Let us try again, internet connection decided to take a short break.
Gazania, I have always have hotels in my main hoods - after all, there are some in real towns too. They have not borked my game. Sims do not have to leave in the morning, but then, there are only so much to do at the local hotel. They don't even have to book in, they can just hang out with other Sims (but they can book in, and my Sims get those breaks if they really need them).
As for food, there is always room service, but you could add one of those food stand things (some BV hotels have them) or a BBQ (the camping sites have those). My Sims do go on vacation too.
I think you might need to put a phone in each room for the room service, besides the hotel desk (it has a phone on it too) and the correct doors.
I have seen hotels at Parsimonious Sims that can be downloaded - there are 12 of them, so you can always peek into those if you want to see what you might have missed.
And, yes, the maid is locked out because of standing around like a statue too at times! Though I think Pescado might have something in his BV fixes - not sure.

Another option ... maybe the game doesn't like the octagonal rooms of the yurts. That's another possibility. Or the CC door I'm using (a Solidity door recolor) isn't behaving, though that seems a little odd. Let's see if I can't switch out another door on my Sim's favorite yurt, just to see, and use the Maxis solidity door, or HugeLunatic's here. That's easy enough. It won't look too authentic, but oh, well. At least HL's doors are colorful. That might work fine.

I can try enlarging the bathroom slightly as well. There might be some sort of size requirement. I do notice the bathrooms on the hotel downloads here are more spacious. Right now, my bathrooms are 2x3, because I was trying to keep the rustic element in there. Put in a bath/tub combo, noting what the Maxis hotels use. This is making my yurts look less and less yurty, but oh, well.

If my repeated efforts don't work, use "do not disturb" and let the housekeeper creep out an NPC guest. I can still play my yurt lot ... just not the same way.

Another thing ... I have camping sinks and stoves near a tent. Perhaps that is causing problems? I did notice the housekeeper parked near the camping stove at one point. I might want to put a food stand in there instead, as you suggested, justpetro. But one thing at a time. Process of elimination.

When I build one in the main hood, stick to rectangular rooms, leave much more space in the bathroom, and see if that works.

I'm too curious to let this go just yet, and this might be important to other user-made hotels. What element am I missing on my lot? We know one .... there must be a designated bathroom. What is the other one? (I HOPE it's just one!)

There are dining tables in each room - with chairs (for the room service) - could that be it?

I'm wondering. I do have small tables in each building, though. Maybe I'm using the wrong tables in the rooms? I don't think that's a problem, but I do need to rule that out. I need to observe the things in a Maxis hotel more closely. What does it have that I do not? Obviously, it's something.

Again, one step at a time to rule each one out or verify that I found the problem.

And ... I think I found it on the first shot!

Be careful what doors you use. I used the HL's pretty red recolored Solidity door. Well ... it looks kind of yurty! It's colorful, anyway.

I also saw something else. Apparently, a CC door was giving me an already in use message when I attempted to delete it ... but my Sim had moved out. It was a bead door.

Tip from me ... stick with conventional Maxis doors. I used a recolored Value door, and so far, I don't have a statue for a housekeeper. I will put back the original recolor of the Solidity door to rule that out because I'm not sure if that caused the problem, but it MIGHT be that you should use conventional Maxis doors only. No sliding doors, beaded doors, etc. Boring, perhaps, but life goes on.

I am playing my Sim in my user-made camp now, so I'll see what's going to happen next. Will the housekeeper continue to cooperate?

My bathrooms, by the way, are 3x3, not 2x3. So if my yurts continue to cooperate, it appears you don't need a large bathroom. I see also that other downloads here have just tubs, so you might be able to go with a shower OR a tub easily enough.

One would think that a recolor should not make a difference, but then - who knows? Perhaps, once the thing is working, you could try recolored doors again!

Definitely dining tables in the hotel rooms that come with the game - I am fairly certain they are in all rooms. Small, but dining tables, nevertheless

I also think some hotels (the cheaper ones) have smaller bathrooms than the more expensive ones, so it is worth experimenting with those.

Hope your Sims enjoy their time in your user-made camp

Found something, Gazania - there are public toilets as well. Which makes sense, for Sims can visit hotels without booking in.

