Are Some Hotels Too Fancy for a Free Breakfast?

I agree it depends on th hotel. Personally, I would have went the first day and stocked up. There are plenty of breakfast items and snacks you could get that do not need a fridge without hitting a fast food joint. Just think of it as camping in a hotel. :)

Most hotels do not include breakfast. I have found it to be only at the "express" type hotels that there is a breakfast. Definitely not at resort area hotels.

No the hotel was not being cheap and it is not the economy either.

A lot of hotels cater to the business traveler. Some have freebie breakfasts but most do not. We are frequent travelers and the only free breakfasts I've seen are at some of the Hilton family hotels. I don't book a hotel based on freebies.

I manage all travel plans for our business and personal. I never, ever, go through discounters because you truly do not know what you are going to get. It sounds like you landed a great place for a very low price.

When you book directly though a hotel website, it will tell you exactly what is available as far as amenities, foods, fridge in room, etc. and what is nearby so you know what to expect.

Marriotts are good hotels....I've been in the top notch Marriott as well as a mid level Marriott. Your description sounds like you had a very nice hotel.

Keep in mind in the future, if you want a fridge in the room, breakfast, etc...include that on any search feature so you will get it if you choose to book via a route other than a true hotel website. Sometimes the hotel direct websites have better deals than any discounter out there. You just have to know where to look.

FYI, if you really need a fridge, picj up a cheap ice chest and keep what you need in your room. We do that, especially with adult beverages and water. At the end when you are ready to check out, just leave the ice chest and remaining things in the room if you cannot take it with you. We usually give it to the housekeeping service.

Best wishes for a better experience next time.

Only a few of the hotels I have stayed at offered a continental breakfast. All of them had coffee, a few had quick munchies, and one had a full free breakfast (Residence Inn, and it was yummy). I don't think it has anything to do with the "class" of hotel or the economic times, in my experience it's just some hotels do and some don't.
On a side note, when I stayed had the Residence Inn and had that great free breakfast (anything you wanted was there) I was surprised, the VERY next night I stayed across the parking lot at the Mariott, they are owned by the same company so I figured that great breakfast would be at that hotel too...wrong. They only offered coffee (and not even in the rooms). I should have never switched hotels.
Happy Traveling. =)

I use priceline all the time for our hotels and it is hit or miss with breakfast. It's a big expense to the hotel-gotta pay someone to man it, gotta pay for supplies, food (a lot which probably goes to waste), have the worry and headache to make sure everything stays sanitary so no one gets sick, etc. Some use the lack of breakfast as a cost cutting measure I'm sure.

You can always call the hotels once you book and ask about fridges in the room. If they have them you can request a fridge room. It might cost you extra in some hotels though. Seems like a lot of hotels have fridges in some of the rooms but not all rooms.

One thing that we do is bring our rolling cooler (best $29 I ever spent at Sams Club!), fill it with ice, drinks, fruit and such before we leave and then change out the ice on a regular basis while we are at the hotel using the hotel ice machine. It's also nice to have cold drinks for the kids and us on the road trip. I bring juice boxes, boxed milks, my own disposable bowls/plasticware, a box of cereal, apples, etc-easy things to bring along that are quick and simple and good for us at breakfast. Doesn't take up much room and it's a big $$ saver. I toss the paper supplies & food in a reusable shopping bag since they hold alot.

I also have the Thermos Funtainers for my kids. I fill them with ice in the am and juice/water combo and it stays cold for the entire day. You can get ice for free in the parks and I bring my own juice boxes in.

You're not a hillbilly in my book. Some hotels just don't come with free breakfast. By the way, did you ask if they had a refrigerator? Sometimes you have to "ask" for one, I've stayed at places where they weren't in the room but they did have them if you asked for it. Most of the time you have to pay a little extra or put a deposit down on it. Of course they want you to get everything from their expensive restaurant....

It all comes down to the DOLLAR and making a PROFIT. They discounted the room to get you in it. Then they figured to make up the difference by charging you for "breakfest". And a 3 star hotel is a middle of the road hotel, not swanky at all.

Next time, bring along an ice chest. When I traveled on vacation with my family, we NEVER shopped at convience stores. We asked the hotel employees, "Are you a bargain hunter?". If they said yes, we asked them where the inexpensive grocery stores were. We bought breakfest, lunch and dinner foods there, depending on where we were going to be and what we were going to be doing. We bought fried chicken for dinner at the grocery stores and paid half or less than we would have paid at KFC or Popeyes. We sometime bought extra chicken and used it for picnic lunches. We went by McDonalds, Burger King and the like and ate off their 99 cent menus. We went to Sam's for pizza and sometimes their rotisserie chicken. We drove to Disney World and brought an ice chest and a microwave. We spent less than $50 per day for food for 10 of us. We ate out at a "fancy" place once, Universal Studios Luau. It was the best Luau we went to, including the 3 or 4 we went to when we were in Hawaii.

We went places for fun and games, not for eats and treats. If you want other suggestions, e-mail me or look it up in mamapedia.

Good luck to you and yours.

I find it rare to get free breakfast nowadays. It does bug me about the fridge though. I was in a Baltimore hotel 3 weeks ago and you had to request a fridge from the front desk and put a deposit down. The room was $240 a night and I need to request a fridge. I think it is a sign of the times.

