This may be a dumb question, but is it known to be risky to show up to an appointment early and wait in your car in the hotel parking lot?

Is that known to attract attention?

To wait at a nearby gas station or other business. But if you act like you belong, you could wait in the parking lot or even in the lobby and not get a second look.

I never wait in hotel parking lot.  It's just asking for trouble but I'm overly cautious.  Depending on how bad I miss judged travel time a coffee shop or stroll trough a shop does the trick.  Thank god for big box stores on every corner.

If you waited longer than 5 minutes, I think it would attract undo attention.
Go to a nearby coffee shop and get a coffee instead of waiting in the parking lot.

If you are unfamiliar with the hotel layout, you might also ask the lady where the elevator
is in relation to the main lobby.  Walk in, go straight to the elevator and to her floor.  This  
will help make you appear to belong

If I arrive that early, I'll find some other place to wait.

At various times of my life I have traveled an assload, and probably have accrued 300 hours over the years loitering around hotel parking lots and lobbies on the phone, checking mail, whatever.  In all that time, no one ever gave me a suspicious look, everyone assumed I was doing exactly what I was really doing.  The only thing about sitting in a car in a parking lot that ever looks suspicious, is acting like you aren't supposed to be there.

It's just far too much to risk, with the legal designation as a 'public place' and what not. I can confirm that LE do indeed cruise hotel parking lots, in Bloomington anyway. And 15 minutes seems to be too long.

.....just one way for X number of minutes--i.e., half of the minutes by which I'm early--then turn around and drive the same number of minutes back to the hotel or incall, and I'm now on time.  I always drive to the hotel or incall first, however, just to be sure I know where it is, where's the best parking area, etc.  Then, if I'm early, I'll do my little drive.

I think sometimes we get too paranoid.  Parking in a hotel lot is not illegal.  It is private property but unless otherwise marked, it is considered open to the public.  The cops can't issue tickets.  The owner can request that you leave.  If you don't then the cops can cite you for trespass

I know what you mean, but in this case, not really the point - once they make it clear that you've been noticed then it would be rather stupid to actually go through with it.

The less conspicuous I am the better.

A coffee shop is a great place to wait, but I've even gone into the hotel bar for a drink.  
The thing is to look like you belong there, and don't bring attention to yourself.

I was waiting for an appointment in a hotel lot when a LE parked directly behind me boxing me in.  I thought quickly and exited me car gave him a polite smile and walked in the front door. I asked at the front desk what they charged for meeting rooms for a business meeting. I returned to my car and the cop was gone.  Staying in the car or attempting to leave would have raised attention. I learned that you want to rehearse before hand what to say or just as important to not say if a meeting goes south or you are questioned.

I've waited in lobbies to meet people who were not back to the hotel yet.  Nobody ever asked me what I was doing.  It's very common.  If anyone asks you can say exactly that -- waiting for someone. Plus it is true

END OF MESSAGE

Ideally, I walk right in, go to the elevator, go to the floor I want, and then straight to and into her room.

Why????

 
How much more time does she need to get ready. She knew you were on the way...

If we have to drive across town, we have to compensate for unforeseen traffic jams.  It is not unusual to arrive a little early and have to wait.    

Having said that, I have been known to not be quite ready, but tell the gentleman to come on up anyway....I am almost ready.  I would rather he see me sans shoes or with my makeup only half finished than have him wait and draw too much attention.  I have noticed that while many men have sense and a plan, some do not.  

If I can wait for a gentleman to shower, he can certainly relax and have a drink or bottle of water and get comfortable while I finish prettying up my face.

That's exactly what they did to me. But I just left.

That would have made all the difference in this case. I texted when I arrived but didn't get a response so I just sat. So when 5-0 checked me out I just sent a text to say, I'm going to have to leave. I got some upset texts in return but I don't see that I had any other choice other than to split.

I had the flip side where a lady canceled due to LE presence in the hotel. It happens and we are all smart to just move on.

OG has it right. I usually get into the area of an incall about ten minutes ahead of time. Then it's 5 minutes out, turn, five minutes back, and I'm right on time. Helps you know the lay of the land, too.

Having worked int he hotel business for years I might be able to add some useful perspective.

First of all, let me be clear, I'm talking about hotels, not motels, and there is a distinct difference in clientele, and as a result in the kinds of problems they experience and therefore how they react to things.

As to hotels, I absolutely assure you that if you're sitting in the parking lot in a car that is not a rolling wreck i.e. it looks as though it could belong to a guest, no one form the hotel is going to notice nor, if they did, would they care. The only thing that security really cares about is potential vehicle break-ins or illegal activity being conducted in the parking lot or other activity that could put the hotel in a bad light with guests. Don't have sex in the car, don't sit there reading porn, don't be smoking a joint, and don't walk around peering i the windows of other cars, and no one is going to give you a second glance.

