Staying in a hotel during COVID-19 isn’t exactly how it used to be. Things are a lot different and this post focuses strictly on how our hotel stay in Berlin, Ohio was different. While I know each state is different, this post may still be useful to you to understand how COVID-19 may affect your vacation.
This past weekend, our family went on a 4-day trip to Ohio’s Amish Country. It was the exact spot we went to right before the COVID-19 outbreak took place, but this time things were slightly different.
For example, some of the tourist spots were closed and others limited the amount of people inside at one time. Still, the biggest difference of visiting Ohio right now was staying in a hotel since COVID-19 took place.
While we stayed in a fairly large hotel in Ohio, our hotel stay was completely different than any of us had ever expected. During our stay, our hotel’s free breakfast was different, we had little to no housekeeping services available, and the swimming pool was almost off limits. Even though we had planned for some changes in our hotel stay, it would have been nice to know what changes hotels were implementing before we had went.
What’s Different About Staying in a Hotel During COVID-19
The Breakfast
One of the biggest changes to our hotel stay while in Ohio, this time, was the fact that our hotel’s free breakfast buffet was no longer a buffet and more of a meal-type breakfast. Though the hotel tried to be accommodating in the best way possible, the hotel we stayed at required breakfast vouchers every morning and only allowed 1-serving of a breakfast entrée option and 2 pastries – per guest with as much coffee, drinks, yogurt, and milk as desired.
While this was plenty of food for breakfast, for me, it did seem to be on the more sweet side of breakfast options and the entrée options were very small serving sizes.
Housekeeping Service Is Limited
While I knew staying in a hotel during COVID-19 would be different, one of the things I never thought about was housekeeping services. During our 4-day, 3-night stay, our housekeeper never entered our room once. Instead, every morning, we had to leave our trash and dirty towels by the inside of our hotel door and our housekeeper provided us with a new bag of towels, toiletries and other necessities.
As for our beds, we had to make them every day and our sheets were only changed upon request, which I imagine we would have had to still put the sheets on our beds. Though I personally liked not having to worry about someone coming into our room while we were gone and still getting new towels and toiletries, I understand some people may not so it is definitely worth asking about before you book your hotel stay.
Swimming Pool Time is Limited, If Any
One of the most disappointing things about our hotel stay during COVID-19 was the fact that the swimming pool time was limited, if any. Our hotel had a fairly large swimming area, but was still required to limit swimming pool time to 10 people, or less and in respect for all the guest, we were to limit our time to 1-hour or less.
Even though this worked fine for most of the stay, we did get asked to leave the pool area after 15-minutes due to other guest completely ignoring the rules and coming into the pool area anyways. In order to not make the hotel staff’s job any harder, we complied, but it was still disappointing to have to limit our time in the pool due to other’s lack of respect. Fortunately, though, the hotel staff did make signs the next day warning people that they would shut the pool down and people seemed to respect the social distancing rules a little better the next day.
Still, if the hotel is booked and busy, getting any pool time during COVID-19 may not be an option, so keep that in mind when booking your room strictly for the swimming pool areas.
While these little changes were not enough to affect our stay, these are all things you should ask before booking your hotel stay while COVID-19 is still going on.
Last Updated on 4 years ago by Crystal Carder