It’s specifically timed: you get up and get dressed for the free breakfast, get back to your room and you’re like, “Well, I’m already up and dressed and everything, I might as well hit the road!” And you leave, conveniently leaving the room available for Housekeeping to clean for those early arrivals.
Amusement parks will do something similar: time a fireworks display in a central-ish area near the end of the night. Everyone comes to the fireworks, they end and everyone looks at tl the time and is like, “Well, there’s just enough time for one more ride / snack / set of games”, and then we’ll have to leave," ignoring the way you’ve been collected to a central(ish) location and primed to leave, making the job for closing security much easier.
A lot of it is also timed for workers. That’s why many places have later breakfast times on weekends.
It’s sad to say this, but I’m glad there’s the occasional point when our employing overlords’ incentives and the employees’ incentives are lined up
Everyone comes to the fireworks
Everyone stays for the fireworks. People show up late just for the fireworks. It makes everything harder because of the crowds. Without fireworks people would slowly leave before closing which would be much easier on the staff.
I stg it used to be (probably around pre 2020) that even the shitty hole in the wall motels had like pretty comfy solid breakfast - bagged eggs (my guilty pleasure) and cool steampunk communal toasters and shit. now it’s like mini cereal boxes and maybe bagged muffins.
getting old is hell. everything gets worse and most people just try to ignore it
I was going to a Day’s Inn yearly for a river floating trip, and each year their breakfast got shittier and shittier.
They used to have a Texas shaped (self-serve) waffle maker, muffins, toast, juice, and jam. Now it’s single serving cereal boxes and room temperature OJ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I feel the breakfast buffet was another victim of covid. Hotels probably realized the cost to re-open the buffet wasn’t worth it.
Which is ridiculous. Why should people self serving themselves eggs and bacon and toast be cancelled due to the pandemic? They didn’t shut down hotels, and fomites weren’t a vector of infection.
There was that whole thing where people weren’t comfortable with crowding into a single communal indoor space though. If no one gathers to eat the food, the food is a waste.
You seem not to remember what 2020 was like, particularly March through the fall.
What the hell are bagged eggs?
Testicles come to mind, but are not the answer.
Inquiring minds want to know.
Pasteurized frozen scrambled eggs that come in a flat bag the size of a sheet pan. They are thawed and cooked in the bag, then sliced out of the bag, given a few chops to break them up in the middle of the resulting cloud of egg scented steam, and then dumped onto a steam table.
Like this
What are bagged eggs?
haha i mean like these sort of scrambled eggs: https://www.webstaurantstore.com/martins-quality-eggs-5-lb-frozen-boil-in-bag-scrambled-egg-mix-case/873331035.html
they have a particular flavor / consistency / vibe that i find comforting
Ok, who’s dad named that site, “Webstaurant” Store? Because I’d like to shake their hand, at least on the “Webstaurant” part
They’re just hard boiled eggs that have been shelled and stuck into a little bag that’s then heat sealed. I assume they’re produced by the big food service distributors like Sysco. I find them pretty unappetizing.
Well, this raises more questions than answers.
I feel as if I am no closer to understanding bagged eggs than I was before.
Here’s a reddit post showing what the Costco version looks like. At a hotel there would typically be one per bag.
Not quite. All the threads point to it being a mass-produced scrambled egg mixture that’s distributed in bags, which are cooked to completion at the restaurant. Otherwise, they’d need to dedicate people to cracking and beating eggs, especially in places where turnover is pretty high.
I’ve seen bagged boiled eggs at multiple hotels over the years and think it’s fair to say that both types of bagged eggs can exist.
I have the same question.
I searched real quick—it looks like you put eggs in a ziploc bag, optionally with veggies or other omelet ingredients. Close the bag and dip it in boiling water for a couple minutes. Then you end up with sometime like an omelet or scrambled eggs. Honestly I’ve never seen that at a hotel breakfast.
But I’d still like to know what OP means
They should have said “liquid eggs” because that’s really what they meant but food service packages are often in bags as opposed to the consumer style cartons.
Hotels have gotten worse. I travel for work often and I can see it. Housekeeping every day isn’t a given anymore since Covid and the breakfasts have continued to decline. Pretty much all I will get at hotel breakfast these days is an apple and nuclear reactor temperature coffee.
I never wanted housekeeping every day anyway so it just means I don’t have to tell them to fuck off as often for me.
