Hotel Craze: Grand Hotel Story Beginner’s Guide: Tips, Tricks & Strategies to Become a Hotel Mogul

Hotel Craze: Grand Hotel Story is a new simulation game from Techvision Limited, a developer mostly known for its time management and design games. Their new mobile title fits right into the first category, as the gameplay revolves around managing a chain of hotels and taking care of guests in a timely manner.

In Hotel Craze you start off with a small town hotel with only four rooms, which doesn’t pose many challenges. But as you move on to the next location, things gradually become a lot more hectic and complex. Indeed, there will be plenty of time when you find yourself at a loss of how to finish off a level and move on to the next stage.

Fortunately, we’re here to give you a hand! To come to your aid, we’ve compiled a detailed Hotel Craze beginner’s guide containing a list of tips and tricks which we’re confident will allow you to navigate the complexities of this game, while teaching you the basics of how to tackle levels efficiently.

Before we begin our tour de force, however, we should start by explaining the basics of Hotel Craze. Learning how to play the game is a pretty simple affair thanks to the tutorial part. Guests walk into your hotel and first they need to be checked in into a room. Once they’ve made it to their new accommodation, some of them might start requesting stuff, such as food, drink or entertainment options.

Your job is to respond to these orders as soon as possible, preferably before their satisfaction bubble turns from Green to Yellow. Once a guest has vacated their room, the space needs to be cleaned before receiving a new client. Guests pay for their stay at the reception and some might even request help getting a cab before leaving the premises.

As the big hotel boss, your staff consists of Violet, the receptionist slash hotel manager, and Eric, the bellboy. Players can control both of them by tapping on them to perform certain actions. At first, there aren’t many tasks to do, so everything flows smoothly. But by the time you’ve left the first hotel behind, things will no longer be so chill.

Now, each level comes with a main objective attached, such as one of the following:

• Collect a certain a sum of money;
• Get a number of likes from guests in exchange for prompt service;
• Get a number of smiles from guests for overall impeccable service;
• Check-in a number of guests in the exact type of room they ask for.

But there are also conditions attached to most levels. These indicate that during certain stages, players must avoid, at all costs upon penalty of being disqualified, doing one of the following things:

• Dropping anything that Eric is holding;
• Losing any single guest;
• Losing any single order.

If you ever break one of these conditions, even as you’ve already hit the main level objective or are very close to doing so, you’ll automatically fail the level and have to start all over again. Obviously, you don’t want that, so if you need help figuring out how to best a stage, keep reading below.

1. Keep Your Eyes On The Prize (Known As The Main Level Objective)

The main level objective is showed clearly at the beginning of each stage. Afterwards it’s possible to view it in the upper left corner of the screen. In the same spot, you’ll should also notice how many guests to expect during the stage. This is another key piece of information you need to factor in the overall equation.

Now, it’s crucial that you don’t approach a level randomly. Never lose sight of the level objective, because if you do, it might needlessly overcomplicate things for you.

To better understand what we mean by this, consider this example. Let’s say you’re playing a level where you need to check in a number of guests in the exact type of room they request. Starting with the second hotel, all rooms will be color-coded, so you have the Green, Red and Yellow rooms. In this hotel, guests will always request a certain type of room. So pay attention to what the level objective indicates. If you have to check in guests into their exact preferred rooms, make sure you concentrate all your efforts in this direction, while leaving everything else in the background.

During such a level, it’s always good to have Eric holding a mop, so he can rush over to clean a room, as soon as it becomes available. When it comes to the other orders, like cooking food or bringing over a newspaper, these things can wait in favor of the cleaning procedure. Of course, you shouldn’t disregard them fully, as this could mean you’ll start losing guests, which might invalidate your efforts if your level comes with an additional condition (such as Do Not Lose Guests)!