About locking the doors so the maid doesn't come in...how does one do that to the doors of the tourists visiting the hotel?

Because although it prevents the maid from freezing up in your room, the maid goes to the rooms of the visitors and stays there at times. There are some tourists who don't lock their doors, and instead the entire neighborhood visiting the hotel would go their room to use the toilet, bath, sleep, or hang out in the room. Those generous (yet pesky) tourists cause the maid and the servers from the restaurant come into their room to clean the toilet bowl. As far as I'm aware, you cannot lock their doors to the maid.

You can lock your door which stops the tourists not the maid. The maid seems to work a whole lot better in my game then it appears to do in some others. I use the maid fix but I am wondering if perhaps those of you who have the fix and it made no difference, perhaps you need to change the load order.

It doesn't stop folks from visiting the rooms of the one or two pesky tourist families who don't care about who comes into their rooms. All you can do is control the doors that you rent out from the hotel, not the doors of the other tourists.

Oh I don't care what the tourists do in their own rooms, I only want them out of my room. Back in the early days of BV I had a couple on a honeymoon and the tourists kept coming and going out of their room, it was so bad they couldn't use the bathroom because one was in their tub and they couldn't woohoo because two more were in the bedroom. I locked the door after that.

Here is my final thought: It will be a long, long time before I try another DIY hotel. Anywhere. Anytime.

Problem is, the routing can be so annoying. And it's not just routing in your room. If the housekeeper gets stuck at ANY point on the lot ... in the hotel bathroom, in a guest's bathroom, in your room ... that's it. You have a statue that won't budge.

It seems that certain CC does not play nicely with hotels. Certain Maxis items don't play nicely with hotels. And just when you think you've solved the problem, after examining the routing and content of the Maxis hotels and even put the exact same plumbingyou see in the Maxis hotel bathrooms in the exact same locations ... surprise! The maid gets stuck somewhere else.

It was a bad omen for poor Margot when she returned to my DIY vacation spot and found no Sims except for the bellhop(I had her check into another hotel, then check out and return to my DIY one). Anywhere. Well, one ... the Social Bunny. And when the game prompted me if I wanted to ask the Social Bunny on my next vacation outing, I nuked the hood. Game over for Margot.

I COULD go to backup. I'm hoping that was an issue with just the one hood ... I'll try my second test hood to make sure my Sims can go on a normal vacation to a Maxis location, but can't now. Maybe one day, I'll give a DIY hotel a try. But it's bad when I found a beach lot 100% easier than trying an unconventional hotel.

Here is what I did learn. It's not just "make sure you have the right door and that it faces in the right direction". You need a dedicated bathroom for each room. ALL doors have to be the right doors. Miss one, and you have to fix it. Routing issues can still happen on the lot, and just when you think you've sorted them, they can pop up somewhere else. Surprisingly, the bellhop does fine. Just the housekeeper is the problem. I am truly hating the housekeeper right now, but remind myself she is just pixels. Her coding stinks.

I'm with joandsarah77. Play community lots, select Sims, and go that route. I give up.

EDIT. I'm calmer now. A little. Breeeeeeeeeeeathe deeply.

One problem might be that I moved Margot in and out so many times, and left so many references (dirty dishes, unmade beds), that the game became overwhelmed. If I recall, since I backed up the game, poor Margot can come back. Just plop the backup in there. And that is why we back up games, folks.

If I am braver, I might want to try the yurt camp one more time, but with the stuff I have learned, moving my file from the backup over. Before even rezoning, add bathrooms, using Bon Voyage/base game fixtures for now. Use the original Value doors only, or simple recolors. Make a HUGE swath for now to avoid routing issues (make sure a bison could go straight to that bathroom!), and use the Bon Voyage tables. Do not bother with custom tables at this time. Use a Maxis bed. We just want to see if the housekeeper will do anything at this point except freeze. Make every effort to get the lot as hotel-ready as possible without using dormspecifictools.

it does appear that certain CC just doesn't work with hotels. There is a lovely sink from a popular site that I know doesn't work in the slightest when I put it in the yurt, yet works perfectly fine elsewhere. And the game didn't seem to like certain Maxis content, though I might be mistaken on that. It might be that you have to be pretty strict about what you put in a hotel. I noticed mostly base-game and BV stuff in the rooms.