I’ve noticed the IHG family hotels (Holiday Inn) usually has a pretty well done breakfast, even at their budget Holiday Inn Express hotels
What does a steampunk toaster look like?
A 50s standard metal toaster with extra copper rods soldered on the outside.
Outside the US almost everywhere has a very good breakfast. Substantially better than the ones “nice” US hotels serve.
I loved being a kid with the fam on holiday and getting the free continental breakfast if we stayed in a hotel.
Hotel: Advertises full breakfast
Me:I’m so hungry, its great that I don’t have to cook
Breakfast: We have pre-made heat lamp eggs, Bacon and sausage are only served til 7am, the toaster doesn’t work at the moment, all the fruit was eaten but you can have all the cereal and shitty hotel muffins you want!
Our coffee is set to violent diarrhea, for your enjoyment 🙂
The oddly shriveled sausage ain’t too bad.
And you better be up at 6:30 to put your towel on a pool chair. We tell you not to do it but do nothing about it. Enjoy!
I throw towels. I won’t tolerate that sort of silliness. You’re not here? I am.
I’m too afraid of confrontation to do that. I wish I could though.
My favourite one so far offered breakfast & brunch until 1pm.
Just as bad is if you’re a morning person but they don’t serve breakfast until like 10.
As a non-morning person, please tell me where these are
I find them frequently when staying at a B&B
That’s okay, hotel breakfasts are almost always awful in my experience.
“continental” “breakfast”
That’s not continental, that’s American breakfast.
Also, is that a disposable plate? Never seen such thing in a hotel, you must stop booking on Airbnb.
Gross eggs, overcooked bacon, burnt waffles. Not my style either. Your right
“The best stuff” at a Continental breakfast anymore is prepackaged, unfortunately. The eggs are gross, the baked goods are stale, and it’s always disappointing. I barely even try it anymore and bring my own stuff rather than suffering through that crap.
Most hotels I’ve been put up in for work don’t even have a free breakfast. If your lucky you’ll get some coffee and maybe a free cookie from the lobby if they have them out.
Best we can do is some nice iced water with a lemon wedge in it ¯_(ツ)_/¯
They even skimp on the forearm now.
Huh, I stayed at a Hyatt recently and they had fresh scrambled eggs, “fresh” cooked sausage, fresh fruit, a waffle maker, cereals and bagels. All pretty mid quality, but it worked
Pretty much every holiday inn I stay at for work has had a decent breakfast. They run 6:30 to 9 and keeps things well stocked at least until 8 (I’m never there later)
They’ve all had the same “menu”, plus or minus a few things. They tend to rotate the hot items every otherday.
- An omelet thing, cheese or veggie
- Scrambled eggs
- Home Frys
- Gravey and bisket
- Sausage and/or bacon
- A 1-minute pancake machine that usually works…kind of
- Ceareal
- fruit
- A juice machine
- Coffe
- Hot water
- Hot cocoa packs
- Tea pouches
- Milk cartons (these are usually terrible, a lot are weird “organic” brands or “skimed to be 90% water”)
- Yogurt
- Bagles, English muffins, and toast
- Cinnamon rolls
- Muffin
You’re not wrong but after having this exact breakfast at HIE and Hampton Inn about 50+ times, it’s crap. Bland and repetitive and usually cold but somehow over cooked or the most undercooked eggs/bacon. My company always strongly recommends booking a room with breakfast included, but f that I’ll go find a $10 diner and have real bacon.
Why the fuck are you sharing this information?
Why shouldn’t they? O.o
I mean, it’s pretty on topic?
It’s weird, I completely agree that’s it’s on topic but I also completely agree with questioning why he’s sharing this…
Many others in the thread talked about their hotels that give them a bagged egg and stale cereal, so I decided to share my relatively consistent experience with a hotel chain. These forms are the last place for hopefully actual reviews/information. The alternatives are ad-infected paid ‘reviews’ or a pile of google/yelp reviews that basically amount to “if I could give 0 stars I would because the hotel internet went down during a hurricane” or “10/10 recommend”
Is Holiday inn the cheapest option? no. Is it possible I’ve just lucked out with the ones in my region? yes.
But clearly some people value breakfast at hotels, and I choose to share an option in detail.