Alternatively, if you’re playing a level where you need to collect a certain number of smiles, you’ll have to ensure both Eric and Violet move as fast and efficiently as possible. To win smiles from guests, your employees have to provide swift and quality service for every request a guest brings forth. It’s possible to win a smile from a guest, even if you don’t check them in their preferred room (for instance, they go in the Red room instead of the Green), but in order to achieve this you’ll have to cater to their needs without letting them wait for too long.

For this reason, you have to always make sure you keep an eye on guests’ satisfaction (the small bubbles that appear next their heads). These are green by default, but if you keep their requests in pending for too long they will soon turn into yellow and then red. You certainly don’t want that to happen, because it means that you’ll receive less money when the guest finally checks out.

Letting a guest wait it out will also ruin your chances of collecting a smile or even a like. Again, watch the level objective, and be wary of your customers’ satisfaction running low, when it matters.

Avoid getting overwhelmed by the sheer amount of tasks the game throws at you and pause to think for a minute (you can actually pause the game) – what does the level objective mean for your strategy? And then tweak things accordingly. Focus on the right tasks, and the chances are you’ll improve your success rate.

2. Replay Levels More Than A Few Times Before Giving Up

As difficulty increases in the game, remember this – don’t give up if you can’t beat a level immediately. Try and try again. Slightly tweak your strategies (depending on what you have available) or maybe take a break from the game. You’ll return with a fresh mind and perhaps a better perspective.

Surely, Hotel Craze does offer some assistance for though levels that mostly consists of Boosters, but these power-ups are quite scarce, so our advice is to learn to rely on your own forces if you want to get far. We’ll give you rundown on Boosters in the next section, but the idea we want to highlight here is that you have to go into Hotel Craze with the right mindset. Just be open to replaying a level for as long as it takes, and don’t get impatient. Levels can get complicated in Hotel Craze, but if you persist, you might as well win the next time around.

It’s should be mentioned here, that every time you fail a level, the game suggests buying more time or adding a few extra customers, but it’s really expensive to do so. Which is why we believing it would be in your best interest to skip over that. And anyway, most of the times you won’t even have the resources to take up the offer.

3. Boosters Make Your Life Easier, For A Price

It’s true that you get a free set of Boosters to start with, but if you rely on them each time a level is a bit more difficult, you won’t get too far.

But first thing’s first – there are two types of Boosters in Hotel Craze. The first one are pre-level Boosters, which need to be activated before a level starts. There’s a three of them to pick from, but you can always activate all three at once going into a level.

• Winged Shoes – this allows Violet and Eric to walk extremely fast at work;
• Hourglass – improves the overall work efficiency by speeding up the production processes around the hotel;
• Double Coins – doubles the value of each task you perform (checking in guests, serving them etc).

Now, as you run out of these Boosters (and it will inevitably happen) you have two methods of getting more. The first one, and the cheapest (as in free) is by making natural progress in the game. Play levels to win and once you’ve went through enough, the game will unlock a gift package. This contains gems (which are essential for gameplay, more about that in the next section), as well as other goodies including coins and, yes, some Boosters.

Each in-game progress bar features a total of three gift packages, and you’ll score the biggest rewards by unlocking the last one that’s wrapped in purple paper.

Additionally, you could use gems to buy back some of the Boosters you need to make everything better in your hotel empire. Unfortunately, these are extremely costly. For example, a bundle of 3x Winged Shoes will cost you 60 gems. It might not sound like much, but once you start playing and you experience the rate at which gems are coming in, you will tend to agree with us.

The game also offers a couple of in-level Boosters which you can activate in situations where a level gets a little bit too challenging and you need some quick relief.

Gramophone – restores customers’ satisfaction levels back to green;

Magic Wand – cleans all the rooms instantly and finishes any production processes.

Like their pre-level Boosters, in-level Boosters can be acquired by making progress in the game or by spending gems. Although, as we explain below, this is a path one should take only in extreme circumstances.

4. About Gems And Amenities

In many time management games, gems are part of the reward for completing a level successfully. Hotel Craze departs from the norm by making gems a very scarce, yet essential resource.

