ShareThisQ: What do you do if someone in the hotel room next to you is snoring so loudly you can hear it in your room?
A: Pack earplugs next time ... or read reviews in advance and make sure you stay at a hotel with thicker walls. All you can do is ask the hotel if they could move you to a different room. Snoring is different from, say, a bachelorette party next door playing that hellacious "TiK ToK" song over and over at 2 a.m. -- it's involuntary. While I wouldn't hesitate to call the front desk and report the bachelorettes, you can't expect the hotel manager to knock on your neighbor's door and ask him if he could please snore more quietly. So if you can't stand it, unfortunately you're the one who needs to change rooms. And just for the record -- I think this is also true for crying babies.
Q: My husband doesn't believe that cell phones affect planes at all. He'll put his away while the flight attendants are doing their final cabin checks, but then he takes it out again and starts playing games. Other people glare at him, and he doesn't notice, so then they glare at me, and I'm sick of it. What he's doing is rude, right? Maybe if I show him your column he'll stop.
A: Of course, it's rude! Not to mention stupid -- someone could easily consider cell-phone usage suspicious behavior and alert the flight attendants. I don't care how good your husband is at "Tetris," it's not worth getting into hot water with the Transportation Security Administration over it. But what really bugs me is his "rules apply to everyone but me" attitude. If he feels like a particular traffic light is overkill, does he just barrel through it? Pass him this column right now. Hey there, Mr. Can't Put Down Your Cell Phone, I have a message for you: Grow up and follow the rules.
Q: Airline workers work harder than anyone else in the travel industry, but they never get tipped. Would it be OK to do so? I feel bad just saying "thank you" when they have to deal with grumpy, delayed passengers, screaming children, people having panic attacks, etc.
A: I completely agree that airline employees have really hard jobs and are under-appreciated, but no, I don't think you should tip them. If you want to reward someone, get her or his name and write to the airline's customer-service department about what a great job she or he did.
(E-mail travel-etiquette questions to Lesley Carlin at deartripadvisor(at)tripadvisor.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
Must credit tripadvisor.com
