the best things that ever happened to me, in retrospect. Since the ‘incident,’ I’ve never again been ashamed of anything. It all went down in July 2013. I was in Rome with a good friend. It was awfully hot and spent the whole day touring and every now and then, we would stop in the shade and have a cold drink to cool off. Towards the end of the afternoon, I was pretty exhausted and a little bit tipsy, so when we got back to the hotel, I told my friend that I needed to take a nap before dinner. I walked up to my room, undresses completely and got to bed. I woke up in the wrong part of my sleeping cycle, feeling like poop. I figured that if I took a cold shower, I would feel better. So I wandered off towards the bathroom, still half asleep. When I got there the door behind me closed shut by itself. ‘Weird,’ I thought, ‘hotel bathroom doors don’t do that.’ And then it hit me. I was standing without clothes in the middle of the hotel corridor, with the door to my room locked behind me. My friend’s room was adjacent to mine, so I banged on his door but he must have gone out. I was ruined. Then I heard some voices. I guessed which room they were in and was about to knock, but then I figured that I couldn’t really knock on a stranger’s door in my birthday suit. I spotted a fire extinguisher hanging on a wall, picked it up, placed it in front of my junk, and knocked. The door opened revealing a woman in her late 30s. Her eyes opened so wide I thought they would pop out. ‘Funny story.’ I smiled as wide as I could. ‘I wanted to go to my bathroom and locked myself out. Would you be so kind as to help me out with a towel?’ She looked at me, still not saying anything and all of a sudden closed the door shut. Dang. Would I have to do the same stunt at every door until someone would finally decide to help me out? But then the door opened up again. The woman was handing me a towel the size of a handkerchief. ‘Look, I’m really in trouble here. All I want is a towel to be able to go downstairs to the lobby and get the reception to unlock my door for me.’ The door closed again. A minute passed, then at last she opened the door and handed me a towel. I think that’s the hardest she had ever tried not to laugh her whole life. But I didn’t care. I had never felt so cool as the moment I put the towel around my waist. I was the king of the world, and nothing could break me.”
Really?!
“I was working over the weekend, deploying software for a new release that HAD to go live Monday morning. Originally, there were two other people scheduled to assist me. Neither made it so I was on my own! I worked straight through the weekend and finished Monday morning at about 2 AM. I desperately needed some rest, because I had to be on hand at 8:00 AM when the business folks showed up. Rather than drive home, my wife suggested I get a hotel room and meet her back at the office where she would bring clean clothes. So I walked to a high-end hotel, checked-in and made my way to the room. I walk inside and suddenly notice clothing strewn all over the room. Then the sounds – oh, God, the sounds coming from around the corner are indelibly imprinted on my mind. I quickly backed out and went back to the hotel desk and got another room. I went to the new room, inserted the card key, and the door unlocked, but would not open. In my fatigued state, I could not figure out what was wrong, so I tried several more times. Suddenly the door was flung open by a very large and irate man standing there in his underwear. I apologized profusely and hustled back to the front desk. This time, I hurled the key at him, yelling, ‘That room was occupied also. What the heck kind of a hotel is this?’ He again apologized profusely, explaining that their computer system had gone down earlier that night so he had absolutely NO IDEA which rooms were occupied. By this time, it’s nearly 3:30 AM and I have to be back up no later than 6:00. He takes one look at my not-so-smiling face and says ‘I know, I will give you the Presidential Suite! It’s NEVER reserved without everyone on staff knowing about it because only VIPs stay there.’ I agree and managed to get about 2 1/2 hours of sleep. The funniest thing about the whole deal is that they actually billed me for the Presidential Suite at the full VIP rate. Under the circumstances, I actually expected them to comp my entire 2.5-hour stay, but no. They did eventually, after several arguments, agree to reduce the bill to the ‘standard corporate’ rate though.”
Be Careful With What You Wear
“The doctor I worked for paid for a membership so I could use the gym and outdoor pool at a high-end hotel. The pool was overlooked by the bar with floor to ceiling windows. A friend and I met there once. We did some treadmill time and headed to the pool. I usually worked out with shorts and a tank top over my bikini. We get to the pool and I took my top and bottoms off and snuggled down into a lounge chair. It was at least five minutes before my girlfriend started giggling, then snickering, then laughing out loud. I couldn’t see what was so funny. My girlfriend was nearly falling out of her chair when I caught a glimpse of bright white where my black bikini bottoms should have been. I never put my bikini bottoms on! Just the top! I had been sitting there in my white, granny panties, right under those floor to ceiling windows. It was happy hour and I could clearly see many, many faces all watching. I put my shorts back on. Left my girlfriend there, laughing so hard tears ran down her face and she couldn’t speak. I walked back to the locker room, by the front desk where they too burst out laughing. I got dressed and left. I did go back but to this day I triple check what I’m wearing.”