The most important aspect about gems in Hotel Craze is that they unlock amenities upgrades for your hotels. The more you play the game, you’ll come to understand that taking forever to make a plate of fish and chips will ruin your chances of winning the challenge unfolding before you. Basically, you need those upgrades like you need water for surviving in the desert.

You can prompt a machine to produce faster by upgrading it. Doing so costs gems most of the time, in addition to a sum of gold coins. But if you’re not getting gems from playing levels, where do you get them from, then?

Well, we already mentioned above that as you make headway in the game, you’ll be able to unlock progress rewards that contain gems. This is the main method of supplementing your gem reserve. Additionally, you can take advantage of ad watching, whenever possible. You should notice an icon in the right side of the display that invites you to watch quick ads in exchange for 2 gems.

There’s a limited amount of them available per day, so make sure you exhaust them all.

If you’re really against watching ads, then know that you have an alternative when it comes to collecting more gems (and coins). You can go back to the older hotels and continue playing levels there to win additional resources. Interestingly, you’ll still be able to unlock progress rewards by doing so, so you can expand your gem pile.

Don’t miss out the chance to get more gems by checking in the game daily, so you can redeem a gift every day. You won’t always get gems, but at least three times a week, you have a chance of boosting your gem stash.

The last method for acquiring gems is to pay for them using real-life money. Now, if you wish to play without spending, that’s your choice. If you do decide to open your wallet, though, it will make your life a lot easier and the game a lot more enjoyable.

Now, back to amenities. From cleaning supplies and reception desk to the food cooking stations and cab, everything can be upgraded in Hotel Craze. Note that having an upgrade delivered to your hotel takes time. In some cases, you can wait up to 6 hours. Or you can watch a few ads and reduce the interval. Just bear in mind that those ads aren’t unlimited. It often helps to check if new ads you can watch have been made available, especially when you’re waiting for a highly-anticipated delivery that will certainly have a positive effect on your efforts in the game.

5. Always Double Your Coins

Upgrading amenities costs not only gems, but also a significant amount of gold coins. Luckily, collecting money in Hotel Craze is not all that problematic if you employ a few easy tricks. Once in every two levels, the game will offer you the chance to watch a quick ad to double the sum you’ve made at the end of a stage. Getting likes, smiles, and checking guests in the room they ask for influences the amount of gold coins you get at the end, so it’s good to make that a goal. Even if the level objective does not demand it.

Whenever you see this option appear tap on it and take advantage. By doing so you’ll ensure that you always have money to invest in upgrading your amenities. Although, the process is dependent on the amount of gems you have in your possession at that time, as well.

In addition, keep in mind the delivery of some amenities is not instantaneous. Therefore, having the cash (and gems) to make more than one purchase at a time will also help you improve the speed at which the new upgrades eventually become available to you.

If you find that you’re in need of even more coins, know that the various hotels you own generate revenue over time, so make sure you check and collect these yearnings when they become available.

6. Queue Up Eric’s Actions

You rely on Eric for doing most of the tasks in your hotels. Like any human, alive or animated, he can carry two items at a time, and these are shown on the tray in the lower left corner of the screen. It’s possible to easily discard items you might have picked up by mistake in the hurry to respond quickly to everyone’s requests, by tapping the tray. Just be super careful and avoid doing so during levels that clearly specify you’re not to discard items.

The best way to take advantage of Eric to his full potential is to que up his actions. Just remember that you can’t do so for more of four at a times. So even if you’re a superfast tapper and can easily queue up 6 actions (or more) in a row, know that the last two won’t get registered, resulting in Eric stopping in the hallway with nothing to do.

Queuing up things is incredibly helpful, because while Eric is completing a chain of tasks, your attention can shift over to Violet who has also her share of tasks that need taking care of. Forgetting about Violet can have a harmful effect on your overall gameplay. For instance, it might diminish the amount of gold coins your guests pay at checkout.

