How late could i be a walk-in at your place?

[seashanty]

last nite i drove up to the north shore of massachusetts for a family party. on the way back through boston to the south shore, i started to feel so tired. the further i went, the more tired. i just wanted to pull off the highway and stop for the night. but i didn't want to stay in the hotels i passed. it was between 9 and 10 at nite and i thought ... no way could i walk up to a b&b and get a room at this hour. just me, by myself. no phone book to start calling around. so i stopped at a dunkin donuts, drank coffee and closed my eyes for a while. after a while, i felt ok and drove the rest of the way.
IF you take walk-ins, would you ever take someone in at that hour?
IF you take walk-ins at all, how late could i possibly get a room with you? if you take walk-ins, do you have a sign like 'only those with reservations admitted after 9 pm' ... or something? really ... if i knew the 'rules' i would have tried a few places. but having been a solo innkeeper, i know how it might feel to some to have people show up at the door at night.
what would be the cutoff time where you think people shouldn't show up on the doorstep asking about a room?

 

[gillumhouse]

I would have taken you at that hour - and I do not mean because you are SS. I got a call at midnight once - the guaranteed room was discovered to not be guaranteed at the motel and I was listed as lodging for the event. I took him and got 2-nights from it. I DO prefer a call first even if it means 5 minutes notice - and GPS has been doing a lot of that for me. I have been known to ask - have you had dinner yet? why don't you stop off for a good meal on your way in! - and then race to clean the bathroom and get a fruit basket in the room!
I realize I am not the norm - I guess I am just hungry and not afraid to admit it. Also there are just the 2 of us - I do not have kids to consider which also would affect an answer.

 

[Country Girl]

SS, too bad you didn't call me! I would have been happy to take you, although we are in north central MA so it may have been a bit out of your way. We had a last minute cancellation last night too. When someone calls after 9 p.m. it's a judgement call for us. If they sound o.k. (not drunk or odd) and they explain why they are calling so late (late flight, change of plans, car trouble, or just too tired to drive) we usually take them. So far, no problems. But sometimes I won't take them if I am not prepared (no fresh flowers in the room, not enough fruit for breakfast, etc.) or if I'm already in my P.J.'s. But for future reference, if you state that you are also in the B&B biz, I bet you'd be welcomed by most B&B's.

 

[seashanty]

what if i didn't call, but showed up at your door?
does anyone know, i have the most basic of cell phones ... a trac phone with prepaid minutes. if i call directory assistance and say 'are there any listings for a bed and breakfast in this town or that town' can i get some numbers? must be that i could ..... (i NEVER call directory assistance so i don't know)
haha country girl ... off in the other direction. but i will keep that in mind.
i would most likely apologize for the hour but that i was just too tired to drive and did they have a room.

 

[muirford]

We have a note on our door saying that we don't take walk-ins after 9:00 p.m. We also in the note say that if we don't expect you and it's not between 3 and 6, there may be no one to answer the doorbell. So, that's our general cutoff. I will answer the door if I have to; sometimes it's a guest who forgot a key, many times it's someone who hasn't bothered to read anything (big surprise there). I point in the direction of the hotels and send them along.

 

[gillumhouse]

what if i didn't call, but showed up at your door?
does anyone know, i have the most basic of cell phones ... a trac phone with prepaid minutes. if i call directory assistance and say 'are there any listings for a bed and breakfast in this town or that town' can i get some numbers? must be that i could ..... (i NEVER call directory assistance so i don't know)
haha country girl ... off in the other direction. but i will keep that in mind.
i would most likely apologize for the hour but that i was just too tired to drive and did they have a room..

I answer the door whenever and even with no call would probably ALWAYS take a lone female. I may have to ask you to give me a few minutes to "ready" the room.
As for Directory Assisstance, I would not be found because I have a residence phone and am not listed as the B & B. I answer the phone when it rings, whenever it rings and that is because I WANT it that way. I want the reservation and if it is just a lookie, that is OK because sometimes lookies do go POOF! and turn into a rezzie-lou. I already admitted I am hungry and am not ashamed to admit it.

 

[scrambled_eggs]

I don't take anyone after dark without an advance reservation. In the summer that would be 9pm. After 9pm the Full House sign goes up and the calls go to voice mail. When the days get shorter the cutoff might be 6pm. Sometimes I'm already in my pajamas by 7pm in the winter. I have had two bad experiences taking people late a night. Both of them trashed the rooms and did damage. Barfing, smoking, methamphetamine, etc.
[/h1]

 

[Samster]

what if i didn't call, but showed up at your door?
does anyone know, i have the most basic of cell phones ... a trac phone with prepaid minutes. if i call directory assistance and say 'are there any listings for a bed and breakfast in this town or that town' can i get some numbers? must be that i could ..... (i NEVER call directory assistance so i don't know)
haha country girl ... off in the other direction. but i will keep that in mind.
i would most likely apologize for the hour but that i was just too tired to drive and did they have a room..

