These days with electronic check-in and electronic keys in theory one just has to walk upstairs and go to bed, which is great once I know my room, but there are a few things to do for the first time.

Probably the most important is to learn how to get around in a hotel as fast as possible. At small places where there is a hall, an elevators it doesn’t get difficult. Other hotels have huge lobby areas, couches, exhibits, stores, several doors, some lead to the street, some into the swimming pool, obtaining good information is more important then getting the key.

There is generally someone to greet guests at the door, I ask them where can I check in. At the check-in counter I ask all I need to know immediately. My room number, directions to the elevator, confirm that I know where the front door is, a grassy area nearby where I can take Baldwin, the nearest place I can get food, drinks or exchange money. This is where I ask if there is anything important I need to be aware of. This is a difficult question, because the receptionist wouldn’t necessarily know what it is, I need to be specific. However, if I’m too specific, we may miss the important things. The key here is that I don’t know what I don’t know, and what may not be important to someone who can see, it maybe crucial to me. For example if one of the outside doors will lead into the pool. If I can’t hear anybody swimming, maybe I will, soon. Ok, this is an extreme case, my dog would never let me walk into the water, and I wouldn’t do it either if I use my cane properly.

I also do ask for accessible rooms when making the reservation. First I felt bad about it. Why exactly would I ask for an accessible room if I can stay at any regular room. When I was in Toronto for the first time, they helped me to understand when I stayed at a very accessible hotel and they explained their accessibility services to me. It is not only that the room has wide doors, low light switches and bars in the bathroom. The cleaning and maintenance staff also gets a special training about people with disabilities. You might not think about it, why on Earth would a cleaning person need special training? Think about it this way: I had many night when I spent a half hour trying to locate my stuff, my slippers which I found on some kind of a hidden shelf, which made sense after I realized it was there, or my razor misplaced somewhere in a corner not where I left it. No big deal, but it takes time. Probably it was moved and either forgotten to be put back, or simply the cleaning person wanted to make the room look nice for me, not knowing that there is a blind person living here. For me it is a disaster. No matter what I leave in the room, it is most practical for me to find it the same way. It may not look pretty, but this is how I remember it. So, when I ask for an accessible room, I usually hope to receive specialized cleaning services and people pay special attention to my belongings. So far, I never had anything misplaced in an accessible room. Of course, if anybody would need this room who has a need for bars and low switches, I’d be happy to trade it, but normally a hotel has several of these rooms, and sometimes they are given out to regular customers because at a given nights nobody has accessibility requirements. But these rooms are usually reserved as long as possible. When I get an accessible room, I always make a point to ask if there maybe a guest who needs it more than I do. For me it is a convenience, for a wheelchair user it is a necessity, and I can ask the staff to let the cleaners know to not move anything for me.

There are times when the cleaners leave the trash out as well, unless I place it into the trash container. Is it good or bad? At the very least, absolutely fair. The idea is that I placed something somewhere because that’s where I wanted to have it, or that’s where I’d remember to find it. Trash belongs into the trash container. So, for example, when I put an empty bottle beside the trash can that’s where I will found it. It is my business why I put it there and what I wanted to do with it. Most likely, it was just carelessness from my part and I meant to throw it into the trash. But this is fantastic, when the cleaning staff does not make decisions on my behalf and does not assume things. If they need to know something, they let the front desk know and they ask me when I return.

But back to the reception. In some hotels, they still use key cards which you have to insert into a slot. Well, there are four ways to do it. Each time I want to open the door. An easy workaround is to mark one of the lower corners of the key, for example the upper side on the lower right corner. This could be a sticker, bending the card a bit, scratching it with something, etc. This will make entering the room so much easier. Of course with electronic keys or touch cards it is no longer an issue.

When I have all I need, if the place is small, I may just ask for directions to my room, if it sounds more complicated I ask someone to guide me first. Even if I could find the room on my own, in many countries and most chains they have braille numbers on the doors, it is a perfect opportunity to chat with someone on the way and get more information. I will talk much more about braille later, it is not the obvious solution for all people.

As I am guided to my room, I try to memorize everything as much as possible, ask questions when something is not clear. Though the staff is always happy to help, to me it is important that I learn to get around on my own as soon as possible.

It is also important to get familiar with my room. Normally hotel rooms are modelled after the same concept, a bed, a desk, phone, sink, shower, toilet, closet, coffee/tea maker. But when I don’t know where things are located exactly, this can get a bit more complex.

They say you can get the most bacteria from touching the remote control or the phone. Fortunately I don’t use any of them, but otherwise I disagree with this statement. The most bacteria you can pick up is when you can’t directly touch what you are looking for. Let’s say the AC control panel. When I arrive, I like to set a comfortable temperature, and this is not always what the hotel wants me to use to be most energy efficient. So, where is the AC? And how to use it? It could be by the entrance door. Or by the bathroom door. Or on the wall after the first corner. Or above the desk. There are a few obvious places where they wouldn’t put it, but in reality I will have to swipe the majority of the reachable wall space until I find it. I bet this has much more bacteria not to mention the dust.

Then I need to figure out how to set it. Sometimes they have different shape buttons so the direction the triangle or arrow is pointing is the direction the temperature will change. But, most of the panels are not that simple, and many of them are touch controlled, so I don’t even know which are the buttons.

Recently I heard that Hilton wants to allow guests to set the temperature from their mobile app. It is good for all, because guests can check in and on the way from the airport they can set the temperature they like. Personally, I can set it without having to ask for help.

