A real luxury most top hotels don’t offer: an easy alarm clock

We’ve all been there, and if you haven’t, count your blessings. And knock wood. You get into a nice hotel late and bone-tired. Either you have no reason to wake up at any set time, or you simply call the desk for a wake-up call. (Or, if you are a master of your smart-phone, you rig the phone as an alarm.) And then you fall into a comfortable bed for a great night’s sleep.

Until an unfamiliar sound or song jolts you awake while it’s still dark. By the time you figure out it’s the hotel’s clock, and flounder around trying to turn it off, you are bolt awake. And you know you haven’t touched the clock.

Neither, apparently, did housekeeping after the last guest.

I do realize that on some level, it’s a traveler’s responsibility to check the clock upon arrival. If you can figure the thing out.

At a nice hotel in Maui, while discussing this post idea, my friend and I decided to double-check our fancy room alarm clock. It had an iPod docker, and what seemed like more bells and whistles than early computers., including the ability to set two different alarms the same day.

And it was a good thing we checked, because alarm B was scheduled to go off at 3:10 a.m. — presumably for some energetic past guest who wanted a volcano sunrise tour. At first, we couldn’t figure out how to stop it, although we got the alarm time changed to 8 a.m. And after some tinkering, we got the thing turned off, though we are still not quite sure how.

(The next step would have been pulling the plug.)

I wish this was my year’s only clock issue. But I’ve not only had clients complain, I’ve been caught myself. Once, with a 6:30 a.m. alarm at a Radisson hotel, and once, at a Ritz-Carlton of all places, with a 4:30 a.m. alarm. (Which was the worst, not just because of the time, but because the clock was so high-tech it didn’t sound like a standard alarm. So at first we didn’t know what it was.)

Some hotel chains are trying to come up with simpler alarms. The Waldorf Astoria Collection actually has instructions how to set the alarm on top of the clock. And Hilton hotels have also reportedly figured out an easy-to-use basic clock, although I haven’t tried it personally. (If any readers know other chains that are going the user-friendly route, please add a comment. Large time displays are helpful too, for those of us with 40-plus-year-old eyes.)

I realize that many hotel chains are trying to differentiate themselves from the competition. But I think for most travelers, the two most welcome “innovations” would be – first, having clocks that are both easy to set and easy to read in all rooms, second, even with “easy” clocks, having housekeeping automatically check and turn off any pre-set alarm.

Besides, almost any traveler who is into serious technological clock bells and whistles, probably has them already on their smartphone or laptop.

(Photo: DHDesign/Flickr Creative Commons)

Tagged as: alarm clocks, Hilton Hotels, hotel alarm clocks, ritz-carlton, Waldorf Astoria