How can I make my own hotel?

Make sure to either start your hotel as a community lot since it needs the community lot phone to have the tour guide appear and for sims to leave vacation. Or if you use a residential lot place down the community lot phone.
Make sure to place the hotel podium and all rooms need a hotel door. Ensure they are facing the correct way.
Make sure your hotel is finished before changing the zoning with changelotzoning hotel

Also, like with an apartment, each hotel "room" (or unit, whatever you prefer- they can have as many rooms in them as you want) only has that ONE hotel door as access. It's more-or-less like building an apartment- they need to be entirely separate spaces to function correctly

Is there a mod to make hotels viable in normal hoods?

In a word, no.

They can only go into vacation hoods to work as intended.

Actually, I am not so sure of that. I use a hotel in my normal hood. Sims can go there, eat there and overnight there - it is still a hotel. I am not sure if they can do the booking thing. My Sim families sometimes are just in need of a break with the twins, so I hire a nanny and they go and spend a night at the hotel.
I use both the hotels in the lot bin in my main hood for my Sims.

Edit - no mod needed - the vanilla game works that way.

And don't confuse the hotel doors for the apartment doors.
The apartment doors have mats, and a stupid thumbnail.

I did that once - the whole lot was rendered unusable

Perfect timing, OP. Thank you! I have never made a hotel before (hey ... I got BV in 2013, so it hasn't been THAT long).

I so, so want to do an inn in my original hood. NOT a vacation hood. Of course, I am intending to try one in a test hood first (Kind of a given smart thing to do, along with making a backup. I haven't done a backup in a while anyway, so ...)

WIll making a hotel in a normal hood spawn a tour guide, Justpetro? An inn really wouldn't need one. Not for a place with a few rooms! (Rifling through floor plans for inspiration and keeping fingers crossed I can build this without my hood going "poof".)

Sorry for hijacking, but I think this belongs in this thread. I hope so!

Also, from reading other posts, the door you want is the Solidity Door ,brass plate facing the hall or outside. It looks like this (and lookee! Recolors):

http://modthesims.info/d/516597

(Edited because I used the wrong terminology. The technical term for what I hope to create is an inn. Slight difference. An inn might have a concierge desk. I don't think most B&Bs do, though I might want to see if someone has an invisible podium that I can fudge, or converted another piece of furniture into a hotel desk. Until then, I'd go for an inn effect.)

If worse comes to worst, I do have the sleeping on community lots mod. I used that before BV. Used the mind control mirror to select a Sim, drained the motives a little, controlled that Sim in my makeshift B&B. Dolphin's mod would probably be perfectly fine as well ... maybe even better. Does anyone know if switching out the mirror for the mind control mod does any VBTs in the game? I know that yanking some mods can yield some very unsatisfactory results.

EDITED again

And an older thread re official hotels in a main hood. (Not my makeshift version.) Still really murky as to whether this is a good idea. And I have no idea whether that pay door works with the BV expansion. It appears to work up to Nightlife. From the description, it ought to work with later expansions.

http://modthesims.info/t/521435

Doesn't look that great for creating BV hotels in a main hood, though, judging from someone who actually did try it in that old thread. Justpetro's overnight place could work, though, provided the Sims did not leave the lot. But that doesn't sound that much different from my makeshift B&Bs before I got BV, nor from joandsarah77's and sweetbaby160's workarounds in that old thread. Once the Sim leaves the lot, that's it.

I will have to go and make sure, but I don't think there is a tour guide. There is the other staff, though - I really never had any problems, have always stashed one in my main hoods. The Sims book in, sleep over, book out the next morning and go home. They sleep over without the sleeping on community lots mod - it is the only place they can sleep over in the main hood in the vanilla game.

Well since I really am curious, I'm backing up my game (it was due for one, anyway, and I'm cleaning up my Backups as well, deleting some and backing a few onto discs), then will try a user-created one in a throwaway hood. I would think (holds breath) is that in a worst-case instance, I would need to delete the lot. That SHOULDN'T bork the hood, but that's what throwaway hoods are for. I don't believe it will kill the game. I hope not.

In the meantime, I'm trying my Inn in a vacation hood, using the tips here. Once again, throwaway hood only. I'll package before rezoning. and put the packages somewhere else, away from the game, in case I might want to use these lots again before I rezone them.

