Tourist Etiquette in Mexican Hotels

If you don't speak Spanish well enough, the very first problems you will encounter when trying to deal with Mexican hotels will be when you try making a reservation in an area of Mexico outside the Prime Tourist Locations. When I was doing the research for "A Walk Through Mexico's Crown Jewel," I interviewed the staff at a fairly nice hotel in Guanajuato. I was introduced to a young college-aged girl who had a fairly good grasp of English. She was, however, only a part-time employee. No other hotel employees spoke English.

Even a casual reading of some of the online tour sites will show complaint after complaint regarding the "lack of English" in the hotel staff. What these forums spell out by the frumpy and discontented is they called the hotel; they were assured in broken English from the person on the phone that everything was a-ok with their reservation, and then when they managed to show up, everything was NOT a-ok.

One lady wrote in a very popular online travel forum that she was incensed first of all that she had to walk to her hotel in Guanajuato. Everyone seems to want to stay in the hotels that are in the El Jardin area because of their central location. There is little to no curbside service where these hotels are located. You will have to walk a little. Then, the woman complained that there was no elevator and she had to walk some more. Her overall summary of her experience in hotel in an area of Mexico not in the Prime Tourist Location was that, "They not only screwed up our hotel reservation but I know they really spoke English but were pretending they don't."

Tourist Etiquette Lesson # 1

Before you come to Mexico, while you have yet to make your reservation in an area of Mexico where the Mexican hotel staff may not speak English, get a bilingual Spanish-speaking person to make the reservation for you! The United States is full of Spanish-speaking folks. They are everywhere. I am sure you know scores of them. Hire one of them to help you make your hotel reservation. If you think hearing someone "agreeing" with you on the phone, saying, "Oh, yes, yes, Señora..." means you have made your needs known, you will be no doubt get a surprise once you get here. You can't depend on this. Get someone, a trusted Spanish-speaker, who can make your reservations for you in Spanish.

Tourist Etiquette Lesson # 2

I have a friend who was having his shoes shined in El Jardin. He was listening to this American on his cell phone. This American had called, in an apparent panic, someone "back home" to whom he screeched, "I am taking a cab back to the airport...no one speaks English here!"

Once my wife was walking in La Plaza de la Paz when a couple ran up to her in somewhat of a panic asking if she spoke English. They had gotten to Guanajuato, somehow, and were flabbergasted that they could not find anyone who spoke English. My wife had to lead them by the hand to their accommodations that were off the beaten path.

A hard and fast tip: If you want to get along in the non-Prime Tourist Locations and you don't feel your Spanish is up to dealing with reservations errors, with something wrong with the room, if you need help with something, or whatever, why not hire an English-speaking Mexican to help you out? To find an English-speaking Mexican in the areas of Mexico not on the Gringo Tourist Radar, you can check with the tourist offices in the cities. We've been told in several of the cities in this category: Dolores Hidalgo, Zacatecas, Tonalá, the tourist offices can all find you English-speaking tour guides that can help you in more ways than just a tour of the city.

Tourist Etiquette Lesson # 3

Remember that the cities outside of the resort areas and San Miguel de Allende are not going to be very equipped to handle your monolingual problems. The behavior to which a Gringo might resort in one of the frequented tourist areas of Mexico to get problems with their Mexican hotel solved, I cannot see working in the non-Prime Tourist Locations. If you run into problems, and you will, resort to either a tour guide to help, or in some areas, bilingual consultants are sprouting up. Mexicans who are bilingual are advertising their English speaking services to help tourists out of a jam. You can find some of these online. They are advertising they can help with problems that come up-for price.

Don't scream, shout, stomp your feet, or gesticulate wildly at some poor schmuck behind a reception desk in the hotels. I promise you all you'll end up doing is scaring them and maybe even get to have a talk with the police.

An American woman actually wrote on a My Space forum that to get her way, she went to the small café attached to the small hotel in which she was staying in a Costa Rican village and began screaming and cursing wildly to all the occupants that the hotel staff, who spoke only Spanish, wasn't meeting her needs.

Well, she got to meet the police!