Do the hotels know that prostitutes use their rooms? Sure. Do they care? Nope. So long as they pay for the room and don't destroy it and don't endanger the property or the other guests, no one really cares what you do in the room. No one is going to ask, and honestly people are too busy working to pay much attention to why you might be there.

While on the subject of hotels you might want to know this. Every so often law enforcement would rent a pair of rooms to engage in a sting operation. Sometimes the cop was a male; sometimes it was a female. The one constant was that they ALWAYS wanted two rooms with a connecting door, with the  back-up crew monitoring and recording the officers wire from the room next door, and through which they could gain quick access to protect their decoy so long as the lock on the connector was unlocked. As a result, I have walked away from providers when I entered their room and discovered it connected to the adjacent room, and if I were a provider I would not even consider meeting a client in such a room. They can get around that problem, but the connector makes it so much easier for them that I suspect they still have a strong preference for them

Thank you for the interesting post

I have to say though that I think, based on what I have read in the news and on here, that it does vary from location to location. Notoriously, Bloomington is risky, especially around the mall. Saint Paul? Don't even think about it. A provider friend of mine used a Bloomington hotel. She met her date in the bar and they had dinner and drinks. She went upstairs and they were about to get busy when in bursts the 5-0. Luckily he had not handed over the donation so there was nothing they could prove. I heard also (in Bloomington) from a team of providers a few years ago who traveled together that they were busted by cops in the parking lot, and these cops had been hanging around all day, they thought they were guests.

So... General rules are just that. But given the potential repercussions of calling something wrong... I very much err on the side of caution. Especially when the 5-0 pull up behind me and block me in.

Police may cruise parking lots, but your presence in the slot is neither illegal nor is it going to be unusual. Frankly if you go to almost any hotel on the 494 strip, you'll find people sitting in cars: a fair percentage of them will be employees on break, but in any case, unless you're wearing a sign, no one will know why you're there.  

I do understand the paranoia: we all suffer from it to some degree. I do question the story you were told about LE bursting into the room. Absent a warrant, they actually can't do that. It doesn't matter if the cop sees you go into a room with a girl he knows to be a prostitute: that not only would not be enough to sustain an arrest without a warrant, it wouldn't rise to the level of probable cause to obtain a warrant. Assume for a moment that the cop is a rogue who doesn't care about those things: he'd be arresting you for his health, because there is not a prosecutor alive who is going to waste his time going into court with a massive 4th amendment violation as his only case. And then just to top it off, if he entered after you had given her the money and you were engaging in horizontal recreation with her, there would be no evidence of a crime, unless by some mechanism it could be proven to a certainty that the money had been given by you to her, and that ti was done pursuant to an offer of and agreement to sex. That basically cannot happen unless the officer witnesses it. (And btw, the money doesn't actually have to change hands. The illegal act is the offer and acceptance. The solicitation and agreement. Arrests are commonly made by decoys as soon as the offer is made and with no money changing hands.)  And having spent many years in that business, I can tell you unequivocally that if a cop asks for a key to an occupied room and he doesn't have a warrant, he won't get the key.  I would bet that whole scenario was a figment of someone's imagination.

In tens years at a fairly prominent Bloomington hotel, there was not a single arrest made that was not a part of a decoy sting, and there wasn't a single decoy sting that the hotel management hadn't given permission for in advance. From time to time one of the more dangerous girls would work out lobby bar, and in those cases we would call Bloomington to cruise through the bar, but since they cant arrest someone for being a hooker, al they could do was sit down with the girl, which of course killed off her trade, causing her to move on.

Having dinner and drinks and then going to a room is not illegal.  Even if she had the money, without something like a recording establishing it was in exchange for sex there's still no proof.

As far as the group who got busted in the parking lot goes, why would the cops wait until they are in the parking lot?  Better to arrest them in the rooms when they can get clients as well, which would still require some evidence of wrongdoing, unless of course the providers talked when the cops detained them.

I don't think Bloomington is as risky as a lot of us think.  Sure, there are busts there.  There's also a lot of providers who work in Bloomington so the law of averages suggest there will be more arrests there.

The provider is a friend of mine. They don't need a warrant if they're there at the behest of the hotel management.

Disregard the story all you like, I know it's unpleasant reading, but it's completely accurate. That's precisely what happened. The provider in question had used the same hotel a couple of times. Puritan management? Bored wait staff? Who knows. But, it was a close call.  

As an epilogue, her client was a gentleman. After he caught his flight back home (out west) he sent her the donation via PayPal. So kind of a happy ending, and I said to her "lesson learned, right?" Her reply: "Yeah, it taught me to stay out of Bloomington".  

But, call me a fibber if you like, I don't care. But it happened.

But even if management let the police in, where's the evidence of a crime, even if he had given her the money?  It's not illegal for a woman to carry several hundred dollars in cash.