When traveling, one of the first things a guest might do is inspect the lock on their hotel room door, to ensure that they will be able to have a modicum of privacy and safety in their temporary accommodations.
And if that door does not lock, it definitely raises red flags for the occupants of the room.
One Marriott guest says that when she found the door to her room did not lock, she asked if she could be moved into a room that did. However, the hotel was overbooked—so they simply offered her a glass of wine and a slice of cheesecake.
When she inspected the lock on her room, Maggie (@maggiemadecrochet) says she could easily see through the gap in the door and was able to simply pop it open with her keycard.
“I checked into the downtown Renaissance Philadelphia this week for work, and noticed that I could not lock my door,” Maggie says in the video. “The only thing securing the door was this little latch on top. I walked outside to see if I could lock it effectively and pulled it tight. There was a huge gap in the door that I could see directly into my room through. And look at that, popped the lock right open with my key card. I did that twice. I showed the engineer, the engineer was appalled. Guess what the front desk did? They offered me a glass of wine and a piece of cheesecake because the hotel was oversold.”
In follow-up videos, she says she was able to secure the door with some items from the room, including a doorstop, charging cable, and ironing board. She also shows a screen grab of an email she wrote to a representative of the hotel chain asking why the front desk felt it appropriate to offer a glass of wine to a guest who felt unsafe in their room. When she got a response, it was addressed to her husband.
“You didn’t even have the time and the patience to go through and read my note,” she says in the video. “I need somebody to listen to this. Someone could have gotten hurt.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to Maggie via her Etsy shop, and to Mariott via email regarding the video.
Several viewers wrote that they would be checking out immediately or demanding that the hotel get them another room somewhere else if they had such an issue with their door in a hotel.
“Omg they wouldn’t move you?!” one commenter wrote. “Absolutely not I’d be checking out or they should be accommodating you and moving you to another/partner hotel nearby.”
“They should have refunded you and secured a room at another neighboring hotel at their cost for you since they were booked,” another said.
“They would need to get me another room at another hotel that is not a safe place,” a third shared.
@maggiemadecrochet My room door wouldn’t lock at the @Marriott Hotels Renaissance Philadelphia Downtown. AND I could open it from the outside by swiping a card through the door jamb. Do better @Marriott Bonvoy ♬ original sound – MaggieMadeCrochet
Many viewers heavily criticized the offer of wine and cheesecake in place of the customer’s safety.
“Wine and cheesecake to makeup for a lack of safety?” one commented. “They needed to book you elsewhere on their dime and refund you for that IMO.”
“A glass of wine & cheesecake doesn’t make you safer,” another user said. “That’s a ridiculous response for their negligence.”
“I’d expect more than a glass of wine and cheesecake for my last meal!” a further viewer wrote.
Update 10:34am CT, Nov. 21: Another viral video recently called hotel safety into question.
A group of women were on a girls trip when they said random men entered their room. They said they later discovered that the front desk clerk gave the men the hotel key to their room after they gave him the name “Jessica.” “Jessica” just so happened to be the name of one of the women staying in the room, but the women maintained they didn’t know the men. “We have so much designer, expensive stuff up there. You know how much human trafficking and everything is going on? And you gave somebody access to our room?” one of the women said while police officers were questioning them regarding the incident.
Police eventually dubbed the matter “civil” rather than a criminal one.