How to document Wi-Fi, access and check-out
Three pieces of information cause most guest messages. Written well, once, they almost disappear from your inbox. Here is how to write each one — with examples you can adapt.
A good rule for all three: write for someone who is tired, standing, and holding a phone in one hand. Short lines. Concrete nouns. No assumed knowledge.
Wi-Fi: the first thing they look for
Give the network name exactly as it appears in the phone's list — capitals, hyphens and all. Give the password in a way that cannot be misread: mark what is a zero and what is the letter O. Then say where the router is, because someday it will need a restart and you will be asleep.
Network: Casa-Mirador-5G
Password: limonero2024 (all lowercase, the 0 is a zero)
The router is the white box on the hallway shelf. If the connection drops, unplug it, count to ten, plug it back in. It takes about two minutes to come back.
What not to do: bury it in a paragraph, or leave it only on a sticker that housekeeping will eventually move.
Access: write it as a walk, not a summary
Arrival instructions fail when they compress. "Lockbox by the door, code 2580" assumes the guest found the right door. Instead, narrate the last hundred meters in order: what they see, where they turn, what they touch. One step per line.
1. From the metro exit, walk uphill past the green pharmacy.
2. Ours is the dark blue door at number 14, to the right of the florist.
3. The lockbox is on the left wall, behind the gate — code 2580, then pull the latch down.
4. Your keys open both the street door (round key) and the apartment on the 2nd floor (flat key).
5. The lock lifts slightly before it turns. It is not stuck — it is just old.
Add a photo of the door and the lockbox. A picture answers the question a paragraph only argues with.
Check-out: the message you always send at 9 a.m.
Departure questions arrive on the guest's busiest morning — and yours. Write the check-out as a short ritual: the time, the three or four things to do, and exactly what happens with the keys. Resist the urge to add chores; a long list at departure sours a good stay.
Check-out is by 11:00.
Before you go: close the windows, switch off the heating, and leave used towels in the bathtub.
Leave both keys inside the lockbox and scramble the code.
That's it — no need to take out the trash or strip the beds. Safe travels.
Keep arrival and departure as separate entries in your guide. Guests look for them on different days, in different moods.
Three entries, written once — and the guest who reads them in French never knows you wrote them in Spanish.