I thought I can as well post this here as I'm still here.

I was browsing the "Lots & Houses" / "Lodging" section an thouth that some of the hotel building pros out there might help me on this one.

So once I did build this hotel. I do not recall exactly how I did it but I think that I had the hotel as a com. lot and did change the lot zoning after I was done. Yes, my bad as I forgot to do it befor building. I did try the hotel out but did notice that the restaurant did not work (there was a "construction area" sign on the podium). The hotel itself worked OK but not this area. An other podium or rebuilding the restaurant did not help and after a few attempts I changed the lot zone to com.lot and moved the hotel to the lot bin. It's still a nice hotel so it would be sad to delete it. But is there a way to fix this or should I start all over again? What are my options? Maybe I'm supposed to change the lot zoning before building anything at all. I have build hotels before but do not remember how I did it back then. Hm....?

@Gazania has a thread, may be she can direct you there.

Not exactly a pro, but I do build smaller hotels. Hotels can be a real pain in the neck, but I admit to feeling a certain sense of accomplishment when things turn out (and the housekeeper doesn't freeze).

What I do is before I change the community lot to a hotel, I package it as a community lot and save it to the bin as a community lot. I found it so, so easy to mess hotels up, and it's nice to know that if nothing works, I can bulldoze the hotel and start over. And if nothing works, the lot might work perfectly well as a community or residential lot. I had that happen with one lot where no matter what I did, it worked terribly as a hotel. It worked great as a large house, however, and my test Sim still enjoys it. I also prefer to use a test hood for the building. I do not change the zoning before building.

Make a test hood that you will delete after testing. Stick a Sim in there. It doesn't have to be a fancy CAS affair ... just whatever the Sim looks like is fine. Currently, your hotel is now a community lot ... correct? Try it in the test hood as a community lot. See if it works. Let's start there.

If it doesn't work as a community lot, I doubt it will work as a hotel. Are you fine? Then bulldoze the community lot, put a copy of the lot back in there, and change to hotel. I am not 100% sure you can just change the community lot to a hotel lot after you've played it. Others can weigh in on that. I prefer to be 100% safe, even in a junk hood.

A hotel works well in a main hood, but you won't see some of the functions, such as tour guides. If you are still not sure about your hotel, add a junk vacation subhood on your junk test hood and send your Sim there.

Make sure there is LOTS of room for Sims and staff to move around. Freezy the housekeeper is a huge pain in the butt. You might as well check for that as well. Play over a few Sim days. Sometimes, Freezy doesn't freeze until two or three days later.

Some may suggest clearing Sim references for the lot, too, just in case. http://modthesims.info/t/550362 It won't hurt, at any rate. Delete the groups.cache. That won't hurt, either.

Make sure the counter faces the right way and there is no impediment for the host, as well as plenty of space between the tables. This is a common problem with restaurants (I've had it happen. I happen to like building community lots.) It might be a problem with your lot as well.

Thanks, Gazania Freezy - bahahahaha!

There is one point, though ... was the hotel saved as a hotel BEFORE playing it? And was it packaged or moved to the Lot Bin before playing it?

One thing that keeps befuddling me is whether packaging a played community or hotel lot is safe. I BELIEVE that cleaning out the Sim references and deleting groups.cache will do the trick, but please keep that hotel in your junk hood until a more knowledgeable person checks in here. If you corrupt your junk hood ... no matter. You can get rid of that. Corrupting your good hood might be a problem.

And yes, Justpetro knows how much I like that !@#*ing housekeeper who will sometimes freeze for no easily-discernible reason!

Building your hotel on a comm lot is correct. You only change zoning to hotel once you are finished.

When saving a lot, it may go into live mode for a split second so that a fountain begins to run and npc may spawn. I had that happen with my Magic island lot, it spawned a hair dresser. I cleaned it out in SimPE before uploading. All lots will have some sim references, even a blank unplayed lot, those you need to ignore as it won't come cleaner. Maxon discovered that removing reverences would undo connecting kitchen benches.

Community lots reset every time you leave them so sending a sim there to play test should not matter but play testing a copy is still a good idea. Just remember you can never truly be rid of all sim references so don't worry over too much. As peni would say, you can't play soccer with a clean ball.

You have to change it to lodging - not to hotel, if I remember correctly from the last (and only) time I built one.

Sorry for late reply. I will try to answer now even if it's a bit of a pain to do so on the phone.

Gazania: Being lazy as I am I do not have a testing hood. Maybe it would be a greate idea. As that point of time I was so frustrated that the hotel did not work that I just chabged the lot zoning to a community lot and moved it to the lot bin. The hotel was build in a (nightlife) subhood. Reading your post I came to think of that the restaurant is quite small. Maybe that's the main problem. I have to check that again. Yes, the lot wad saved when I was done building. I do not recall if I did save the test play or I just let her visit the hotel, quiting whitout saving when she returned home.

Justpetro: What's the differens betwen "lodging" and "hotel"? The instructions say "change lotzoning hotel". Maybe "lodging" needs an EP I do not have (Like AL).

It's changelotzoning hotel. It shows as lodging in the upload wizard, but the cheat is hotel.

Jo, it was with that monopoly competition. My hotel did not change into a hotel. I have never uploaded one before, and I am not sure where I got the advice to try lodging. Lodging tuns out to work for me for some reason.

That's very strange, if you look up any hotel building tutorial you will see hotel is the zoning word. So long as it works for you.

That is true, and and, trust me, I tried, many times, using hotel, but it just did not want to work. I cannot remember who suggested using lodging instead, but it worked So it just may work for others too if they have a problem.

Maybe it's a regional thing (different terminology for different game locales).

Good point, maybe it's just in the SA version.

I also always have to use capital letters for the cheats, or they do not work.

Yes, I've heard others say that, too. I have the game on original release CDs/DVDs as individual games (not combo packs)- all UK- and I don't have to use capitals. And it's hotel for me, also.

Mine is the same, original Cd's/DVD's no combo packs. Not sure on the UK version, it still uses Americanisms such as 'diapers'.

I have to type: changeLotZoning lodging. With the space. I double checked last night .

Interesting I'll have to give that a go and see if it does anything, my guess is it won't work on mine.

Let me know

I'm not sure if dare to write this here but OK. The problem is solved and it was my fault that it did not work. Gaaaah...! I'm sure you will hate me but the problem was so simple it's plan ridiculous.

I have notice that a lot of guests is gattering up by the podium, waiting for their table and I wanted them to be out of sight for the guests in the restaurant. So I did place the podium in an area outside the dining area whit a arch between the two areas. Little did I know that the game did see this as two separate rooms and as I was in a hurry at the time I did not try to investigate. After some rebuilding the restaurant worked great and now I use the hotel in the downtown subhood. I did not test it for long, only a few (sim) houers but it seemed to work OK. Sadly enough I hade to rezone the lot later on (as I can not rebuild anything when the lot zone is hotel) because the doors to some rooms (3 of 6) was faing the worong diretion. The sime or the game itself won't care but I do. Well, I was very happy about this progress and then moved on to an other hotel project (see the: "Whats happening in your game right now? V2" thread, post 1342) .

Its fine to place the host podium outside of the restaurant, I have that in a hotel for upload right here.

Yes, I did find your download: http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=578280 . I did use an other arch that maybe did not work so good. Oh well, I should not go on about this so I just thank you all for the help. I should look out for "Freezy the housekeeper". If she freeze than I know it's a known problem and not just me. Good to know.