Placement of the toilet, sink and tub or shower doesn't seem to have a whole lot of significance. Maxis hotels have different placements, and they work fine. However, all of them have the easiest access to the sink in the room ... at least the ones I saw. I will try the yurt one more time and see in which order the housekeeper goes. What does she clean first?

I also might want to make sure my Sim doesn't block her route as she's cleaning. Have Margot read a book or something. It might be if you interrupt the housekeeper's routine for a certain amount of time, it causes problems.

The real pain with any lodging location is the maid. Without anyone cleaning the place, it's not fun to visit. Other than that, I find it fun to visit a hotel. Especially with the sims mingling with the tourists, and stay overnight.

The maid cleans at mine, not perfectly but well enough.

gazania, I play both.
At a hotel lot simply pick up the stuck sim. Use Dorm on cheat to open build and buy and move objects. Turn it off once you are done. Or use a build and buy enabler which I have. I had trouble with the pet version but no issues since moving to the BV version.

I'd love to know if people have had issues with the resort I have uploaded here but nobody ever posts feedback like that.

You can pick up the stuck sim, using dormspecific while playing? The things we learn. I thought you weren't supposed to do that while playing the lot.

Now I want to be sure ... I CAN take Margot's hood out of my backup file? RIght? No problems? No ka-boom? Maybe Margot can rise again! But first, I want to use my other test hood and make sure the only thing I messed up was Margot's hood. That SHOULD be the case. As far as I know, that's not a game-breaker. I hope. That is NOT one thing I'd want to discover, though now that I think of it, I might have discovered another way to corrupt a hood. I don't want to think about that now, though.

I did take a peek at the resort, but right now, I'm more in a B&B/Inn/cozy hotel frame of mind. But that does look great if I want a larger-scale property!

EDIT ... Margot has been revived from my backup. I made the corrections I knew I should make, and the first run-through, everything ran like a charm. However, I realized I forgot to add a roof and once she moved out, I did a dormspecifictools cheat. I also did something really stupid that was my fault. I can't blame Maxis. I noticed the housekeeper froze the last time I did this as well, so maybe I shouldn't do this in ANY hotel. (I realized I forgot to do something while Margot was there, checked out, checked into a different suite. The housekeeper wound up in the old suite.) When Margot returned for a second vacation, because of one of these two actions, the housekeeper was frozen. Again.

But for one glorious run-through, it worked! That was the furthest I got so far. Now to delete that hood and start again. This time, I'll remember to add all the roofs, and once Margot checks out, she is OUT. Then see what happens in the second run-through.

In the vanilla game, the housekeeper does not always freeze. Long ago, before discovering that I can lock her out, she has stood next to my Sim's bed and he could not get out to take the taxi to go home. The rest of the family left to fly back to the main hood. Being irritated, I saved and left Sim in bed. Going into his house, he came home with the family, quite happy after his vacation, completely oblivious of having been studk in a hotel bed earlier.
So one probably needs the fix Jo is referring to if one wants to use her cleaning skills For me - my Sims can quickly clean the bathroom and make the bed in their rooms, it is not as if they have to clean the entire hotel.

I do have that fix, and it works great in the Maxis hotels. It almost worked great this last time. This time, I'm willing to chalk it up to my stupid moves.

Good news is that I can make any corrections much faster now. When you do them 25 times, you get better.

I have made 'private' hotels in my regular hoods. Using Mootilda's 1x1 Hotel lot, set it as a community lot and use visitor controller to block everyone. Mainly it was used for parents to have some quiet time away from home. It doesn't have to be Mootilda's, just create your own. There's no money to be made this way, but just a quiet getaway place without actually going on vacation. A small restaurant along with it would also work. I had a small, fancy restaurant for sims to take their dates to and blocked all sims and pets making it accessible only to the controlled sims. This stopped the interruptions of special dates by others stealing food, soaping fountains and other annoying actions. This was kinda like renting a whole restaurant just for that special date you only see in the movies. (:

I've done private B&Bs, too. I decided to take the hotel on as a challenge.

