Hotel Alarm Clocks

[Cardinal]

But get stuck in a Crowne Plaza room WITHOUT the instruction card....you're up a creek without a paddle. I just gave up in LGA one night.

In my experience:
20% of wakeup calls either never happen or are so tardy as to be useless.

10% of the time the alarm clock fails, most often due to pilot error (volume turned down, am/pm mismatch)

5% of the time the cell phone alarm fails, again most often due to pilot error (time zone issues, am/pm, software glitch)

I've had nights where two forms both failed for whatever reason. Statistically, every 1000 wakeups or so everything will line up and you won't get any wakeup at all, despite setting all 3 forms.

 

[Striptyler]

I'm an ass... like to set it for 3 am, crank the vol on a crappy radio station right before i check out.


Cell phone. set to auto timezone/time +watch, set in utc.

 

[regionaltard]

I would say so. I don't know why you would touch something in a hotel room that obviously never gets cleaned, and is so close to a bed.

Thankfully, somebody understands.

 

[Soverytired]

And for some strange reason, every hotel alarm clock in America already has the radio preset to Mexican music stations . . . .

 

[Simon Says]

It's not rocket science, but I see for some it is!!!

It is rocket science to set the ones in FAR at the candlestick Inn. After a good 15 minutes of trying to set the darn thing up it still didn't go off.

 

[Smacktard]

I do all three. "Moron".. Cell phone, wakeup call (which doesn't always happen), and the hotel alarm clock.

Maybe I'm paranoid.

This would be a great opportunity for one to say "For Christ's sake people, whatever happen to telling the FA that she better wake you up on-time?" but we all know the FAs these days are fat, old or gay. My vote for worst alarm clock are those crap Sony's at Doubletrees, you have to be literate and somewhat inventive to get that thing set.

 

[Stifler's Mom]

I like the alarm clocks where you can plug your ipod into it.

As far as alarms go, I use my cell phone. International trips make it a bit more challenging though.

 

[CFI2766]

The version of the 'dream machine' at the crap-tel in MCN is possibly the most complicated piece of equipment I've ever seen. I could set the time on my 1980ish VCR with less effort than that thing...

This doesn't bode well for me when it comes time for RJ training, does it?

 

[DrewBlows]

I use my cell phone backed up by a wake up call. The failure rate of the wake up call is huge, I'd say 10 to 20%, the failure rate of my cell phone is very low, maybe 0.05%, only because I forget to set it or the battery dies in the night. On one occasion I've had both fail and the first phone call I received in the morning was from my Captain waiting in the lobby. Thankfully I was able to get it together enough that we weren't late.

I used to carry a battery powered "atomic" clock in my overnight bag as a third backup. It cost about $15 and was always accurate, but you had to know what time zone you were in. I quit using it when some of the digits became unreadable (probably from being crushed in my bag) and just haven't replaced it. If you are really paranoid about not waking up on time this is the way to go.

 

[StopNTSing]

The clocks that starting showing up at Hiltons a few years ago are utterly worthless & still have me baffled. They might just be pilot-proof.