The Great Hotel Room Dilemma: Not Too Low, Not Too Secluded—Just Right!
If you’ve ever worked the front desk at a hotel—or just stayed in one—you know that room requests can be a wild ride. From the family with impossible preferences to the guest convinced the second floor is “just too low,” every shift is an adventure. But sometimes, a guest’s room quest is so delightfully contradictory it deserves the spotlight. Enter the tale of the mountain resort guest who wanted a room “not on the ground and not secluded”—and the front desk hero who tried valiantly to deliver the Goldilocks experience.
The Scene: A Mountain Resort and a Million Preferences
Picture this: You’re checking in a sweet lady with her kids at an 84-acre mountain resort with multiple buildings. She’s friendly, polite, and sure of what she wants—sort of. After collecting her card and ID, you assign her a first-floor room. That’s when the adventure begins.
She asks, “Do you have any double queen rooms on an upper floor?” Understandable! Safety and views are great perks. The catch? Most double queens are on lower floors, especially with a sports team in-house gobbling up the inventory. But by some miracle, there’s one left—tucked away in a back building against the mountain.
Problem solved? Not quite.
The Secluded Room Tango
Twenty minutes later, the guest reappears with an apologetic frown. The upper-floor room is “too dark and secluded.” She doesn’t feel safe. Now, the front desk agent (u/FlyingPocketMercy, our story’s OP) is caught in the classic hospitality paradox: How do you find a room that’s both higher up and centrally located, but also not too exposed, not too pricey, and definitely not too dark?
The OP explains that main building rooms—more central, better lit, and “safer”—are available at a higher rate. The guest, budget-minded but persistent, declines and starts pointing at a map, picking out rooms that—plot twist—are even more secluded and darker than the one she just fled. “Oh, I’ve been up there before. We loved it. Especially these two buildings,” she says with a smile.
Cue the confused shrug and a quick check of availability. No luck in her favorite buildings, but there’s a room in the next ones over. Decision made: She’ll take the original room after all.
When Hotel Guests Want It All (And None of It)
If you’re shaking your head, you’re not alone. The community at r/TalesFromTheFrontDesk knows these guests well. As u/d4sbwitu hilariously recounted, “I had a fresh-faced young lady on her first work trip ask for a quiet room—not on the first floor, ‘because I wouldn’t feel safe there.’” The solution? A top-floor, corner room with no neighbors. But the guest immediately complained that the hallway was “too dark,” fearing someone could “hide” there. As u/d4sbwitu wondered, “HIDE WHERE!? The only way for them to hide would have been to melt into the wall.”
It’s a recurring theme: Guests crave privacy, quiet, and safety, but also want to be in the thick of things—with just the right level of lighting and no surprises. As u/NervousGate7902 shared, some guests want the upgraded suite every time, even on sold-out weekends, forgetting that “free upgrades when available” isn’t a guarantee. And u/mesembryanthemum has fielded requests for “higher floors” in a two-story hotel—sometimes, the impossible is simply…impossible.
The Front Desk: Where Patience Meets Paradox
What’s a front desk agent to do when faced with these Goldilocks requests? Smile, stay flexible, and keep a sense of humor. The OP handled the contradictory wishes with grace, notating the reservation and sharing the tale with their manager for a well-deserved laugh.
And the community gets it. u/Overtlytired-_- likened the predicament to the classic meme where someone just ✨disappears✨ after making an impossible demand. Sometimes, all you can do is watch guests chase their own tails around the property map.
But not all feedback was focused on the guests—Reddit being Reddit, several users jumped in to teach the OP about Reddit’s quirky markdown formatting. “Since it’s your first post, a pointer: Reddit’s Markdown Editor requires TWO new lines for a new paragraph. No idea why it’s like that, but a lot of new folks miss that,” advised u/SkwrlTail. Some even debated the number of new lines needed, because apparently, hotel requests aren’t the only thing that can get confusing fast!
Conclusion: The Art (and Comedy) of Room Assignments
This story is a reminder that hotel work is equal parts customer service and improvisational comedy. For every guest who knows exactly what they want, there’s another whose preferences change with the weather—or the lighting. So next time you check in, remember: Your front desk agent is a magician, a diplomat, and sometimes, a stand-up comic all rolled into one.
Have you ever made an “impossible” request at a hotel? Or worked the desk and fielded some head-scratchers? Share your stories in the comments—because in hospitality, laughter (and empathy) is always on the house.
Original Reddit Post: I want a room that is not on the ground and not secluded!