SCs at the hotel's continental breakfast

[greensinestro]

I must say, continental breakfasts are getting bad, not because the hotel does not offer anything good, but because of the patrons that come to them. Some hotels on the other hand do have terrible breakfasts, and others are awesome, depending on the hotel you are staying at.

My family and I stayed at this Sleep Inn near Busch Gardens in Florida a while back. It was not so bad being they had waffles, eggs, cereal, and coffee, not to mention milk and orange juice for the kids. While we were looking for a table, this loud, ginormous family of three came in, casing the place over, particularly the food. One of them, the kid, sighted the bowl of bananas, which there were about eight. He took the entire bunch of bananas with him, then went over to a bowl of hard boiled eggs. There were about six in the bowl, to which he just took the entire bowl with him! Now, others are there in disbelief at this, while this kid walked over to a nearby table, plunked the eggs and bananas down, and went off to look for other stuff.

Meanwhile, Momma and Pops were doing their thing, with Momma loading up a thermos with coffee, while Pops was over loading up on the doughnuts! And, after all of this, the family gathered up their new found treasures in a plastic grocery bag, and then left.

Our feeling was these people either were not guests at the hotel and just wandered in, or they were guests who decided to do a food raid, and go back to their rooms to devour it. In any case, hotels usually do not have any policy in place for this, and most do not have ways to screen who the guests are, and who the non-guest freeloaders are.

When you go to McDonald's for breakfast, you hardly see things like this. You only see them at places that offer free food.

[Pixilated]

I absolutely agree about the free food hogs (which name is probably an insult to hogs). We offer samples of some of our products and we get people loading up like the stuff is gonna be outlawed tomorrow. A few of my coworkers will shoo people away, but I have no idea what corporate policy is, so I tend to just ... go do something else.

[NecessaryCatharsis]

I hardly ever do breakfast, more lots of coffe followed by 10 o'clock snack. When staying at hotels with free breakfast, I often head down, grab a coffe, and a muffin and piece of fruit or something to eat later. This always feels sketchy as can be, although staff usually just smile and say good morning, and I've never been questioned or cotton weird looks.

These people...do they not have any shame? Any sense of how to behave in public? In how communal goods are shared? In....never mind, I think I know the answers, unfortunately.

[mathnerd]

I may have been pegged as an SC a time or two for this sort of thing. I had to travel to a specific surgeon to get care for one of my sons. We stayed in a hotel after he was discharged but before we could go home. I had two of my kids with me, and I would leave the older one in the room to take care of the one who was recovering from surgery, get plates for all of us and go back to the room for people to eat. The hotel staff knew what was going on and had no problem with it, but I can imagine a random guest who had no idea might have thought I was being a food hog.

The family in the OP doesn't sound like they had that sort of excuse.

[greensinestro]

I may have been pegged as an SC a time or two for this sort of thing.

I'm sure you didn't clean the place out in the process. If I were to see a bowl of eggs, I might take two at the most. These people were raiding the place.

[mathnerd]

I took a reasonable amount of food for each person. Each plate was different. I might have taken three hard boiled eggs for the teenage boy, but none of the kid that didn't like them. Each plate was obviously a breakfast for one person, though somebody who didn't know I was taking food back for other people might think I was just a pig.

And yes, I agree that the family in the OP was just a bunch of food hogs. That's unreasonable.

[Moirae]

My biggest confusion is why they say our continental breakfast is bad. We have white, wheat and raisin bread, raisin bran, cheerios, white and wheat english muffins, white and wheat bagels, biscuits, several various pastries, apples and bananas, several kinds of grits, and several kinds of oatmeal. Sometimes we also introduce different kinds of breads, english muffins and bagels, along with the occasional cupcakes, hard boiled eggs, and for special events deserts specific to the event such as king cakes. We also have 24 hour coffee, and for breakfast fresh orange juice and milk.

In any North American hotel, it is known that a continental breakfast is a cold quick and easy breakfast. Yet we still get complaints that we don't supply enough for breakfast. We don't have the facilities for a warm breakfast, or the permits (the hotel is too small to bother since they would only be used for a few minutes in the morning, and we don't bring in enough money to justify a cook).

I've asked guests directly and on our facebook page what else we could add but no one ever gives me suggestions.

I know how you feel.

My suggestion is to pay attention to what goes the fastest and buy more of that while buying less of the other stuff.

[Skittles88]

We have waffles, sausages, hard-boiled eggs, 3 types toast, english muffins, regular muffins, pastries, 3 types juice, coffee, 5 or more types tea, hot and cold cereal, fruit, yogurt all for FREE, and we still get people saying our breakfast is bad/bland/no options. I do not understand.
We also get a lot if freeloaders who stock up on everything they can. I've seen people with shopping bags full of bananas apples and yogurt.

[blas]

Free coffee makes people insane.

I feel so bad for the janitors at my work. I don't think during the day they make enough coffee to keep up with the office people. I think they get salaried just to chug mug after mug of coffee all day long.

[dalesys]

I feel so bad for the janitors at my work. I don't think during the day they make enough coffee to keep up with the office people...

It's the dollop of floor polish...

[Catwoman2965]

My guess is they were loading up so they dind't have to buy lunch later one!

If i see someone heading back to a room with several plates on a tray, I just assume they'e brining food back for several people. I've done that with my mom when we travel, i grab a tray, 2 plates, 2 cups of coffee, some juice,and make my way back.

Now, if someone was hogging all of several items, then I'd have an issue with it. No need to be greedy, but we kjnow there's a lot of them out there!

[XCashier]

One of them, the kid, sighted the bowl of bananas, which there were about eight. He took the entire bunch of bananas with him, then went over to a bowl of hard boiled eggs. There were about six in the bowl, to which he just took the entire bowl with him!...Meanwhile, Momma and Pops were doing their thing, with Momma loading up a thermos with coffee, while Pops was over loading up on the doughnuts! And, after all of this, the family gathered up their new found treasures in a plastic grocery bag, and then left.

These are probably the same idiots who go to the all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet, and take ALL of the crab legs (or other expensive delicacy), or hog ALL the samples at Costco. Greedy, miserly, selfish and inconsiderate of others, and completely unaware (or uncaring) about how abominable their behavior is to others. You can argue the point forever, and they refuse to see any point of view but their own.

Yeah, I hate people like this, can't you tell? They drive prices up and/or make companies quit doing special things. I'd love to line them all up and send them through the but I don't know what I'd do with all the resulting toxic waste.

[HotelMinion]

We get all kinds of breakfast hogs here. Once a very skinny lady came down to breakfast, and started inhaling everything in sight! We watched her gobble down donut after donut, biscuits, gravy, sausages, and muffins. In about 15 min the breakfast cook had to get some more food out and only one person had eaten. After eating all of that the lady went straight for the ladies room and threw it all back up. Yes she was probably bulimic. She did this every morning of her stay which was probably a week, and all we could say was "wow."

[Monterey Jack]

After eating all of that the lady went straight for the ladies room and threw it all back up. Yes she was probably bulimic. She did this every morning of her stay which was probably a week, and all we could say was "wow."

You couldn't refuse service because she was deliberately wasting food? Once or twice, sure, but yarking up her breakfast for a FULL WEEK?! That's no different to me than grabbing "free" food off the table and throwing big handfuls of it directly into the garbage bin so no one else can have any. At least with most Breakfast Hogs, they're actually eating the mountains of food they take.