Valet parking issue

So I'm at a training session for work, got to the hotel last night. Valet parking is "mandatory". Hate that, but thats what it is. My car is a stick of course, and no one there could drive it. No problem, just tell me where to go, I'll put it where ever you want. They had me park on the street as the one person on staff who could drive a stick would be there later to bring it into the garage. Fine.  They left it out there all night. I've got 2 more days here, what do I say? Just leave it in front of the hotel? There is a valet tag on the dash, hope it wont get towed.

I have had to park my own vehicle before because the valets had no idea of how to drive it.     I have seen signs stating "no manual transmissions" at valet stands.      

Is  there any nearby indoor self parking available to at least get the car off the street?   And do they charge for that Valet ticket on your dash?

Screw the valets, take this matter up the food chain.  Safe parking in their facility is part of the price and they cannot deny the service.  Let a valet sit in the passenger seat and pretend to drive.

First time I had a car valet parked, they accidentally closed their garage door on the back of it and caused a bunch of paint damage which they immediately disclosed. Note that this was a 13'3" Miata, so it's not like it had trouble fitting into the space. The look on the valet's face when I didn't hand him a tip kinda said it all. He fully expected to be compensated beyond the valet fee for being trusted with my car and then returning it damaged. Took a year to get the money back for the repair. This was a high end boutique hotel in the middle of Montreal.

Last time I was at a hotel with required valet parking, I watched them drive the cars across the street and park in an outdoor lot. So I drove across the street and parked in the outdoor lot for $10 instead of the $26 they were charging for the privilege.

So yeah. Valet parking is a hard no for me. If you want to drive one of my cars, I need to approve of it because they tend to be a little more perky and rare than a Camry. And I sure as hell am not going to pay you to do it.

I berkeleying hate valet parking and will do anything I can to avoid it. 

My wife hates that I hate Valet parking.  

"why am I always so difficult"

Insert Ferris Buehlers day off YouTube clip here

We spent 4 days at the Biltmore Inn last month. Valet parking was included with the room. Yeah, no thanks. I've heard your guys banging across the speed humps, I'll park it myself. Besides, I need the exercise. 

Edit: Don't waste your money there. It was a pretty big letdown for a $500-a-night room. That place is the definition of lipstick on a pig. I was not impressed. 

Toyman! said:

Edit: Don't waste your money there. It was a pretty big letdown for a $500-a-night room. That place is the definition of lipstick on a pig. I was not impressed. 

I don't mean to sound like a Motel 6 kind of guy, but at 500 a night, I feel they've left a lot room for their customers to be disappointed unless they're freaking spectacular in terms of both product and service.

In reply to 1988RedT2 :

Pretty sure the $500 got you a couple of cookies, a chocolate wafer on your pillow before bed, a bathrobe that I never used, and some of the nastiest champagne I've ever had during cocktail hour. 

The breakfast bar was $30 a head and not much better than what the Hampton Inn includes with their room. The room thermostat was locked so you couldn't change the temp. The view was meh at best. While the room was fairly large, it wasn't anything to swoon over. The shower door was cheaper than the one at my house. The towels were small.

At the end of the weekend, the only thing memorable about the place was what a waste of money it was. 

The Crossroads Inn in Trenton, SC last weekend was almost as nice, every bit as clean, and it was $55 a night. 

Well they all pointed fingers at each other and claimed they had tried to call me. In the end I got the keys and parked it myself. What a pain....

IMHO most uf us trying to avoid valets is because we don't like people driving our cars, not to save a buck. I will happily tip the guy who is understanding and lets me self park.

Lesson learned: If you do valet, inspect the car before leaving.

I left a car with a valet pre-Covid. No self-parking at that hotel.

Got my car upon checkout and went my way. When I stopped for lunch, I noticed that a wheel was curbed–badly. I called the hotel but, as they explained, they had probable cause to say it happened after their care. 

Lesson learned. 

You couldn't drive it to a slot with the Valet in the passenger seat?  

Timely.  At a Halloween party this year I met a friend of a friend who stated that he used to be a valet at a local "resort". 

I asked just one question, "can you drive a stick? ". His answer was no. 

I used to valet park at ultra high end private dinner parties. Got to drive Ferraris, Lamborghinis, all kinds of fun stuff, but I never got to get them out of first gear. 
 

The tips were amazing. I think some of those folks were competing with each other to try to leave the biggest tip. 

Only time I valet'd my car was when I was in downtown Chiraq for a trade show.  Our trade show coordinator put us up in a verrrry nice place right on Millenium Drive.  So I get there and what do I have... A Subaru WRX Wagon.  Full limo tint all the way around, big exhaust with that chop chop chop that modified Subarus get, lifted a few inches on wee little all terrains, rusty fenders, dented up, the whole 9 yards.  