I will await your feedback Have fun!

Made my first hotel in a vacation hood, using the tips here. Nothing awful happened when I launched it. That's good. I have the usual cast of BV characters, though I do seem to have more Sims than I expected hanging around. There are only four tents! (I't s a rent-a-yurt facility. Unfortunately the yurts can be a bit large, and I'd like to actually put other buildings on the grounds there ... like a campground-like bathroom and shower. Yurts often do not have bathroom facilities inside, so I opted to have kitchen and bathroom facilities outside the structures.) And trees. Lots of trees.

Anyway, my yurt campground/hotel SEEMS to be behaving itself. Fingers crossed.


Now for the main hood hotel. I'm looking for a house plan that could lend itself to a bed and breakfast. I have read the VBTs you should not do in your game, just in case to make sure that putting a hotel in a main hood is not among them. Read the list twice, in case I missed something. This lot will not be occupied before I zone it, so that shouldn't be a problem. So far, no one has gone on this thread and exclaimed, "WAIT! DON'T DO THAT!" So I hope that the worst thing I'll do will be to mess up the lot. No matter. Bulldozing is easy.

So to the OP ... follow the instructions here and on that other thread about how to set up a hotel in a vacation spot, and you should be OK. Do pay attention to routing. Make sure the room service staff can get to your tables. Back up your community lot before you re-zone it, in case you mess up.

One question ... is there a minimum amount of rooms for a hotel? Other than a bunch of pesty Sims congregating in my rather small main office (in my mind, a converted bunkhouse ... honestly, Simmies ... can't you hang out somewhere else if you don't have a room? Please?), four structures/rooms in my user-made campground seem to be OK. Most bed and breakfasts don't have a lot of rooms.

No idea about minimum rooms - and it will probably not be full when your Sims turn up to book in either.
Sims can visit hotels without having to book in or sleep over - that is all possible in vacation hoods (eg. one hotel may have a restaurant, another one just room service. You can then have your Sims stay at the room service one, but they can still go and eat at the restaurant one, or go and swim at the other one with a pool, etc. So they can hang out anywhere).
I never, ever had a problem with a main hood hotel. Have not built one (too lazy) but the two in the lot bin both work fine.So I certainly can't see how building your own one can give you any problems

OK, even with the fix from SimWardrobe, the housekeeper is pretty much darn useless. And with my outdoor showers/bathroom arrangement (two small showers, two toilets, one sink for each EA bathroom door ... my Sims should rough it just a little!), she is driving me crazy. Since there is only the small bathroom area, there isn't much that can break. She just stands there. I made my Sim turn her yurt into a cradle of filth. Nope. The housekeeper still stands there. She MIGHT repair the showers, as per the hack. I don't know. I haven't broken any showers yet.

I did try putting a basin-like sink and a chamber-pot in a yurt. She ain't budging. I had better give all the rooms in the B&B their own complete tower, toilet and sink. That might work.

About the only consolation is that according to SimWardrobe, this can be normal, even with the fix. So I didn't seem to break anything. That's good. I am reluctant to select her and make her do SOMETHING, although according the Wiki, she should be safe. Bah. My Sim probably could build up her cleaning skills anyway. I guess.

I wonder if my Sim takes a potty break in the middle of the yurt, can this rouse the housekeeper?

Another suggestion I would make for a user-made hotel by the way ... make sure there is an entrance and exit in the LOBBY. Not the rooms. The lobby. All the BV hotels seem to have two ways to get in and out of the main part of the building. I didn't provide two, and that might explain the occasional bottleneck. Oops. Good thing this lot was in a throwaway hood.

Thanks for the info about minimal rooms. It does not seem that the number of the rooms is the issue for my lazy housekeeper.

I just use a community lot without hotel doors and desk. That way it resets and will be clean for the next family. I find in real hotels in the holiday destinations that my maids do clean with the fix. Perhaps the fix only works in BV locations.

This was in Three Lakes. She should have been cleaning.

I'm thinking that perhaps you need an official bathroom ... toilet, sink, tub. I didn't really want to do that with the yurts. Many yurts have outdoor showers in real life. But that might be something to note if someone wants to build a rustic motel or campground.