And boy, is it a challenge. I marvel at how we have about 200 or so (hopefully-working) hotel downloads here. Of course, it didn't help that I decided to not only make a hotel, but try my hand at a more unconventional one. That was probably not a brilliant moment of inspiration.

I hope to do this one and a main hood one that WILL be much more conventional. Maxis fixtures aplenty. Then I think it's time to take a very long break from it, whether I succeed or fail. I think it's telling that when you do see hotel downloads here, often, a creator does only a couple of them at best. I can avow there's a reason for that!

I do agree that if you decide to include a restaurant, that would be one way to circumvent the non-paying Sim issue without saving extra files, though that is a great idea, too. Go the community lot route.

I downloaded a couple of hotels from here that did not have a community lot phone-which is needed to span a tour guide and used to 'end vacation/find new lodgings' I had to again open up dorm on cheat and place one. It pays to load up the hotel and check it over before sending sims to it.

BTW, joandsarah77, I love the original ideas on your lots. I might download a smaller one once I get these hotels sorted. I like how your lots have stories as well. Sometimes, I think I'm one of the few who do that. When I create a lot, I imagine the history.

But whatever Sim thought of this yurt hotel bit in my head should be fleeced by the Charlatan!

I can see why hotel builders here would miss details like the phone. It doesn't fully excuse them. I'm finding that when building a hotel, one has to be extra, extra careful about details; much more than a dorm or community lot (when people say to make sure you have the hotel lot built just the way you want it before you rezone and make sure the routing is 100% fine, they're not kidding!). There is so much to consider when building a hotel lot, and missing one tiny detail can really mess things up. I'm finding THAT out.

Maybe I'll drive myself totally bonkers and try an apartment next year.

gazania, thanks, although I can only recall making one story for one lot uploaded here. I always build with sim routing in mind but that in no way means sims will always take the best rout. If you ever do play my hotel I would love your feedback on it.

Went looking at Jo's very pretty hotel and start contemplating building one myself - going to sleep on that one

Building a hotel? (Shudders.)

Well, my venture is progressing, little by little, and I'm learning more and more.

Anything else food-related other than a restaurant on the premises ... outdoor grills, vending machines ... can cause problems. I'll have to look at Maxis hotels again to see about Maxis grills (those might be safe), but definitely not a vending machine or CC grill. And never put vending machines in the lobby. (EDIT ... That does not appear to be true.)

It seems that if the housekeeper has to encounter just one thing he or she is not coded to do by Maxis .. just one ... it's freezy time. Or if the routing path is disturbed... freezy time.


Good news is that joandsarah77's suggestion to enable dormspecific works to an extent ... if you delete the housekeeper. I don't know if joandsarah77 said to delete this Sim, but moving the character around certainly didn't help. The housekeeper does come back, like the cat in that infamous song. Darn. I was hoping I could get rid of the pest for good. I contemplated controlling the Sim, but don't know what that might do to the game. I do not believe the housekeeper is in the same league as Mrs. C. I do not believe so. The list of safe NPCs includes housekeepers, and Sims can marry them. The bellhop is the dangerous one.

But once the housekeeper gets stuck, the NPC never acts the same way again on subsequent visits. At first, it seems OK, but the housekeeper will often do some work, then freeze. However, in my case, that might be because the Sim is still picking up trash from a machine that isn't supposed to be there. And yes, I AM talking about Maxis machines. The batbox is of no help whatsoever, by the way.

So back to the drawing board. I'm wondering if I should remove the coffee machine, but Maxis hotels do have those, so they might be safe.

I do thin there is a grill at one of the hotels in the Mountains - and definitely at the tent camp (also in the mountains?) - so I think the grill should be safe (will go and look at those again sometime).
Gong to sleep on building a hotel for a number of nights

gazania, what troubles are you getting with vending machines and grills? I have vending machines in my hotel. I've also used hotels with vending machines and grills with no issues.
I'm wondering if you have something going on with your maid, since I find moving her makes her get back to work. Not that I have to do that often, just now and then.