If you’ve ever been curious about what happens behind the scenes at hotels, there’s more going on than you might expect. Some of these insights may even have you reconsidering your next stay.

• “When you leave your luggage intentionally or unknowingly, we keep it in a small room, not visible from the outside. There, your luggage is manhandled in the worst way possible. If it’s big enough, we sit on it. If it’s small enough, we play football with it.” Anubhav Karanseth / Quora
• “I worked the night shift at a hotel and had to prepare breakfast. I will never eat scrambled eggs at a hotel again unless I see the cook breaking the eggs.
How much food can be bought en masse and prepared in under 5 minutes is disgusting. Ready-to-cook egg mix. Just pour it into a pan and heat the ooze up… 5 minutes later: scrambled ’eggs’. Doesn’t taste good at all.” Dire87 / Reddit
• It doesn’t matter how expensive your room is, please don’t use the hotel hair dryer because it can be “pretty germy,” according to a microbiologist. While hotel rooms are often cleaned with hygiene in mind, there are still areas that don’t get the same level of attention. For instance, restrooms are usually sanitized regularly, but items like hair dryers tend to be overlooked in the cleaning process.

• “If you ever need to cancel a hotel reservation, but it’s already past the cancelation deadline, just call and move your reservation up a few days. Wait 5 minutes. Call back, now well within the cancelation window, and cancel your stay for free.” King_Whistle / Reddit
• “I worked in numerous luxury 5-star properties worldwide. You will be surprised if you know the food quality in buffets. I’ve seen yellow food coloring added and labeled as ’saffron sauce’, pan-fried sea bass? It’s pan-fried white fish that comes in generic bags labeled ’white fish’. People change the expiration date on stuff so that the food cost doesn’t increase.” Bigfatpie / Reddit
• “Housekeepers only change the sheets, not the coverlet or the second blanket, unless it’s been stained, and we’re unable to hide it.” MissMarionette / Reddit
“If you like big bathrooms, ask for a handicap accessible room with a ’roll in the shower’, normally about twice the size of a standard bathroom, but without the tub.” maevtr / Reddit

• “If you don’t like your room, ask for the manager after the first night and kindly state that you felt an itching in the night, and you think that something bit you. After investigation, you found an approximately 1.5 cm long black bug on your sheets. Tell them that that might have been a ’bedbug’.