ALTHOUGH ... can I just make a fake outdoor privy?

Is is OK to bulldoze a motel and start over again? Maybe if I add a small room off the yurts, use invisible walls and screening to give them an outdoor look, and add the toilet, sink and shower?

I used community lots, too, before trying this. I might go back to doing this. Luckily, I saved my lot as a community lot before rezoning.

I lock the housekeeper out. My Sims have to clean their rooms themselves, and I am sorry if they don't like it, but it is far better than those useless hotel maids The room service server (?) can still enter, and that is all that matters

How can you remove the housekeeper?

Don't tell me ... (All together now) ... There's a mod for that? But I may just want to put in full baths first. If worse comes to worst, she's ornamental. I might want to see if she works in a Maxis lot, actually. I know the mod worked in the past ,but something migtht be overriding it. I can at least stick a Z in front of it. Or it could be the room layout. I wonder if it's worth fretting over at all. She's not jump bugging or crashing. She gets in the way sometimes, but that isn't a big problem.

Still wondering if it's safe to bulldoze a hotel lot and start over. It should be. I know that's not listed as a VBT.

Here's some more tips I can contribute to the discussion, regarding building a hotel:
Hotels & Lodging ISO 18513:2003 (Tips/Rules/Mod Recommendations)

Something else I can recommend is that you keep a copy of the lot file in your "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods\N###\Lots\" folder as a backup to overwrite one you finish visiting the hotel. This is what my folder looks like:



What I've noticed is that when I visit a hotel that's freshly built, there's a Tour Guide that visits, where you can book tours. The problem occurs after you end your vacation and come back to the same hotel (whether your Sims are the same family or another family). There would be no Tour Guide to ask for destinations to visit. This may be because I use the "antiredundancy" & the "notownieregen" mods by JMPescado. No new Tour Guides are produced to replace the previous one. It seems the hotels don't use the same Tour Guide for the vacation destination.

Also, sometimes vacation locals eat at your dining rooms, and never pay for their meal, leaving the seats they occupied previously unusable.

So after the visiting sims are sent home, and the game is shut down, I would overwrite the lot file with the one used before the hotel was occupied. This solves the no Tour Guide problem, and the unusable dining chairs problem.

No - no mod to remove the housekeeper - I cannot recall the exact wording of the option, but you basically just lock the door of the hotel room (there are more than one option, that I do recall).

Quickly sent a Sim to the hotel in the hood. She walked there. Everything went well I noticed that there is no tour guide at all. Also - you need to choose "Do not disturb" on the door menu, and the maid will not enter the room, but the room service food is delivered. My Sim soaked in the jacuzzi with Benjamin Long, played darts with Melissa Fancy and later with Brandi (whatever); ordered a hamburger for room service, took a bath and went to sleep - and checked out the next morning and walked home.


Hope this helps

I'll send one of my Sims to a regular hotel in a vacation lot and see what the housekeeper does there. I think that's the main thing for me. If she's still ornamental, then yes ... a hotel DOES need designated bathrooms to get her to do something. Since most people would use separate bathrooms, that wouldn't be a problem for most, but for a hostel, some B&Bs, some rustic motels, or in a Medieval hood (inns at the time didn't even have designated beds, never mind bathrooms!), it might be. Those might be better used as community lots. That might be a good thing to add to "Things you should have in a hotel".

And I can attest that a chamber pot and basin in a room doesn't work. I guess that's a good thing. I'd rather not have a chamber pot and basin in a one-room yurt. Ick.

Personally, I'm glad the tour guide ISN'T there on a second visit. I had a huge scare when he called a Sim in one of my hoods after a vacation. Nothing like having an iffy NPC calling your Sim. Really makes your heart beat faster. :/ I just sever the relationship after the initial visit and tours, using the Blender and Sim PE. According to an old thread where I brought this up, this was the safest option for me. In my case, though, I have no idea whether that was a game burp or a CC mod. Since others haven't had this experience, I'd chalk it up to one of those.

However, the dining room situation sounds like it could be a pain. I suppose one solution is not to have a restaurant on the premises. In my case, since I'd like to see the Tour Guide as little as possible (since I still have no idea why he was overly friendly), I would put an adjoining restaurant on my hotel property using the Lot Adjuster to give the illusion of a hotel restaurant.

