Quiet Zones
The Crowne Plaza hotel chain has come up with the sparkling idea of Quiet Zones. Some selling points: comfortable beds, a guaranteed wake-up call, and they promise not to do any housekeeping or laundry between 9pm and 10am unless a guest requests it. The sleep amenities the Quiet Zones offer are the best: lavender spray and a nightlight, in case your room smells and you're scared of the dark.

'Quiet Zones' are only available Sunday to Thursday for business guests paying business prices, so bugger you if you come for the weekend and want a night's rest.

More Noisy Hotel News
Also, attempting to thwart noise is AmericInn which launched a competition to find the most amusing noisy hotel stories around. They're top coffee-break reading.

While this is funny, hotels have right to be worried about noisy guests. In Australia, they're launching formal proceedings against a particularly noisy place, the Steyne Hotel on the excellently named Manly Beach.

Avoiding Noisy Hotels
If you're really sensitive to noise, here's one hotel you don't want to stay at: the Mercure Noisy Hotel. And here's one that you do: the Hôtel Concorde St-Lazare. Overlooking practically the noisiest, most traffic-screeching street in Paris. But with soundproofed windows.

Just in case you freak out about a noisy hotel, someone's invented a gadget to make more noise, to drown out the noise of your noisy hotel room: White Noise Machine. Can someone scientific explain how that works?

Your Help
We at HotelChatter have been looking into this matter for you, not least with Matt Chesterton's top tips for quiet BA hotels.

But we need your help. Any tips, any stories, anything to share...?

...Sorry, what did you say?

[Photo: Hometown Invasion]