Should I give her the hotel's room telephone number?

There is no need. Keep the thread working on your own phone, through the hotel Wi-Fi if the signal is weak.

My phone ran out of battery just before the start. What should I do?

Go down to the lobby at the agreed start so she can find you there, and charge the phone before the next booking.

Will messages reach me in the lift?

Often not. Read the latest message before you step in, and check again when you reach the ground floor.

Schiphol Hotel Massage · Staying Reachable Inside the Hotel

Staying reachable inside a big airport hotel while you wait for a Schiphol hotel massage

Large airport hotels are built of concrete and glass, with steel cores around the lifts and conference floors below ground. They are good at keeping noise out and, sometimes, equally good at keeping phone signal out. On an evening when the last message before the knock matters, it pays to make sure it can reach you.

The message that matters most

Most of the thread is settled before she leaves: the start, the length, her journey out. The last messages are different. She writes that she is nearly there, or that she is at the entrance, and, in a hotel with key-card lifts, that is your cue to go down. If that message sits unread because your phone has dropped off the network, she waits in the lobby while the evening ticks away.

Signal and Wi-Fi in the room

Test both before the evening. Many rooms near the core of a building get weak mobile signal, and roaming travellers may have no data at all. Hotel Wi-Fi solves that, but often asks you to log in again after a few hours or when the phone sleeps. Connect early, open the thread, and send a short message to make sure it goes through. If the room is a dead spot, the area by the window usually does better.

The lift and the lobby

Lifts are metal boxes, and the phone loses everything inside them. If you are going down to meet her, read her latest message before you step in, and look again when the doors open. The note on meeting her at the key-card lift describes that short trip.

Silent mode and focus settings

Phones set to sleep or focus modes after a long flight can hold back notifications from apps you use only on this trip. Allow notifications from the messaging app you used for the thread until she is in the room. After that, silence the phone completely; nothing about the session needs it.

When something fails

If you lose contact, reply as soon as you can and say where you are. If she is waiting downstairs, go and meet her. If you find that the room has no signal at all and the Wi-Fi will not connect, ask the desk for help before the start rather than at it. The booking guide follows the whole thread from the first message to the door.

The usual terms

None of this alters the booking: half the fee goes ahead once the start and her journey are agreed, and the balance follows when she arrives.