The mark of a great hotel can generally be boiled down to how frictionlessly it executes the floor routine between check-in and check-out. What starts as private doubt shifts into confirmatory eye contact across the elevator car, until it bubbles into the question on everyone’s lips upon taking a second look at the panel—why don't hotels have a 13th floor? In a nutshell, superstition is the answer to the question: Why don’t hotels have a 13th floor? But the association of messy dinner parties and the number 13 predates even Christianity by some thousands of years, with an early mention in Norse mythology. Ironically, part of that survey’s findings showed that 13% of respondents said they'd be bothered by a 13th-floor room assignment.