Because that’s sometimes the only way, when they show me my room I have to ask where is the AC or heat, how to set it, and if it is too complex, I will ask them to set it for me.

The other challenging place is the bathroom. Let’s take it step by step.

First the toilet, after all the dirty airport and airline facilities which I try to avoid at all costs, I can’t wait to sit in peace in my own hotel room. Sometimes I am so looking forward to it that I forget to check all the other things I will need to go with it. That is, I will realize that I can’t find the paper within arm reach. Or maybe it is there, but first I need to dust all the walls until I can find it. Sometimes it is not even obvious where to flush it. My favorite was when I pulled a rope above the toilet, which triggered a security alarm. People came running and I had to explain my mistake.

The sink is mostly obvious, except some of the faucet controls can be challenging, and while searching around the first time, I often end up knocking off all the neatly lined-up shampoo bottles.

The towel is usually a challenge. It can hang just by the sink where it belongs. Or it is with the bath towels. But where are those? Hanging near the bath tub, somewhere up on an almost unreachable shelf, or on a shelf under the sink? These are just the most frequent places. And yes, it happened that I jumped into the shower but I forgot to first figure out where the towels are. It was a chilling experience after that, because of course, it wasn’t at the most obvious place.

It is great that if I forget to pack any of my toiletries, they mostly can be found in hotels. The difficult part is, what’s what? The hand soap is pretty obvious. Ok, in most cases. But all the bottles and tubes usually look and feel alike.

I can ask somebody to tell me what things are, and I usually line them up either in alphabetical order, or in the order I usually use them, so I know what’s what the next time I need it. I can also use my phone to read the labels, but more on that later. The problem is that sometimes the cleaners reorganize the bottles, so I can never take it for granted that the next day I will find the same things in the same order.

So, I do what works best, and what’s the most comfortable anyway, try not to forget to pack my things, and I use what I like, what I am used to. This way, I can pack bottles which feel different and I know what’s what.

I also like to have a coffee first thing I get out of bed. Ideally I would like to have it before I get up, the moment I wake up, but they don’t have that technology available in hotel rooms yet.

The process is simple if I know what’s what. Usually, however, it is impossible to tell what’s the regular coffee and the decaf by touch. Also, some coffee makers are quite standard, and others are difficult to figure out how they work. I often had to leave the room without coffee, even though I had everything I needed, I couldn’t figure out how to work it.

The cleaning service also deserves a note. In larger hotel chains at least, they understand that the worst thing they can do for blind people is to reorganize their stuff. Of course, they are not supposed to touch certain personal stuff, but when they move certain things it can make it a very nice touch if one can see where they went. For example, if I leave a pair of slippers at an unusual place, for example under the desk, and an unfolded shirt on the chair. Maybe I left the slippers there for a reason, and maybe I forgot to put the shirt into the laundry bag. In this case what’s most helpful to me is if it is left there, as is. When I get back, I’ll look for the slippers where I left it, and when I sit on the chair, I will immediately remember that I was messy last night and I didn’t put my shirt away. But if somebody out of the kindness of their heart puts my slippers by the bed, I’ll be swiping through the floor with my bare hands just to find ten minutes later that it was left on the bottom shelf of my night stand. If they folded the shirt nicely and put it on the sofa, I may either look for it and eventually find it, or if I don’t use the sofa because I’m mostly sitting at the desk, I will just totally forget about it and it will stay in the hotel.

Most places, however, are very good about this, especially when the front desk makes a note on my records that I am blind.

But I had some difficult situations as well, where some of my bags were put somewhere else, or I couldn’t find the dog food which I left by the sink. One day I had to ask reception to come up to my room and look for all my stuff the cleaners displaced. I was really upset and I asked to make a note not to move anything in my room. Well, they did just what I asked for. They didn’t make my bed, my used towel was where I left it, and the half cup of coffee was still waiting for me when I returned. One could have said that they didn’t service the room that day. But they did, because the trash was empty. I was not happy that day. But in a way they did what I asked for. I learn something each day.

Every stay ends with a last day, when it is time to leave. Usually after sleeping in, and finding out that the nearest Uber is farther than I thought it was. Ok, there are ways to avoid all of these scenarios, but the theory is one thing…

It is the easiest thing to leave something in the hotel room, which is not worth paying for having it sent to me, but inconvenient not to have it. How do I make sure everything comes with me?

This starts with the planning when checking into the room. I only put things to as few places as possible. It feels good to spread out and make my room homey, but it is not worth it at the end. The goal is to make things practical while always knowing where things are.

Computer stuff goes on the desk, not left around on couches or beds. I like to sit on a nice sofa and work, but then everything goes back to where it came from.

Clothes belong to three places, the closet, laundry bag or the suitcase. Toiletries stay by the sink or go back into the suitcase.

So when it is time to leave, I only have to go through a few places I already know well, and not the entire room square inch by square inch.

It also helps that I usually put things back into the suitcase once I know I won’t need it again for the rest of the trip, and just reorganize everything the last morning. This way packing my stuff only takes a few minutes. I have to say I only left about three things in hotel rooms, and nothing majorly important. That is, since I’ve been paying attention to being organized. And each time I left something behind, I wasn’t using my packing list properly. A good packing list does not only allow me not to leave something at home, but is a good reminder of what needs to be packed up at the end.