Usually, no walk-ins here but we've taken a couple of "lost souls" but it wasn't later than around 8PM. Our phone is also a residential one which apparently created an issue for someone attempting to call to cancel who couldn't access the Internet, didn't have their confirmation, or something. They did eventually call and left a message complaining about how information didn't have us listed. Oh, well.... We are listed with the CVB and fully licensed.
Lately, I've been so pooped that I'm in our quarters and dressed for bed by nine and have told my husband that he'd have to deal with guests or whatever. haha!

 

[egoodell]

People would not just drive by our location. I always wanted to take last minute calls for a booking but they have always turned out to be a problem for us. I don't know why. They either don't show or call ten minutes later and cancel, so we have just gotten in the habit of saying "no availability"
RIki

 

[JBloggs]

7pm.
In person you would be more likely than if you called to get a room.

 

[seashanty]

thanks for the feedback.
i had no problems with walk-ins such as drugs or drinking, etc.
the problem i faced with walk-ins was the attitude some had that 'since that room is empty, you should rent it to me for a song' ...

 

[swirt]

what if i didn't call, but showed up at your door?
does anyone know, i have the most basic of cell phones ... a trac phone with prepaid minutes. if i call directory assistance and say 'are there any listings for a bed and breakfast in this town or that town' can i get some numbers? must be that i could ..... (i NEVER call directory assistance so i don't know)
haha country girl ... off in the other direction. but i will keep that in mind.
i would most likely apologize for the hour but that i was just too tired to drive and did they have a room..

if i call directory assistance and say 'are there any listings for a bed and breakfast in this town or that town' can i get some numbers?
Plug goog 411 into your address book on your phone. It is great..I use it quite often. It is automated just tell them what city and bed and breakfast and it will start reading down the results...when you hear one you like, you say "call" and it will call the number for that place. All with no extra charge beyond whatever minutes you are using on your phone.

 

[Hangfive]

Officially we don't accept walk-ins. Of course we do make acceptions such as when an other innkeeper calls to tell us that they have sent someone to our door.
Typically we don't answer the door unless we are expecting a check-in, but we do have our telephone number at the front door.
As far as call in reservation for the same day I don't take reservations after dark, which is around 5pm in the winter.

 

[EmptyNest]

Luckily we very rarely had walk ins. We had a sign on our front door that stated "rooms were by advance reservation only". On the rare occasion, it was a usually foreign travelers who would knock on the door and I just said we didn't have anything available.

 

[seashanty]

what if i didn't call, but showed up at your door?
does anyone know, i have the most basic of cell phones ... a trac phone with prepaid minutes. if i call directory assistance and say 'are there any listings for a bed and breakfast in this town or that town' can i get some numbers? must be that i could ..... (i NEVER call directory assistance so i don't know)
haha country girl ... off in the other direction. but i will keep that in mind.
i would most likely apologize for the hour but that i was just too tired to drive and did they have a room..

if i call directory assistance and say 'are there any listings for a bed and breakfast in this town or that town' can i get some numbers?
Plug goog 411 into your address book on your phone. It is great..I use it quite often. It is automated just tell them what city and bed and breakfast and it will start reading down the results...when you hear one you like, you say "call" and it will call the number for that place. All with no extra charge beyond whatever minutes you are using on your phone.
.

if i call directory assistance and say 'are there any listings for a bed and breakfast in this town or that town' can i get some numbers?
Plug goog 411 into your address book on your phone. It is great..I use it quite often. It is automated just tell them what city and bed and breakfast and it will start reading down the results...when you hear one you like, you say "call" and it will call the number for that place. All with no extra charge beyond whatever minutes you are using on your phone.

thank you ... i forgot about goog411! last time i tried to use directory assistance, they could not find the listing even though i knew it existed. but i'm not here to bash regular 411.

 

[Morticia]

We take walk-ins up until we shut the sign lights off (kind of like trick or treating rules), generally 9 PM in season and 7 PM off season. If you had called, which I realize you couldn't, you could have checked in whenever you got here.

 

[Samster]

what if i didn't call, but showed up at your door?
does anyone know, i have the most basic of cell phones ... a trac phone with prepaid minutes. if i call directory assistance and say 'are there any listings for a bed and breakfast in this town or that town' can i get some numbers? must be that i could ..... (i NEVER call directory assistance so i don't know)
haha country girl ... off in the other direction. but i will keep that in mind.
i would most likely apologize for the hour but that i was just too tired to drive and did they have a room..

if i call directory assistance and say 'are there any listings for a bed and breakfast in this town or that town' can i get some numbers?
Plug goog 411 into your address book on your phone. It is great..I use it quite often. It is automated just tell them what city and bed and breakfast and it will start reading down the results...when you hear one you like, you say "call" and it will call the number for that place. All with no extra charge beyond whatever minutes you are using on your phone.
.

We would definitely be THERE!!