Faults with hotels can often be solved with some custard creams

YOU could find out in advance, but it’s better to wait for the surprise. Walk along the carpeted corridor in anticipation. No it’s left, not right.

Right is for Rooms 330-380. You’re in Room 322. Here we go ... you’re there! Just slip the key-card in the slot. No the other way. Ok the first way. But leave it in for a while. Hang on, give me a go. Did you have it next to your phone? Wait! That’s a green light! It’s working.

And then you open the door and ... who knows what awaits you?

Going to a hotel is an experience I never take for granted, no matter what the hotel. Even if the check-in desk is also a bar, therefore implying the hotel is for LADZ. And ladz will be having banter in the rooms and shouting in corridors and drinking their way to oblivion, recounting tales of nightclub derring-do/borderline sexual assault — rather than share their feelings about the awful emptiness that gnaws at them.

Even then, I still get a thrill on opening the door to my room.

There are so many questions to answer. Will it be a swanky telly or will there still be a ‘pre-saorview’ Grundigs?

What about the bed? You will of course — if you’ve any shred of humanity — wish to take a running jump and dive onto the middle of the bed. Proceed with caution. If you are staying in a hotel chain with an emotionless name like ROOMAGE or HOTELISOR, it may be two single beds pushed together and your bodyslam could cause them to separate.

Are there biscuits with the teabags? I have forgiven a number of hotels for other faults when I find they have a couple of custard creams hiding in the wardrobe.

Bedroom duly evaluated, it’s time to turn to the (hopefully) other room in your accommodation. You can always tell a hotel’s expectations of its guest, by the toiletries it offers.

Posh ones regard soap, shampoo and shower gel as separate products. Less salubrious places have one dispenser of vaguely scented gloop bolted to the wall.

Lighting is a key element of hotel bathrooms — as in where is the effing light switch? The more expensive the hotel, the harder it is to find out how to light the bathroom. This is done to confuse the plebs who are only in the hotel because they got a voucher.

Swanky bathrooms are often wet rooms. In theory this provides a nice degree of spatial flow in the bathroom. You walk into the shower as opposed to stepping into the shower. But in practice it means that you could find your underpants in a soapy river.

Speaking of which, finally we have the litmus test of any hotel room in Ireland: The strength of the shower. As we approach the commemoration of the Irish republic, people will ask what has been the great failing of our young nation. There are many on the shortlist but surely the water pressure in our showers has to be up there — or rather down there. Say what you like about America and its ruinous foreign policy but even the dingiest of their motels have shower pressure that is exfoliating compared to what’s on offer here.

You’ll know in advance if the shower is shite if the fittings have a sort of off-white colour. The best way to describe it is the same colour of early ’90s computer monitors. And if the control switch looks as if it might be from an old ESB Nightsaver ad, then be assured the shower will spit out at you like a drunk viper.

Anyway looks like you’re in the lobby and ready to check in. Bon voyage!

I have forgiven hotels for other faults when I find they have a couple of custard creams hiding in the wardrobe