The emergency lights came on and the phones were working, so we called the front desk. No worries, the desk clerk said, it was a scheduled test of the emergency generator. We should have been told about it at check-in but somebody forgot.

Reassured? Not entirely.

I grabbed my pocketbook, car keys and flashlight (we always travel with a flashlight) and put the palm of my hand flat on the door to check for heat on the other side. Then we walked down 10 flights of stairs (even though the elevators were working) to the lobby and stayed there for nearly an hour, until the drill was over.

Overreaction? As it turned out, yes. But it’s not the overreactions that tend to kill you.

I have decided over the years not to rely completely on what I’m told in an emergency or anything that looks like one. Because when things are going wrong, the people in charge sometimes tell the people who aren’t in charge not to panic, to stay where they are.

It happened on the Titanic. It happened as the World Trade Center burned on 9/11. It happened as the Costa Concordia began to sink last month.

Disbelief and underreaction, it seems, are fairly common reactions to disaster. And even when there’s nobody in authority to minimize the danger, people will do it for themselves. The building is on fire but they don’t run. The tsunami approaches and they stay to watch.

So when I’m in a shopping mall and nobody is paying attention to the fire alarm, I calmly head for the door, anyway. And when the power goes out on the 10th floor of a hotel, well beyond the reach of any fire truck ladder, I take a stroll downstairs.

It always turns out that everything is fine. So far.

The oranges were incredibly sweet, and so was the orange juice. There was also pure, fresh cherry juice.  Seriously. Cherry juice.

Momondo says the hotel search covers 450,000 hotels around the world and seeks out price comparisons across various hotel booking sites. Tnooz reviews it here.

I have used Momondo mainly to find air fares outside the United States, where it seems to do a better job than some of the U.S.-based search sites in finding good fares on small, regional airlines.  It will be interesting to see if the hotel search delivers the same advantage on foreign hotels.

My employer paid for the room, but as usual I had to hand over my own credit card at check-in for incidentals. Trouble is, there were no incidentals.

When I called to ask about the charge, the desk clerk told me it was for dry cleaning and put me through to the hotel accounting office, at which point I solemnly swore that I had ordered no dry cleaning. (Have a look at my wardrobe. It’s true.) The accounting representative said it might have been a mistake with the room number, and the hotel refunded the charge.

Maybe it was a mistake. And maybe it was a mistake when my husband was charged for parking at a hotel where he had arrived by taxi.  One hears so many similar stories that one must conclude the hotel industry has become rather mistake-prone of late.

The lesson here: check your hotel bill for overcharges, both accidental and otherwise.

Arthur Frommer has also been following this issue very closely on his blog.

New York, Chicago and Maui are restricting short-term rentals and many other local governments are considering similar measures. Ostensibly, the idea is to protect neighborhoods and their residents.

Of course, these measures also protect hotels. And they hurt middle-class families that can’t afford exorbitant rates for multiple hotel rooms in popular vacation areas.

Tax brings the total to $43.87 for a room with a king bed and sleep sofa, with a maximum occupancy of four people. A room with two queen beds and a sofa bed, holding up to five people, costs $10 more.

The rooms are slightly larger than average and there’s a sort of half-wall between the bed and the sitting area with the sofa. Each room also has a mini refrigerator and a microwave. But I’d argue that these are not really suites in the strictest sense.

A breakfast buffet is included and the shuttle to the Disney park is free. Reviews on TripAdvisor are generally quite favorable.

You’ll need to book through the Travelzoo link, or use the code TZO on the Marriott site.

And he asks: Is the motive to protect the residents and neighborhoods where apartments are rented, as most proponents claim, or is it to protect the hotel industry? Good question.

Certainly there are some places where hotel rates are beyond the means of middle-class travelers. My husband and I simply could not have paid the hotel rates in St. Petersburg, Russia, where we stayed in a pleasant (and rather highly fortified) apartment for a week.

If apartments could not be rented there, the results would be fewer visitors. And how would the rest of the businesses that tourists patronize — transit companies, restaurants, attractions, tour companies — react to that?

Not much but semantics. The hotel industry is moving toward a la carte room cleaning options, and it hardly matters whether we get a discount for opting out of housekeeping or pay a fee for opting in. The bottom line is the same.

There is a great division of opinion on the message boards attached to a recent story on this subject by Roger Wu at USA Today. Most people seem to agree on one thing, though. If hotels give you the option to forego housekeeping services, they should also give you a discount.

Some do. Many others pass off the housekeeping cutbacks as a “green” initiative to spare the environment by cutting back on energy-intensive activities such as washing and vacuuming. There’s less stress on the environment, the hotel saves money and the guest feels virtuous. Everybody wins!

Except the housekeeping staff, of course. The underpaid housekeepers will see their hours and perhaps benefits cut and they’ll end up with much dirtier rooms to clean when a guest checks out after five days without housekeeping.

So when we opt in or out of housekeeping services, let’s keep in mind that the housekeepers will still have to clean the room when we leave. And they still deserve tips.

Priceline deals are trade-offs, and the first trade-off involves time and money. You put in some some time, Priceline saves you some money.

It’s not brain surgery, rocket science or even complex math, but Priceline is a sophisticated system that pays off only if bidders understand the fundamentals. There are levels of bidding strategies, and every hotel room “bargain” comes with enormously important qualifiers and disclaimers.

Ignorance about any of the fine print is a serious risk.

Need to guarantee a king bed instead of two queens (or vice versa), or ensure that you get a pet-friendly (or pet-free) hotel? Then Priceline isn’t for you: The company very clearly cautions that successful bidders have no control over such details.

A percentage of customers report feeling cheated, even when they’re clearly expecting things that Priceline said up front it can’t promise. If you win a bid for Nov. 3 to 9, can you later extend it to Nov. 10? Priceline’s website says “yes” … but adds “keep in mind that the rate available may not be the same as what you paid originally and availability is not guaranteed.” Yet some people assume availability IS guaranteed:

Others complain about getting two queens rather than a king, or a king instead of two queens – or about hotel “resort fees” that are added after the bid is accepted. Yet these, too, are concerns that Priceline warns about up front.

Thetravelinsider.com gives an solid, easy-to-read overview of the whole system: It’s a “must” for smart newcomers to Priceline.

And if you’re following that guidance, then you’ll be checking in occasionally at betterbidding.com and biddingfortravel.com. Once in a while, that will pay off with an extra bonus.

For weeks, I’ve been bidding up to the $65-$68 range for a 4-star hotel in San Antonio with no success. This little notice solved that, and got me an even better price. This “$50 bonus cash” is a great (but limited-time) deal for previous Priceline bidders. It let me bid $70 a night and pay just $60 a night – an offer that the San Antonio Hyatt Regency took me up on. (Overall savings for a three-night stay look to be 65 percent – a remarkable deal even with Priceline).

FYI: If you’re eligible for the $50 bonus cash deal, know that you don’t need to sign up for the Priceline VISA card. That offer comes up on a screen when you bid using the “$50 bonus cash” link, and it may appear to be related. But you can just skip past it.