Check this out: Hotels shorten our weekends
By Beth Teitell
Boston Herald Columnist
Wednesday, June 21, 2006

When is a weekend away not a weekend away? When checkout time at your cute little hotel in Maine is at 10 a.m. That’s right - instead of frolicking in the waves, reading the Sunday paper while digging your toes in the sand and treating yourself to a late-day lobster roll and beer, you find yourself driving south on the highway, and you’re back in Boston by 2 p.m. Sharp.
        “Home so early?” my neighbor asked, surprised to see me unpacking the car in the midday sun. That would be the same sun I should be lying on a beach blanket under, 80 miles away.
        And I was lucky. Back at my “weekend” getway hotel, I had thrown myself on the mercy of the desk girl and wheedled an extra hour. You know - to stretch the “weekend” to a tiny nibble of Sunday. I was about to go for a second extension, but she cut me off. “If you want to stay until noon it’s an extra $20,” she said.
        I waste $20 all the time, but there was no way I was forking it over to buy an hour that I felt was mine to begin with. Stock the minibar with $10 Snickers, provide blankets so cheap they appear to be made of dried Wet Wipes, give me three bath towels for a family of four, but please, don’t make me set the alarm early on departure day and force me to spend my last minutes “on vacation” packing the same clothes I just put in the drawers mere hours earlier.
        “There’s no way we’re leaving by 11,” I told my husband. Checking out, yes. Leaving, no. Striking what I considered to be a blow for hotel guests worldwide, I allowed myself a leisurely morning and then, at the stroke of 11, I hit the front desk and paid my bill. Very cheerfully. “How was everything?” my nemesis asked. “Wonderful!” I said, blatantly unaccompanied by my husband and children, bags packed and heading for the door. “Heh, heh, heh,” I inwardly chortled, gleeful at the thought of my band of rebels back in the room, reveling in their illicit should-be-gone-by-now minutes.
        Look, I know that hotels have their reasons. They need to give the housekeeping staff time to clean the room for the next guests, blah, blah, blah, but even so, being forced out so early is an outrage. In fact, nothing makes me madder.
        Except for one thing: Arriving at my hotel and being told I can’t check in yet because the room’s not ready.
        You’d think they’d be able to get people out in time.