Wrong Kind Of Party
“I went to Hawaii for my high school graduation. Back then you could drink legally in Hawaii at 18, so it was a non-stop beach party. One night in a wasted stupor, some buddies and I are walking back to our hotel and we’re going to keep raging in our hotel room. I have to take a tremendous leak so as we walk into the lobby I head for the men’s bathroom. Upon exiting, I see this Hawaiian guy dressed up in some pretty authentic clothes and in a hammered state I think to myself, ‘He’d be the life of the party if I could convince him to come upstairs!’ It’d be like I brought up a souvenir, Don Ho style. So much for the brain on drinks and weed. In a very innocent fashion, I’m like ‘Hey Hawaiian dude, we’re having a party upstairs! Wanna party?’ And he smiles, doesn’t say a word. I’m like, ‘You know man, let’s drink! Come meet my friends!’ He smiles again and gets in the elevator with me. He’s staring at me, smiling… I’m thinking, cool, my buddies are going to completely bust up laughing when I walk in the room with Don Ho… but then he starts inching closer to me and starts rubbing my arm and shoulder. I’m getting ghost white and realize I’ve made a HUGE mistake. So thank God the elevator door opens like after an eternity and I jet out and speed walk over to our door and start pounding the heck out of it and the Hawaiian dude is following me. But once he saw the frantic look on my face I think he figured it out. He just stood there in the hallway with a look of disgust and disappointment. I darted into the room and slammed shut the door, and told no one about it. As I am pretty creative, I immediately celebrated escape by suggesting we fill up our room’s trash cans with water and dumping it off the balcony and the night ended with management threatening to kick us out of the hotel for producing instant typhoon showers on the guests entering the hotel late at night. A DOUBLY embarrassing night, for sure!”
What Is Happening?
“I was part of a group traveling to a friend’s wedding in another state. We needed to stay one night in a motel in rural Pennsylvania and I shared a room with a fellow member of the group that I didn’t know. A big red Irish man, he turned out to be an NYC police officer who shared the adult beverages he brought with me. I passed out by midnight but he was just getting started. At 1:30 am, wearing only underwear, he took a bible from the nightstand and began preaching at the top of his lungs out the window. Guests awakened, a crowd gathered, and the overmatched staff called the cops. When they arrived, they assumed we were a gay couple and really wanted to kick our butts. Big Red, of course, was threatening to smite the lot of them. When I said I’d only just met the guy, it sounded even worse. Only the badge and my friends saved us. Seemingly disappointed, the cops dumped any remaining drinks, gave us a warning, and left.”
No Credit, Lots Of Problems
“I had been traveling for work. In addition to charges, hotels will hold deposits on your credit card for several days. Since neither of the 2 associations I had done speeches for had paid me yet I found myself with $3 and a flight that wouldn’t leave until the next day. Fortunately, a hotel let me stay on my assurance that money would be in my account the next day. I had just finished a speech and got one of the attendees to give me a ride back to my hotel. When we arrived he said he would come in with me and buy a drink at the bar. To my horror, when we arrived the clerk showed me my luggage, told me that my credit card had been declined and requested my immediate departure. The attendee looking more than surprised said he didn’t have time for a drink after all and left. This was doubly embarrassing because he was a member of the association that had hired me, and I knew others would be hearing about it. I took the shuttle back to the airport where I picked up another shuttle to a different hotel. I figured I could just hang out there until morning and then ride back to the airport. While wandering around I passed a banquet room with a buffet in progress. Being averse to starving I went in and started helping myself to some food. As I was piling it up a man came over and introduced himself. After we shook hands he said he noticed I wasn’t wearing a name tag. I said that I was a professional speaker and usually didn’t bother with name tags. He said we don’t have a speaking program for this meeting. Shocked, I said, ‘maybe I’m in the wrong place. Isn’t this the Plumbing Heating Cooling Contractors Association?’ He said, ‘no this is the Arizona Sheriffs Association.’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’m definitely in the wrong place,’ as I turned and left.”
Freezing False Alarm
“My daughter was a baby and we had a collapsible playpen type thing for a bed. She had a really bad cold and was really stuffy. It was really late at night and she was fussy and couldn’t sleep.
I put her playpen in the bathroom and ran the shower on hot to get some steam to clear up her sinuses so she could sleep. We were in there for a while and she had finally gotten to sleep so I opened the door to the bedroom to leave the bathroom.
All of that steam went out of the bathroom and immediately set off the fire alarm to the hotel. The entire hotel had to be evacuated in the middle of the night in the winter in Anchorage, Alaska. Everyone had to stand outside in the dark and cold in their various states of undress until the fire department cleared the hotel.
I don’t think my daughter ever got to sleep that night but I learned that steam can set off a fire alarm and I never made that mistake again.”