Vignette 1: booking a room -- Theoretically checking in -- Vignette 2: Plaza memories -- Design and the chambermaid: Mary Bresnan's The practical hotel housekeeper and E. M. Statler's Service code -- Vignette 3: "for your safety" -- A textbook case: pedagogy and housekeeping -- Vignette 4: the hotel as mise-en-scène -- Laboriously unreal: design and hotel impossible -- Vignette 5: you're doing research where? -- Go green: design, hotels, and the sustainability paradox -- Vignette 6: Chicago and thick description -- "We truly listened to our guests": rethinking the redesign of the Hyatt Regency Chicago -- Conclusion: a Cinderella story.