Just turn up at 1400 and kick up a fuss. They'll have a clean room ready I'm sure.
To be fair, I turned up in Southampton a couple of weeks back at around 13:15 and asked to either leave my bag or preferably check in. All done amicably, certainly no fuss kicked up. They said I could definitely leave my bag and they'd see if my room was ready. I was in it about 5 minutes later.
Travelodge seem to have gone a slightly different route with regards to the cleaners/housekeeping (or at least their branch in Lowestoft has, where I had been staying for the last 4 nights). If you're staying more than one night, you have to put a tag on your door before 11am to request housekeeping to change your towels, empty your bin and top up your tea/coffee. It's somewhat of an upgrade from last year, where if you were staying for 6 nights or less, housekeeping wouldn't even go anywhere near your room throughout your stay, which meant having to ask at the desk for towels and tea/coffee.
That reminds me of the Premier Inn I stayed in in Belfast last October during the Circuit Breaker restrictions. Stayed for 6 nights and was told Housekeeping wouldn't enter my room "Due to Covid" although on the 6th night I'd have the choice of moving rooms. Breakfast was available to registered guests, but no evening meals even for takeaway to your room. The likes of Uber Eats and Pizza Hut got a lot of business out of me that week. Which led to the issue of the bin overflowing very quickly! I piled up the empty beer cans, bottles, burger wrappers and pizza boxes the best I could but it was still a tip by the bin. I even threw some of the bulky stuff in the bin on the street. I dread to think how much worse it would have been had there been a family in the room rather than just me. Fortunately I don't drink tea or coffee so aside from having to ask for fresh towels a couple of times, which were happily provided, it wasn't too much of an issue.
I had a bit more time for it all then as NI was in a semi-lockdown. The main thing I didn't have time for was off licences and shops being legally prohibited from selling alcohol after 20:00. WHY?? You can probably tell I found that out the hard way. Spending my Saturday night sitting in my hotel room eating Dominoes, drinking Diet Pepsi and watching TV wasn't quite what I expected when I booked the trip. I did appreciate the concession given to hotels being able to serve breakfast to registered guests though, perfectly normal aside from being table service only.
I can't help but feel Caledonian Sleeper are at least partly using "Because Covid" as an excuse to cover up the effects of their Industrial action.
Equally, it's rare I check-in anywhere before the evening, as I'm usually travelling during the day, stopping off wherever for a nosy round while just carrying my rucksack.
