1 hour ago
1
December 9, 2025 — 5:00am
Do you know what I find seriously underrated in travel?
Housekeepers.
What a joy it is to come back to your hotel room in the evening and find that someone has made your bed perfectly, removed the wet towels, laid out the toiletries and make-up on a washcloth, tidied your clothing, coiled all your cords, adjusted the lighting and placed a bookmark in what you’re reading.
It’s the ultimate luxury and one of the best reasons to stay in a hotel rather than an apartment rental.
Even hotels in the “value” rather than luxury category can have crack housekeeping teams if they’ve got good systems in place. Sheets tightly tucked in. Pillows puffed. Towels fluffed. Slippers by the bed. Sometimes there are pyjamas folded on the bedspread.
And sometimes – plaudits for this – there are towelling swans, hearts or monkeys propped up on the pillows waiting for my return.
This never happens at home.
What bliss it is to go down to breakfast and find that the maids have timed their cleaning with your brief absence from the room. Every time that happens, it seems a miracle.
Cleaning a hotel is a thankless task by all accounts. Housekeepers are on tight schedules, often given just a few minutes to complete each room. Clogged toilets, pet excrement and other gross guest excesses are recurring problems that are left to the maid to literally clean up.
And if something is missing, who gets unfairly blamed?
The job not only comes with performance stress but sometimes there’s trauma – and not just from unintentionally walking in on a naked guest or fending off sexual advances from guests who view them as part of the service.
When a person deliberately or accidentally shrugs off their mortal coil, it’s the housekeeper who’s usually the first responder.
Most hotel housekeepers are women, which might explain why as a profession they are likely to underworked, underpaid and undervalued. Seeking part-time work to fit in with childcare responsibilities, they endure long shifts, low pay and lack of opportunity to move up the career ladder.
They’re usually anonymous but the times when I’ve come across a housekeeper in the hall or in my room and have requested a service such as a shower cap or an extra towel, they’ve always obliged with a smile.
Which brings me to something I do find overrated in travel.
Butler service.
More and more, I’ve come across hotels and cruises that have elevated their premium services like suites to include what they call “butlers”. Some of them are very professional. But there are shifting standards.
Unlike housekeepers, this is a profession that’s mostly dominated by men, although not exclusively.
One of the best butlers I was ever lucky enough to experience was a woman, who was assigned to me at a Paris hotel. She went all the way to Gare de Lyon personally to buy me a train ticket when there was a strike, then took me to the station the next day to ensure I got on the right train.
That was high-level coddling, which is what you expect from someone called a butler, no?
That level of butlering is rare, though. Gold-standard butlers like those at Raffles and Silversea aside, most of the butlers I’ve come across recently are room-service attendants in nicer suits.
Cruise butlers find out what kind of shampoo you like, make sure your fridge is filled, bring you some nuts in the afternoon. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but often I haven’t seen the butler for dust once they’ve given their initial welcome.
It’s possible the problem is me. I don’t want a butler to pack or unpack my clothes. I can make my own dinner reservations. I find all the theatre and formality annoying.
Perhaps the butlers disappear because they’re giving me space. But more likely it’s because they have several guests at once to “buttle” and others are more demanding than me.
At best, butlers are a “nice to have” rather than an essential. They don’t do the important stuff, like making the bed with hospital corners or scrubbing the toilet. Room attendants and housekeepers do.
Yet, butlers expect large tips, while housekeepers make do with change left on the bedside table.
So, thank you to all the housekeeping staff who have turned down my bed, delivered my laundry, left towelling bunnies by my bath.
I can’t rate you highly enough.
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