Hotel rules?

[SpEdScouter]

Are there any rules on Scouts staying at hotels on long trips?

[Stosh]

I don't think they are allowed to unless there's a fireplace and lots of tropical plants in the rooms.

[Beavah]

LOL.  I love @@Stosh's reply.

 

No, @@SpEdScouter, there are no "rules" about scouts staying in hotels, eh?  Why would yeh think there would be?

 

What's goin' on?

 

B

[CalicoPenn]

Use the same rules as you would any camping trip - adults and youth don't share rooms, etc.  Just think of the rooms as indoor tents.

 

That being said - you might want to put together a few internal rules of behavior - few things are more annoying than a bunch of teens running up and down hotel hallways room hopping and hollering at each other for other hotel guests.  It wouldn't be out of line to gather in the parking lot before everyone gets their room keys to recite the Scout Law together and place a bit of special emphasis on A Scout is Courteous, reminding them that this means more than opening doors for people or helping little old ladies cross the street.

 

Oh, and though the hotels may frown on it, I think the Boy Scouts allows you to bring in your own tropical plants and deem lobby fireplaces or outdoor fire pits acceptable substitutes for in room fireplaces.

Edited August 13, 2016 by CalicoPenn

[Stosh]

It's kinda difficult to get the 300' distance one needs between patrols....in a hotel restaurant.

 

Seriously, though, I don't think in all the years of scouting I have been involved with (and there's been plenty) I don't think I have ever heard of Scoutis using a hotel.  It's a lot cheaper and easier to just find a park or campground.

[vumbi]

Back to a more serious tone, we've done this often but never for more than two nights on the road one way for a long trip. You have to know the boys and find hotels that allow a decent capacity per room. It also helps to have some space outside so they can run relay races or something to burn off the energy. A pool is even better. We have a careful 'reading of the riot act' before we enter the rooms and then the SP does an inspection of the rooms once we're packed out. We've never had a problem other than so-and-so snores too loud (oops that's the SM).

 

On a couple of trips we exploited our CO's affiliates and with sufficient lead time, we arranged 'sleepovers' at churches instead of hotel rooms. Keep in mind that we were not flying but rather were in buses. So far the churches we visited gave us high compliments for the care we took and how polite the boys were (I had to check to make sure they hadn't confused us with someone else, lol). So our experiences are good so far.

Have fun!

 

 

 

[qwazse]

When Son #1 went to Seabase, we stayed in a hotel at Miami beach the day before and after (in case of flight delays). The good restaurants and bodegas were definitely more than 300' away!

[Stosh]

We've always used campgrounds, beaches, etc. that are far less expensive than hotels.  My church youth group always use churches to sleep in, even when they have reached their destination except for the time spend at Bible Camps.  I think that's about the only time the kids pay for "lodging".

 

Venturing Crew would use pre-event and post-event hotels because they traveled with a group that used buses and hotels.  That was a one a  year event,  like summer camp expense would be.  Cost of that ran $150 per scout for a week's event.

 

A few times we meadow crashed at Rest Areas along the freeway.  As long as we didn't put up tents or start fires we were "resting" not camping.    Police often would "check us out" and none ever gave us any grief once they knew we were scouts traveling.

Edited August 13, 2016 by Stosh

[T2Eagle]

When we want to spend the least amount of time setting up and taking down camp on a two day trip we stay at other Council camps, either in a cabin or in adirondacks.  On a recent trip to WVa we slept on the floor of the camp's dining hall.  Both our camps are within a few miles of I-80 and I know we have troops come in and use them for this purpose.  I would think that any scout facility, even if it's a bit out of the way, is going to be more cost effective than hotel rooms.

[eagle90]

Sometimes after a week or ten day high adventure trip, it is nice to check in to a motel with a soft bed, hot shower, and air conditioning!  We give our scouts a warning = no noise, stay in your rooms, no pay per view, etc. and they have been really good.  We try to have the adults room in between the scout's rooms tho!

 

Dale

[Stosh]

When the boys join the troop they are told there are three rules, #2 is "Look and act like a Scout".  That pretty much covers any and all situations if the chance happens to arise where we can't find a place in the woods to crash.

[NJCubScouter]

When the boys join the troop they are told there are three rules, #2 is "Look and act like a Scout".  That pretty much covers any and all situations if the chance happens to arise where we can't find a place in the woods to crash.

If I were leading a bunch of Scouts on a trip where they were going to stay in any sort of "formal" accommodations, I would see that as an opportunity to remind them to "look and act like a Scout", and probably add in some details as suggested by eagle90.  Staying in a hotel/motel as a group (as opposed to a trip where their parents are in control) is a situation the boys are not accustomed to, so a little assistance in dealing with that unusual circumstance is reasonable.

 

On the other hand, in 25+ years of experience in Scouting (youth and adult) I do not recall any situation in which we stayed in a hotel or any similar setting.  I remember a lot of sleeping on floors with a sleeping bag, both as a youth (like on the stops between the Denver airport and Philmont, and a number of cabin camping trips where there were no bunks) and an adult (like the camp-ins at the Liberty Science Center museum with the Cub Scouts.)  Maybe the closest I have ever come to sleeping in a hotel on a Scouting trip, just to show how far it was from sleeping in a hotel, was when we went to the Battleship New Jersey (now a museum ship in Camden NJ) and we slept in the same spacious accommodations the sailors used back in the day:  Bunks stacked three high, three or four stacks of bunks in a room.  I think my face was about 6 inches below the bottom of the bunk above me, and there wasn't room to sleep on my side, so comments about my snoring were heard from some of the other men the next morning.

[desertrat77]

My experiences mirror @@NJCubScouter's....

 

Slept on alot of floors.  No hotels.  The best accommodations were open bay barracks:  Kirtland AFB NM on the way to Philmont.   And at the Presido of Monterey before an overnight stay at Alcatraz (service project by day, slept in the cells that night, quite an adventure). 

[SpEdScouter]

I never thought about non-hotel places to stay. I guess I thought it would just be easier.

[WAKWIB]

It would really depend, I suppose, on where you are going and what you are doing when you get there, what type of gear you all plan on taking..etc. In most cases the hotel thing would be the last and obviously the most expensive option. I can recall only couple times when our troop went to the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, KS that we did something besides camping in tents. One time we used some type of bunk-house at the State Fairgrounds, and another time we all sacked-out on the gym floor of a Salvation Army facility in town. 
It may take a bit of research and phone calls, but there are other options.