I work at a really nice (in my opinion) hotel in Michigan and we do not offer free breakfast. The reason we don't offer it: we have a restaurant that serves breakfast...if we offered free breakfast, the restaurant wouldn't profit. However, if a guest has to leave before the restaurant is open, we offer them complimentary fruit and a granola bar, but we do not offer it to guests once the restaurant is open. Everything is about making money and I think it's just going to get worse.

This was an interesting question that I have never thought about until now. We travel quite a bit and I have found the norm is NO free breakfast. In fact, the fancier the hotel, the less they offer for free. Having been to San Antonio many times, I do think they have more hotels/motels offering free breakfasts than the norm. I will have to keep that in mind next time I am there.
Just my observation,
R.

free breakfast is great but we don't always get it. surprisingly hampton inn offers free breakfast (at locations we have been to), and then we stayed at an awesome inn in PA and lo and behold free breakfast. it is helpful esp. when traveling to 'kid' destinations, like disney and hershey park because we want to eatg fast and buckle up for the day. so i always get one of those huge boxes from costco with mini cereal boxes (variety), and buy kids cartoon of milk (no refrigeration needed), and kids start the morning with that and a banana. we like to start the day early so that we don't stay out all day and fast breakfast is the key for us.
it's not the economy, it's always been like this. some places offer, some don't. wish they would.

It REALLY depends on the hotel and hotel chain. Many hotels of varying classes offer some type of free breakfast or a fridge in the room, but many don't. When you book the hotel, you can check on the hotel website to see what the room amenities are and what the hotel amenities are. Fridge in room will be under room amenities and free breakfast will be under hotel amenities. If amenities like this are really important to you, I would stay away from "blind" booking and go through another discount operator where you can preview the property before selecting. Because of the current economy and decline in many travelers, I think it's to be expected that a number of hotels are no longer giving ANY freebies of any kind. A hotel in a city as large as San Antonio also probably serves a number of business travelers who are not going to Sea World, so they probably don't take that into consideration. I recently stayed at a Hyatt Place that is really dedicated to business travelers and was quite nice, but although there was a fridge in the room, they had a coffee shop and 24 hour snack bar and nothing was free.

The standard I have found is that if a hotel offers room service (aka has a kitchen) then they don't do the continental thing. If they don't have a full kitchen, then they do. Not ALWAYS the case, but often (especially when you get to "mixed" hotels... where rooms range from $70 - $800+ a night depending on type of room) the hotel will have a jacket-required restaurant for the upper level rooms and a continental breakfast for the lower level rooms.

Courtyards rarely have free breakfasts. Sometimes you can get it included in your rate, but of the Marriott hotels, that one doesn't have it. Springhill suites, and residence inn by marriott does. The Marriott (the actual hotel name) has it only for those of a certain member level. It isn't how classy the hotel is, just what it is set up for, and also, its usual clientele. As for fridges, you can usually call and ask for one in your room if they don't have one in there already. Mine usually get plugged in under the bathroom sink.

Can you tell that I travel a lot and frequent marriotts?

i use priceline, but i don't bid on a hotel, i try use the search & pick the accommodations i want & one of those is always free breakfast. we really like the residence inn by Marriott, they have free breakfast, & mini kitchens & laundry facilities...i think it's just all in where you pick to stay, while the pick your price is great you don't know where you're gonna get & i don't like that. i would rather check which accommodations i want & then pick from the list, we almost always pay under $100 a night & its usually like $60-$80 (but of course it depends on where we're going & what area we want to stay). plus we always drive, even if we have to pay parking because we can stop & eat on the way to an amusement park & then just eat a snack or one meal inside the park & then eat a snack or meal after we leave, or we can even leave in the middle of the day for a meal if there is stuff close & we are there all day.

Yes. It also depends on the season and the # of rooms open at the hotel. If its a slow time, some of them will offer free breakfast as a way to get people in. However, if its a time where most of the hotel is full with no special offers, then they won't.

I think it's as simple as some offer and others don't. For example, I've noticed that Hampton Inn usually had an upscale breakfast, that includes make your own waffles, eggs and some type of meat, in addition to the cereals, fruit, yogurt, coffe, hot tea, and hot chocolate. We stayed at a Howard Johnson recently, and their idea of continnetal breakfast was some bread and a toaster, 2 types of cold cereal, and danish that came out of a vending machine, along with one type of juice, coffee and tea. Just stayed at a Sheraton and all they had was a coffee pot in the room, and room service.

Most do not offer free breakfast.
When our daughter was young we always took a cooler with milk, cheese fruit, lunch meats wine beer.. and them we had cereal, bread chips, etc.. This way whenever she was hungry we could whip something up.. It also allow us adults to stay in bed longer while she had her breakfast and watched TV..

We could enjoy an adult beverage in the evenings without having to worry about taking her down to the bar or nightclub..

most hotels do not offer breakfast we also put in one cooler milk and i buy some donuts,bread and ,nutrigrain ,hard broiled eggs (warm it in a bowl with hot water from coffe maker)cereal for breakfast also chips and cokes,water for the night and then we went to sea world and we eat there ,i found the prices fair i mean it was 8.00 for a hamburger and fries and 8.00 for bbq chicken also if you go often or 2 times a year you need to buy the year pass it saves you a lot in the park is 20% off everything you buy including food and free parking .