Love this string of outlets – controls for the fan, on/off switch and one outlet that was a bit loose. If you jiggled the plug JUST right, you got a connection.
Many hotels around the world are trying to cut down on electricity use. That’s a great idea! How do they do it? The room’s electricity only stays on when the key card is placed in the slot by the front door. Theoretically, this works great – EXCEPT when the key card controls ALL the power to the room and not just to the lights or TV or A/C.
In some hotels, the key cards also switch off power to the outlets which causes a major problem when trying to charge computers, Kindles, cameras, etc. while we’re out of the room!
Years ago, we figured out that there’s nothing magical about the HOTEL key card. We would leave other cards in the slot when we left so the outlets stayed on and our computers charged. We’d laugh and say “Powered by Qdoba” or “Powered by Body Shop”.
This trip we discovered 2 hotels in Thailand where we really had to use the key card! The key card had an RFID chip in to unlock the door and that same RFID chip turned on the electricity. At one hotel, the Bangkok transportation card with a RFID chip worked as a substitute but at another hotel, no substitute chipped card worked except for an ATM card.
Then there are the motion-sensored air-conditioners all over the world. I hate them! If no one moves, the A/C shuts off. Great! When we sleep, we want it COLD -as in about 62F or 18C – so having A/C on all night is important. We must not move enough in bed nor get out of bed often enough, because the A/C always shuts off and then I wake up and am very hot.
We have read a way around this – tie a balloon to a string and tape it near the A/C. That should be enough motion to keep the A/C/ running. We haven’t tried that trick!