When you check into a hotel for leisure, you expect (at the very least) a good night's sleep. After all, you might be on vacation and away from the challenges of work life, or even from the noise associated with your home environment. And if you're visiting a hotel for work, you truly need a good night's sleep: Maybe you're making a major presentation in the morning or you're going to be expected to come up with big ideas during an important day of meetings. Regardless, you want that night of sleep in a hotel bed to offer quality shuteye all night long. In order to make it count, here's what experts say you should always make sure to do before you hit the hay in a hotel room.
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Never forget to check the hotel alarm clock before you go to sleep.
ShutterstockEven if the housekeeping crew made your room impeccably tidy and sanitized after the last guest, the staff still might have forgotten to do one important thing that's actually critical for a good night's sleep: turn off the alarm after the previous guest's use. And if that alarm has been set for some unpleasant hour—maybe for a previous guest's early-morning flight—you'll want to make sure you turn it off before it wakes you up at that time, too, says Brandon Berkson, hotel expert and founder of the new HAP Concierge trip planning service.
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Insomniacs and light sleepers can be especially affected by a hotel alarm clock.
ShutterstockPeople who can fall back to sleep easily will be less bothered by a possible middle-of-the-night or early-morning wakeup. But those who struggle to fall back to sleep—or even get to sleep at all in the first place—should be extra careful to mind the hotel alarm clock before closing their eyes. "You should always check the alarm clock to see if it hasn’t been previously set, especially if you’re a light sleeper, or one who, when waking up in the middle of the night, has a hard time going back to sleep," Berkson urges.
If you're not sure how to use it, just unplug it.
ShutterstockThere's nothing worse than thinking you've reset the alarm clock only to be rudely awakened anyway because you didn't do it correctly. While you might think you're tech savvy, if you have any doubts, just take the most extreme approach: Unplugging it entirely can give you the peace of mind to sleep soundly.
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Use your phone alarm instead of the hotel alarm clock.
iStockIf you do need to set an alarm, here's a pro tip: Use the one on your phone instead, since you'll be more familiar with how it works and are more likely to get a dependable result.
"Sometimes I’ll try to set an alarm clock at the hotel I’m staying at, but to my despair, it won’t go off at all, not even at the hour I set it to," Berkson offers. "So, with these past experiences, I’m now a big believer in using my phone as an alarm clock—it's always dependable."
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