One of the most annoying things about traveling is ending up with time to spare before checking into your hotel. Most hotels won’t let people check in until the early afternoon. Why? Because their guests have until the late morning to check out, leaving their staff with a few hours to get the rooms ready for new guests.
Consequently, you could land at your destination and still have a couple of hours until you’re allowed to check-in. The question is, what do you do with all of this spare time? Here are some ideas that will stop you from being bored and losing your mind:
Ring the hotel
You can start by ringing the hotel and asking them about your room. 90% of the time, they’ll tell you to come and check in at the agreed-upon time. However, you might get lucky. Sometimes, they have available rooms that weren’t booked up or used the night before. So, you can go along and check into your room already! This lets you unpack your bags and get ready for the rest of your day without this annoying cloud hanging over your head.
Of course, the chances of this happening are slim – but it’s still well worth calling ahead just to check.
Get a bite to eat
Finding somewhere to eat is always a good way of passing the time before checking into a hotel. The good thing is, you could find somewhere at the airport that’s more than suitable.
This means you can stay there, enjoy a bite to eat, and plan the trip to the hotel. Take your time, and you can easily kill an extra hour just sitting in a cafe eating something or enjoying a cup of coffee to perk you up.
Plan your itinerary for the rest of the day
When you know what time you’re checking in, it gives you a bit of a schedule for the rest of your day. You’ll know when you have to be at the hotel, so you can work ahead of that. Use this free time to plan your itinerary for the rest of the day.
Decide what you’ll do when you’ve checked into your room and dumped all of your stuff. Think about where you’ll go, how you’ll get there, what clothes you’ll need, and so on.
Again, you can do this while you’re still at the airport having a coffee and some lunch. Or, you can get a bit closer to your hotel and enjoy more of the local delights. Some hotels will even have a cafe to let you sit in while you wait, so you have all of your luggage with you safely nearby.
Then, when it’s time to finally check in, you have everything sorted for the rest of the day. It means you can maximize the time without spending another hour sitting on your hotel bed Googling places to go or things to see.
Go sightseeing
You don’t have to put your whole day on hold when you have a hotel to check into. A lot of travelers think that they can’t do anything until they’re able to dump their bags. Here’s the thing, there are loads of luggage storage places around for you to keep your luggage.
Some of these are paid storage places in train stations, but the hotel you’re staying at may also let you go there, leave your luggage, and come back later in the day – often free of charge.
Once you have taken care of your luggage, you’re basically free to do whatever you want. You can go sightseeing, get something to eat, go to the beach; whatever you fancy. Then, when you’re ready to head back, you can go collect your luggage from wherever you stored it and check into your hotel room.
It means you can enjoy so much more on the first day of arriving in a country. There’s nothing worse than going somewhere for a few days, but one or two of those days are consumed by traveling.
The same is true when you leave your hotel; you can store your luggage somewhere and spend the rest of the day having fun. This means you don’t have to book an early flight home because of your early checkout. You can leave the hotel in the morning, keep your luggage safe, then have an extra few hours to enjoy your vacation.
So, there you have it; how to pass the time before checking into your hotel. Don’t let the day waste away when you’re waiting for your room to be ready. Do something, anything, to ensure that you’re making the most out of your vacation.
