19. April 2026
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Using the Power Socket? Not Allowed! About a Weird Hotel Experience in Switzerland

Florian Buechtingby Florian Buechting

During the last years, I had an average of 80 to 120 hotel nights per year. Obviously, there are good and bad stays, and all kinds of experiences. Over time, I ignore some of them. Others make me avoid the hotel completely in the future. And others make me think, reflect and investigate about it.

One of these experiences which made me think and dig deeper into the topic was during a hotel stay in Kriens, South of Lucerne in Switzerland. In February 2026, I stayed at the Holiday Inn Express Luzern – Kriens. I went for the hotel as it is right next to Pilatus Arena, where the Swiss Floorball Federation held their cup finals for the first time. The stay felt being very convenient and fine – until I saw that sign in the elevator:

 

What’s This Post All About?

The hotel demands not to use the power sockets in the room with the so-called Europlug (or Type C plug). You shall only use the Type J plug, which is a layout more or less exclusively used in Switzerland. The rationale the hotel gave is that the plug may get stuck in the socket. In that case, the hotel will charge you for the electrician who is freeing the socket from the plug. Does not sound too thrilling – but if you have been in Switzerland before, you know that the Type C plug is rather popular there. It can be used in quite a lot of locations in the European Union. I have been in Switzerland so often – and neither saw a sign like this before, nor had any kind of similar issues anywhere in the country. Thus, the sign felt very surprising as well as annoying to me. Also as I wanted to review the hotel itself, I had to investigate further. Here is my blog post, including some technical background.

 

Technical Background – Type C and J – What’s That?

The three key burdens of traveling (apart from financial ones) nowadays are likely immigration and visa rules, different currencies – and different power outlets and currents. Even I as an experienced traveler here and there run into the situation that I forgot a certain adapter plug at home or simply did not have in mind that some countries, e.g. Italy, sometimes still have rather “traditional” systems in some buildings. Thus, it is likely sensible to start with the technical basics. If you want to dig deeper into the topic, there is a nice page by the International Electrotechnical Commission IEC about it.

 

Type C – The “Europlug”

The Europlug is to me one of the most handy standardizations. The two pin plug works, up to a current of 2.5A, in almost any European countries, apart from the United Kingdom, Ireland, and scattered places in Italy. I simply quote the corresponding Wikipedia page – I could not do better than that. Techies can also read the German industrial norm DIN VDE 0620-2-1 with equivalent information.

The pins of the Europlug are 19 mm long. They consist of a 9 mm long conductive tip of 4 mm diameter with a rounded ending, followed by a 10 mm long flexible insulated shaft of not more than 3.8 mm diameter. The two pins are not exactly parallel and converge slightly; their centres are 17 to 18 mm apart at the tip and 18 to 19 mm apart at the base.

Mobile phone or tablet chargers, basic kitchen appliances, lamps, tools and much more rely on these plugs practically all over Europe. For more energy-demanding appliances like heating devices, oven, major computers and similar items, there is significantly more diversion all over Europe. But, especially as a traveler, you can cover quite a lot with this plug already. The chargers for the batteries of my cameras, for example, all run on Europlug, so that I typically never need adapters when traveling through Europe.

 

Type F or “Schuko”

The German version for currents up to 16A is the Type F or Schuko plug/socket. Other countries have a very similar system, Type E, which is compatible. Both have a third contact for grounding. Furthermore, the pins are thicker, 4.8mm in diameter. The difference is small enough that Schuko and Type E wall outlets can also handle the Europlug, while the pins of those are too thick for Europlug sockets. This prevents that too demanding appliances cause shorts, burns or other damages.

 

Type J – The “Swiss Plug”

The Type J plug is the Swiss equivalent to the Type E and F plugs, i.e. for 250 V, 16 amps systems. Apart from Liechtenstein, Switzerland is the only country using this standard defined in the Swiss norm SN 441011. As you can already see in the information sheet of the Swiss Heavy Current Inspection Office ESTI, it directly refers to the definition of the Europlug. There is also a three-phased version of the plug. However, in typical life, you solely run into the single phase, i.e. three pin version. The pins have a length of 19mm and a diameter of 4mm, i.e. they are fully equivalent to the size of the Europlug pins (see, e.g., the corresponding Wikipedia page). Thus, it is not too surprising that the Europlug is part of the Swiss industry norm definitions.

Explicitly, this means:

  • the hotel tries to forbid using plugs which are a fully legal power plug in Switzerland. I would say if that is the case, you can state that the hotel is not offering power sockets at all. I will also do the rating of the hotel accordingly.
  • I am sure that the sign in the hotel is based on bad experience. However, if one of two pins of a Europlug really gets stuck in a power socket, I would say that the Swiss three pin option even increases the chances that this happens by 50 per cent – just because there are three pins which potentially lead to “trouble”.

 

What Has Happened – And What did the Hotel say about it

I discussed the issue with an receptionist. She was neither motivated to discuss the issue nor  to  clarify it, e.g. by calling a manager. Even when I stated to her that the Swiss industry norm for the Type J socket is explicitly referring to the Euro Plug, she refused having a discussion. The discussion was also not followed up later. This, I cannot give a detailed statement about the explanation from the hotel’s side. I simply feel that the issue is legally questionable and might even impact the reputation of IHG Hotels as a hotel group.

 

My Opinion

This is one of the weirdest – and most disgusting – “rule” I feel I have been running into in all of my travel life. The “Europlug” is in fact a fully legal option in Switzerland. I believe in the hotel that there have been incidences – but I would rather believe it has something to do with the power sockets installed in the room rather than being due to faulty pins/plugs. If that was the case, the issue should also arise (maybe even more probable) with the Swiss-type Type J socket.

In fact, I did use my electronics with Euro plugs. If something would have happened, I would rather have sued the hotel than paying any bill to restore the socket. For my review of the hotel, I decided that I will downgrade the hotel as if all power sockets in the room are not (sensibly) operating.

 

IHG Hotels

Here are all my postings related to IHG Hotels:

 

All “classic” blog posts

No reviews – just debating and certain topics. These are my “traditional” blog posts in the categories Just blogging, Just blogging on music and Sports Blogging:

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