Guidebook page for arrival

When to use

Put this page behind the welcome letter, as the arrival section of a short book. {door_recap} describes the door without becoming the only copy of a rotating code. “Keypad on the blue door. The code is in your check-in message and starts at the check-in time.” is the right shape. A code printed here will be wrong on the stay you forget to reprint. {lights} names the switches that are non-obvious: a panel in a closet, a lamp that is switched on the cord, a porch light that should stay off because it hits a bedroom next door. {parking_recap} matches the directions message in one sentence. {ignore_until_morning} is permission to skip the rest of the book: “the coffee machine, the television input, and the recycling page can wait.”

{property_name} is the heading so a binder of two homes stays honest. Tick the lines that are true. Strike a line about parking if this guest arrived without a car and you are writing a one-stay copy. The stock page can keep parking for the next drive-up.

This page does not replace the check-in message. Phones die, and paper helps, but a live code on paper in a book that sits on a table all week is a code the cleaner, the window washer, and the next guest’s early arrival might see. Keep secrets in the thread when they rotate.

Timing tip

Update the page when you change a switch or a door, which is less often than every stay. Read it once a season by arriving as a guest: shoes on, bag in hand, no memory of the panel. If {lights} takes you more than a minute, rewrite {lights} until it does not.

If a renovation moves the door, reprint before the next check-in, not after the first confused guest. The line that says the message wins if the two disagree is there for the week you forget. It is not an excuse to leave them different.

Same-day turns: you do not have time to rewrite the book. The message carries the change. {door_recap} should have been stable enough that the message only adds the code.

Common mistakes

A full driving route on this page is the first one. Routes belong in the directions message, sent when they are in the car. {parking_recap} is what they need once they have stopped. Duplicating three paragraphs of landmarks makes the first hour look longer than it is.

The second is every appliance. The appliance page exists so this one can stay about entry, light, and permission to rest. {ignore_until_morning} is that permission. Hosts who fear a guest will “miss something” write books nobody finishes. The heat line is the exception because a cold first hour becomes a message at 11pm.

The third is a rule dump. Quiet hours have a sign. Checkout has a sign. This page should not reprint them in smaller type. Point at those pages if you must, in a single clause, and stop.

Paper that survives a kitchen

Print it on a page you can wipe, or slip it in a sleeve. A guidebook that warps under a wet glass will be thrown behind the toaster. {property_name} at the top helps you refile a loose page.

The welcome book generator can hold an arrival section with the rest of a booklet. If you use it, keep {door_recap} in the same words as this page so you are not maintaining two arrivals. One description of the blue door is enough.