-
A belgian waffle machine that is caked in burnt dough
-
The bacon is flimsy and under cooked
-
Plain bagels stiff from being left out too long and a load of white break next to a toaster you have to cycle 3 times
-
The kids leave a plate full of waffles floating in a pool of syrup, 4 bites taken
-
Half the 4 seater tables are taken up by 1 person, with plenty of 2-seaters wide open
-
Regular and decaf coffee that tastes burnt, and only powdered creamer, offers tea but it’s so picked over it’s 2-3 types of fruity chai or chamomile, green tea.
And most of this is stuff the staff can’t do anything about:
Waffle Machine: some doofus walked away and burnt a waffle in it, fucking things up for everyone
Bacon: flimsy because brand standard, “undercooked” because it goes straight from being cooked to a steam table. Goes from being soaked in hot grease to humid and never crisps up.
Bagels: cheap hotel management doesn’t let staff throw out stale bread unless it’s moldy. Also it came out of the freezer.
Toaster: Management knows it’s broken and doesn’t care.
Kids: are kids.
Tables: people are inconsiderate jerks.
Coffee: Brand standard.
Creamer: Brand standard.
Tea: Black tea goes quick, and breakfast is understaffed, often by one person who has to make sure there’s sufficient undercooked bacon, fresh burnt coffee, stale bagels, fruity tea, and powdered creamer to go around. And cleaning the sticky 4 seat tables the kids left before they’re occupied by a single person. And emptying the overflowing trash multiple times per breakfast.
The only thing that happens when guests complain is that the hotel blames the staff.
-
Uh, yeah, we got a raisin… Oh it’s just raisins. We’ve got raisins. Ope, that kid just took them.
It’s easy, really. Just sleep in enough and start with lunch, at least that’s what I do whenever I can.
What hotels are you going to that offer free lunch?
None, I didn’t even know you can get any food for free.
It is very common at the majority of hotels (in the US at least), that there is a daily free breakfast available to all guests in or near the lobby. It is buffet style and available within a time window that’s often on the earlier side. The quality varies some, but it’s normally on the cheap side. But for something that is included in the price of the room and gives you something warm and filling in the morning, it’s often good enough in my experience. Some that I’ve had were even notably good. Though there has been a couple hotels where the food was so limited in selection or poor enough in quality that I chose to go out for a hot breakfast instead.
Each Embassy Suites location I’ve stayed at had an hour at night where drinks were cheaper at their bar if you’re staying there, and they had an amazing omelette bar in the morning complete with other options. Surprisingly it was one of the less expensive hotel options, too!
Embassy Suites is legit the best chain hotel in the US.
This is a myth. Unless you are dead tired and utterly exhausted, you’ll never sleep all that well in a hotel room because in the back of your little mammalian brain you’ll always “know” that it’s not “home,” and you won’t ever feel entirely comfortable until you’ve slept there for a few nights.
So it’s not really like the “escape” herein described.
Unless you travel all the time, in which case again, it’s not really an “escape” and is just more of the same.
Skill issue
But in all seriousness, it’s not a universal condition. I can sleep fine. I haven’t travelled that much in my life, but this year I was on the road for half of it. Hotels with thin walls, car traffic with an open window, the lot. Never had problems sleeping.
Idk I’ve never had issues sleeping while traveling, and I don’t do it very often.
I’m now in my third week of my trip, I’ve slept in at least six different places, and I’ve yet to feel comfortable sleeping. There’s a feeling of uneasy I can’t shake off .
I love that feeling, because of my wife, we happened to travel a lot, and I mean way more than what’s considered a healthy amount of holidays.
Now visiting a foreign city is nothing new, same of the same. Sleeping in hotel is the usual thing, but I miss the first times we travelled, the wonder and mystery of a new place and that feeling of “I don’t belong here”.
I havent really experienced that tbh. But unlike (seemingly) most people these days I don’t really have issues with falling asleep in general. I fall asleep just fine in hotels. Personally my issue with hotels is that it usually gets quite messy due to the limited space and also I sometimes get a sore back from the too soft beds.
The trick is get drunk before sleep. Or sleeping pills
This is so fucking true!
Also, if you’ve got a long series of flights, get drunk the night before and you can save yourself a lot of trouble by sleeping through most of the nonsense.
Ask me how I know.
I sleep great in hotels, as long as they have good pillows and a comfortable bed.
Wrong!!
If you are depressed enough you can sleep anywhere
The best one is airport hotels you can get an full-on breakfast at 4:00am in the morning it’s fantastic. Especially useful if their 4:00 a.m. is your 3:00 p.m. and you can have an afternoon snack.
