Three of the last four hotels I have stayed in that used RFID tags for the rooms have absolutely sucked. Big time. Currently staying in the Novatel, KL, Malaysia and were only here four nights. The very first morning after having breakfast and travelling up 25 floors BOTH my wife’s RFID card and mine had decided to fail, yet mine did allow us to enter the floor – the floors are protected by RFID as well.
Then the first afternoon coming home they both failed again! The guy at reception reprogrammed our cards and gave us a third one.
Yesterday, my wife left her card in the room, along with the spare and when we got back mine failed again. We went back down. He reprogrammed mine and gave us a fourth card.
Today, after lugging up all our shopping, both my card, my wife’s card and one of the spares would not open the door. The second spare (luckily) did! But I would have been very peeved if it hadn’t!
The other recent hotels that used RFID and we had problems included big name, fancy places in Koh Samui (and that was a LONG walk back to reception), and Koh Phi Phi (again, another long walk – the longest – back to reception!). I would name them but I honestly forget the names. The only RFID card we haven’t had problems with was the most recent in Singapore – the (overpriced) V Lavender Hotel above the Lavender MRT.
I tried to recall, I thought for a moment swipe v actual RFID cards may have been worse, but the verdict is still out. Two have been swipe, and one was proximity type RFID. So, probably, this post is incorrectly titled. So sue me :/)
BTW, the image of the water is supposed to be a “calming effect” type of thing. This is just such an annoying thing that one needs a little meditation, medication or to go for a drink :-)