RE: Could I Have Received a Better Perk for this Minor Inconvenience at My Hotel?
Most of our staff has worked in hospitality and hotels, after experiencing that you definitely could have got a better deal. The key is that you have to be cool about it, but a bit demanding at the same time. One of the secrets of hotels is that the front desk wields a huge amount of power when it comes to making guests experience.
Was it an all-inclusive resort? If it was not, most of the time for that delay you could have received some amount of food and beverage credit. Hotels will often dole that out like candy.
Did you check your luggage with the bell desk? Checking luggage with the bellman can be an excellent way to store your unwanted luggage and go play until you are ready to check in without paying the annoying fee.
If you still needed a locker you might have been able to improve the experience by asking the front desk if they could offer you a complimentary locker for the day. Ding $10!
Alternatively if you didn't need to go back to the room and you were able to dump all of your stuff with the bellman you could have asked for an all day extension at the water park for your last day and got even more than 2 hours and not have to get a locker.
Someone mentioned a cookie, and if the hotel did offer cookies for purchase that is definitely something that the hotel would offer.
Approaching it the front desk staffer like a human being was the best way to go and the surest way to get free stuff. Some lady once called one of our staff no better than a chair or a lamp and claimed she could buy him and would toss him out with the trash because she made so much money.
Solutions like the ones above are "soft-solutions" and hotels are stoked if you had a problem and your solution is something that costs them nothing, yet makes a big impact on your experience.
Bottom line you get what you give to people in hospitality. If you are a really jerk and de-humanize people at check in they will flag you and you may just find that there is a "system glitch" with the automated wake up call system. That is why you received a wake-up call at 2am, 3am, 4am, and 5am or your room isn't ready for 4.5 hours rather than 2 hours later. You will know when the staff starts repeatedly calling you sir multiple times in the same sentence, and their tone is no longer casual.
My mom always taught me to "take care of the people whop take care of you". I thought of the food thing but really didn't want to be too greedy. Honestly, the only thing we can't make more of is time. They gave me a bit of extra carefree time at the pool (our passes lasted all day but this way we got to take leisurely showers and change into fresh clothes in a comfortable way). I do appreciate all of your tips. It sounds like as long as you are nice, they will be nice back. I like it when things work that way!
That's the general rule for anyone who works in hospitality. The culture really is a respect based culture and so long as you respect someone who works in hospitality as a person they will give you the world. It is good to see that they hooked you up with a late check out. Glad your family had a good time regardless since most people get pretty mad when their rooms are not ready on time.