Didn't exactly fit with the Bentleys and Escalades.  

A long time ago, I took my wife at the time out to a really nice restaurant in my 75 280z. As I pulled up under the canopy over the front door, I immediately became concerned about which clown was going to drive away with my car.

As one of them helped my wife out of the car, another one approached my door but stopped me before I could get out. He told me to park the car myself right in one of their three prime spaces under the canopy. As I finished parking and was walking to the the front door, one of them confessed that I had brought the coolest car of the night so far and they wanted it out front to attract attention. 

I really enjoyed that but my exwife was not impressed at all.

I valeted for a while at the golf club I caddied at. No shenanigans. Only a few sticks, and none of them all that exciting. 

We once went to a hotel in St. Louis that had valet parking for $15 or self parking for $5. We went to self park, but there were no self-park spots left. Everything else was marked as valet parking only. So we parked right in front - our SAAB 9-5 was right next to the Bentley's and Corvettes that they put at the front. They made a big huff about it, dad threw them another 10 and the keys. The never moved it, we found out later, because nobody could drive stick. 

In reply to Toyman! :

My uncle just retired as a lineman. He's been all over the country for storms and hurricanes and whatever to get the grid back up and running. The power company would put them up wherever they could get rooms. He's stayed everywhere from campers to the Waldorf to random no-name motels to the Ritz. 

He says that the nicest rooms, the best places to shower and sleep, are almost without exception going to be the newest hotels. When he goes on a trip and spends his own money, he'll look for the most recently built, and if they're all more than 5 years old, the most recently rennovated. Makes a lot of sense to me; I've stayed in $500 a night boutique hotels and $40 a night motels and they're all about the same to me. I'm not vacationing in the hotel anyway, I'm just sleeping there.

SV reX said:

I used to valet park at ultra high end private dinner parties. Got to drive Ferraris, Lamborghinis, all kinds of fun stuff, but I never got to get them out of first gear. 
 

The tips were amazing. I think some of those folks were competing with each other to try to leave the biggest tip. 

I was a valet at a fancy restaurant in center city Philly all through college, so I spent several years doing it.  The parking lot(s) we used were a few blocks away, and sometimes there was stupid crazy traffic, so we'd take alternate routes to get there quicker.  I got to at least use 2nd gear on many cars.  

Even then (mid-'90s), I was pretty much the only one who knew how to drive stick.  If we got one in and I wasn't available, they'd leave it out front until I got back.  I made a lot of good tips that way.  I think I was also one of the few valets that actually fully respected peoples property.  If it was a privately owned car, I treated it as if it were my own...really, I did.  If it was an Enterprise or Avis car...all bets were off.  I repaved half of Broad Street in tire rubber with Enterprise rental Town Cars.

I, too, was a valet in college in downtown Atlanta. Mostly high-end restaurants, private events, and nightlife venues. But I started with a hotel, which have the greenest and worst valets. The nicer the place, the bigger the tips, and therefore the more competitive those jobs are. No one good stays at a hotel for long.

My first shift at the hotel, I was one of two new guys. Within a couple hours, the other new guy totaled a rental Charger into a Mercedes while hooning too fast through the parking deck. I've seen fellow valet drivers not disclose damage like corner bollards clipped, exhausts scraped on curbs, wheel rash, door dings (we pack as many cars into a lot by parking them VERY tight together), smart keys lost, etc. I've smelled the roasted clutch of a new Ferrari and watched engines get stalled right in front of their owners. I never had a single claim, but even the veteran valets eventually get one if you work enough hours under a high stress situation. You are on your feet, RUNNING constantly, heart rate up, trying to manage the emotions of customers, juggling spacial logistics of 2 ton jenga pieces, and managing the strain on your body. It's a hard job. I go out of my way to avoid valet parking now. 

This summer the wife and I went to a concert in Cincinnati, about a 2 hour drive, and spent the night in a nice hotel downtown.  We drive our 9-3 vert which is a stick.  Get to the hotel about 11pm, valet parking only.  As we pull in the only guy on duty heads out parking a minivan so I tell my wife to head up to the room and I will wait for the dude to come back.  20 minutes later the kid shows up, takes a look at the manual and says he can't drive it.  He says the morning shift guy can drive one so they will leave it on the street until the other guy shows for work.  The next morning we check out and I see the car still sitting in the same spot in front of the hotel, it was never moved.  My wife goes up to the desk, asks for the valet charge to be removed from the bill since the car is still out front, which they do thankfully.  We get out to the car and the guy on duty says he went to move it but could not find where to put the key so he left it.