I can definitely see why people don't build hotels more often. :/ Good thing I saved my lot as a community lot for future use.

EDIT ... The housekeeper worked just great in a regular hotel, so whatever this is, it's lot-specific. I can check via the Cyjon ball whether deleting this lot is a good thing or not, then bulldoze and start over with a revised lot. If I do corrupt the hood, at least my Sim is going to be very well-rested. She's gone on about 7 vacations in a row.

While I know that dorm-specific tools works with a hotel lot, I read that the changes won't save??? Is this true?

I can say that in a hood, the housekeeper is not always the same - some of them actually cleans. I just lock them out, since some of them have truly bad timing Especially when your Sims are on honeymoon!
In my main hood, the tour guide is not there at ALL.
Since I have never actually built a hotel, I don't know - but a restaurant is not necessary, they can visit one in the hood, as you say, or there is room service (you know the hotel guy just take a plate of ready made food from under the hotel counter, no cooking involved )
Yet I have always had a hotel in my main hood. I would say that, in a main hood, it plays pretty much the same as any other community lot, except that your Sim can sleep over.

I think the key IS to lock them out and leave them as an ornament. I should have stopped there. Things were better when she just stayed in the lobby, before I made any fixes.

I attached bathrooms to all my yurts. Fortunately, there is enough CC to give the impression of a rough bathroom. And dormspecifctools works just fine. Saves just fine. I'm not sure who wrote that years ago, but the person was wrong.

The good news is that the housekeeper FINALLY goes into the room. She leaves the lobby, where before she was an annoying statue. Yay, me. And she'll clean the first time. That's good ...

Bad news is that once she does the first cleaning, she now stands there and doesn't move. Frozen. In your room. No matter how you go to the bathroom, mess up the room, etc., she stays there, And worse yet ... the stuff stays messy when you return for a subsequent trip. That may not be good at all. I did make sure that all units now have a bathroom, so it's not as if she has nothing to do. It's creepy. Who wants a housekeeper staring at you when you do your business?

Fortunately, I've had the Sim stay in the same room. But that's not the point. There is obviously something else you need to make a good hotel. Bathrooms seem to be one component. And an egress out of the lobby (once again ... NOT the single rooms. The lobby) is advisable. But what else? Perhaps you need some sort of routing requirement? Since my Maxis lots are fine, it's obviously a problem with my lot. And we've established that you don't NEED a restaurant. So ... what am I missing? Good question. The main room has more than adequate space for the bellhop. so I don't think it's a space issue in the main room. The housekeeper got into the bathroom easily enough. She just won't leave!

I really don't want a restaurant attached to a yurt camp. Bad enough these pampered Sims have their own bathrooms. I've also come to the conclusion that yurts make bad hotels. Who ever heard of room service to a yurt, anyway? At least I have a cute un-played community lot in my lot bin and packages. I'll use the mirror/control this Sim or whatever, and take it from there in other hoods when this is done. So it's not a loss. And I may get rid of the test hood once I'm done, just in case. Sorry, Margot. But at least you had a great time!

I've also come to the conclusion all of you reached years ago. BV is a seriously-borked game. No wonder there aren't so many hotel downloads, compared with community or residential lots. or even beach lots.They seem almost as glitchy as beach lots. No, scratch that. I actually managed to make a working beach lot! I've yet to make a working hotel.

I think JustPetro has the right idea, provided this doesn't bork the hood. (No one has said it does ... yet ... justpetro has no problems with it, and it's not listed as a VBT anywhere. ) If one gets the yearning to make a hotel, put one in the base hood. Have a Sim stay overnight and leave. It's not worth the hassle otherwise.

Next will be to try that, I do see at least one or two B&Bs on MTS, so it's not like others haven't done a smaller hotel (though most are quite large). Right now, things are hectic, so I really don't have the several hours one needs to make a decent community lot right now. I'll make one as close to a conventional Maxis one as I can, allowing for the size. Maybe make the bathrooms a little larger. It MIGHT be that you need a tub/shower combo, too. My yurt camp doesn't have that ... it has showers only. I'll see what types of bathroom fixtures Maxis uses in its hotels. This might be like making a dorm or restaurant ... you might need certain items to make things work more efficiently.