Anyway, back to Eric. When queuing tasks make sure you always select the shortest path for Eric. Let’s give you an example, so you can understand better what we mean. So let’s say Eric (who is on the second floor) gets a request for a Newspaper from a guest on the first floor and a request for Fish and chips from a guest on the second floor. Now both the Food and Newspaper stand are on the second floor. The most efficient way to fulfill these orders is to take the shortest path and this is Food stand – Newspaper Stand – Guest on the second floor – Guest on the first floor.

While working in the first hotel, it’s helpful to have Eric start each level with holding a Hamburger. This initially takes quite a long time to make (all food stuffs do, at first), so it’s important to always instruct Eric to have one at hand, just in case a guest feels like ordering something to eat. This won’t overcomplicate your strategy because in the first hotel guests can only pick between two items when ordering: a refreshment or a burger.

So preparing the burger in advance, allows you to fulfill these kinds of orders faster, without the additional waiting time. Just always make sure you always have a free hand, so you can also serve drinks and clean recently vacated rooms, when needed.

Once you upgrade you cooking station and other utensils, Eric will be able to make food much faster, so always preparing that item in advance won’t be necessary anymore.

You’ll have to abandon this strategy anyway, once you move to the next hotel and things become a lot more hectic. There numbers of items that can be requested increases to three, so it’s not lucrative to always carry around a food plate. Even if you leave one hand free, and the guests keep asking for the other items, it will just keep you from responding as quickly to orders.

Let’s think about it for a second – imagine you’re playing a level and Eric is on hotel’s second floor holding a food plate, but as it turns out two of the guests on the second floor want tea which is one the first floor. This means, Eric will have to go down to the first floor once, pick up the tea, go back to the second floor and serve, and then go to the first floor again and return.

During high-intensity levels, this strategy is just not productive and will probably lead you to fail the level altogether. So once you’ve reached the more advanced stages, the best way to approach things with Eric is not to prepare things in advance.

7. A Few Tips For Really Hard Levels

Everything could be so much easier if you could just anticipate the needs of your guests, right? Well, as it turns out sometimes you can do so. Whenever you’ve checked in a guest and you see ZZZZ waves coming out of their room, it means they won’t make any extra requests like food or drink, and will be checking out soon.

This observation is particularly useful when you’re playing a level where you have to check guests into rooms of a certain color to win. By keeping an eye on the ZZZZ waves, you’ll know to be prepared with cleaning materials so you can make the room ready for the next guest as fast as possible. In such as a scenario, it might be wise to prioritize cleaning the rooms to serving guests food or drink.

Since you’re not dependent on likes or smiles to complete the level objective, it’s alright if you serve them their items with some delay, so you can clean up that room the new guest at the reception desk is requesting in time.

We feel like we should repeat this, because it’s super important – depending on your level objective, you’ll have to tweak your strategy accordingly. Let’s look at another example – you’re playing a level where you’re required to collect a specific number of likes. Well in that case, you shouldn’t try too hard to check in guests in the rooms they request. Sure, if you can do that, go for it, but don’t stress about it if you can’t.

Instead, make it a point to be quick about fulfilling orders of all kinds. Don’t neglect Violet either. Getting likes for tasks like retrieving payment from guests at checkout is pretty easy and might even make the difference between winning and losing. If you can also call them a cab without their satisfaction bubble turning yellow, you will be able to score even more and hopefully finish off the level in style.

The trick is to always stay calm and focused. This prevents you from getting too overwhelmed by the deluge of requests coming your way from all sides. Concentrate, this way you’ll be able to come up with a worthy strategy for tackling the level. You’ll have to determine, based on the level objective, the order of events and which requests need priority. It’s all about staying cool, when things get heated!

This wraps up our Hotel Craze beginner’s guide and we hope that you’ve learned a few useful tips and tricks that will allow you to streamline all your hotels’ operations and become a successful manager. If you’ve been playing this game for some time now and getting quite good at it, to the point that you’ve uncovered a few strategies we haven’t included in our list and you’d like share, you’re invited to do so in the comment section!