Is It Rude To Stay In Your Hotel Room While It’s Being Cleaned?

Speaking to HuffPost UK previously, etiquette expert and author William Hanson, who paired with Hotels.com to create a Grand Etiquette Hotel guide, shared the worst way to treat hotel staff.

“The height of rudeness is treating staff as though they are invisible, or worse, beneath you,” he shared with us.

“Snapping fingers, avoiding eye contact, or issuing demands without a ‘please’ or ‘thank you’ is quite beyond the pale”.

Hanson explained that includes leaving your room in a “reasonable” state for cleaning staff when you finish your stay. But what’s the etiquette when you’re still in there?

Here, we asked him whether we should vacate the area when it’s due a clean.

Should you leave your hotel room when cleaners come in?

The etiquette expert’s answer was pretty definitive: “You should vacate the room while it is being serviced. It is simply more considerate”.

He added, “Most housekeepers will wait until you are out and will always knock and announce themselves first.

“If you are inside and would like the room cleaned, answer promptly, greet
them politely, and make your exit. Linger not.”

And, Hanson stressed, it’s important to leave your room in decent nick throughout your stay, rather than just rushing through it at the end.

“As I note in Rule Five of my Grand Etiquette Hotel Guide… ‘Housekeeping Is Not an Archaeological Activity.’ They are there to clean, not excavate,” he stated.

Anything else?

Yes – Hanson has a “golden rule” when it comes to hotel staff.

“If you wouldn’t speak that way to a colleague, don’t do so in a hotel simply because you are paying to be there. Good manners, one finds, are often quietly rewarded,” he said.

A hotel etiquette study commissioned by Hotels.com found that 90% of Brits think our hotel manners are pretty perfect.

But the same research also found that over a third of us have tried to sneak in an extra guest after booking, and about the same amount say they’ve snuck out breakfast buffet food to eat later.

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Gracie Abrams Has Her Say On ‘Nepo Baby’ Debate

Singer-songwriter Gracie Abrams has weighed in on the ongoing discourse around Hollywood’s so-called “nepo babies”.

Debates about nepotism in the entertainment industry are nothing new, but the conversation has become much more prominent in the 2020s, thanks in part to a piece in New York magazine about the new generation of A-listers whose parents are already established figures in the entertainment industry.

The “nepo baby” label is one that has repeatedly been levelled against Gracie since her emergence on the pop scene, as her dad is Star Wars filmmaker JJ Abrams.

During a recent appearance on the New York Times’ Popcast, Gracie shared her take on the subject, admitting she thinks it’s “appropriate” that people are aware of the privilege she grew up around.

Gracie Abrams pictured with her parents, PR exec Katie McGrath and director JJ Abrams, in March 2026
Gracie Abrams pictured with her parents, PR exec Katie McGrath and director JJ Abrams, in March 2026

Randy Shropshire via Getty Images for Creative Artist

“The nepo stuff is obviously in the discourse appropriately,” she claimed. “I think about the privilege there and… it’s like, I had a safety net, and that allowed me the ability to experiment and to concentrate.”

She continued: “I had the gift of time to dedicate to doing this thing I loved. I wasn’t growing up afraid financially, and that’s the biggest deal.”

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Gracie’s major breakthrough came in 2024 when her album The Secret Of Us spawned international hits like Close To You and That’s So True.

She also served as the opening act on Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, collaborating with the Grammy winner on the album cut Us.

Outside of her music career, Gracie has also made headlines thanks to her relationship with the Oscar-nominated actor Paul Mescal, with the pair hard-launching their romance at the Baftas earlier this year.

Discussing her relationship during her latest interview, Gracie claimed that being with Paul was “a part of my life that brings me so much peace and joy”.

“I’m not going to pretend like that’s not true, but I also think it’s not like an open-door policy,” she said of the media attention the two have received since they began dating.

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