I spent hours working on the Animal Crossing: New Horizons resort hotel and it was worth every minute

When they first announced the Animal Crossing: New Horizons 3.0 update in 2025, my starry eyes were immediately drawn to the entirely new building - the Kapp'n’s family resort hotel. It’s a big deal bringing in a new place after six years and let's also not forget, it’s entirely free. Luckily, while there are some stipulations on how to unlock the Animal Crossing hotel, I'd already passed them with a three-star rated island and access to the all-important pier.

So, as the hotel doors to possibility opened to me, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but Tom Nook greeted me with his usual jolly demeanor and a troop of Kapp’n’s family; wife Leilani, daughter Leila, and Grams. My part to play in the hotel’s success was to become the chief fixer-upper, donning my interior design hat and decorating guest rooms for visitors to come and stay. Sign me up!

It's not about the grind

Leilani stand front of house inviting me to decorate a room in exchange for 200 hotel tickets. All I have to do is use the recommended items she gives me along with any items I already have to make a room worthy of a guest's stay. Once she's happy with my design, I can spend the hotel tickets on hotel merchandise and other interior design items at Grams’ shop, situated in the lobby of the resort hotel.

I’ll be really honest: when I heard it was hotel tickets, I was a little bit disappointed that my Bells weren’t useful to me here. But that would be too easy. Introducing a new realm of money turned out to be pretty intriguing, harder to come by, and earning all the hotel souvenirs for my island home became more of a collectible endeavour.

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But, there’s a limit on how much you can do a day and that's because you can only decorate two rooms before being asked to return the next day for another two. Suddenly, I realised I can only earn 400 hotel tickets a day. Easy money, but not so easy to grind.

What I'd been given with the 3.0 update was another reason to log in every day to get those two new guest rooms up and running and earn my reward. Like getting in my daily Duolingo, Animal Crossing: New Horizons now has me in an entirely new chokehold.

Time to think

Fortunately, that’s not the only way to earn hotel tickets. Out on the pier, I've since been lured into crafting DIY items for the DIY donation box. As long as I fulfil an order, another one takes its place, then every Monday, they refresh altogether. It’s not a huge earner, but luckily the crafts aren’t too strenuous and I quite enjoy the easy achievement and extra tickets.

So, with my hard-earned tickets, there’s items to buy at Grams’ shop and if I get either of the two on display in the lobby, they’re a markdown price. The more I decorate, the more Grams puts into her catalog, the more I want to buy. A perpetual hotel ticket spending vortex. But, here comes the rub.

I was putting a lot of effort into my rooms, channeling my creativity, and it grew a little tiresome. So, I thought I’d see just how much I could get away with to still get my room past Leilani’s critical eye. It turns out, quite a lot.

As long as I used the recommended items, she was pretty pleased. And then, I took it to the extreme. I put down a double bed and called it a day. Yes, Leilani called it ‘simple’ which hurt my soul a bit, but she also gave me 200 hotel tickets and didn’t bat an eye. I started circling the hotel lobby, exasperated, asking myself: "What's the point?"

A turning point

Less dramatically, I've just sat at home having a think about this very question. Why have I spent hours working on the resort hotel? Well, because I wanted to. Ultimately, it was my choice to play with the hotel and it's also entirely my prerogative to spend ages decorating the rooms – and isn’t that a big part of what makes Animal Crossing great?

I have control over my island and what I do there and if I choose to spend it making lovely rooms for guests and spending my hard earned tickets then that’s on me and I've actually had a really nice time doing it. And, not forgetting, again, that this extra experience has been given to me entirely for free.

Yes, there's new guests roaming around my island, but I'm not mad about that, especially when I get a chance to choose their outfits for them (via the two mannequins in the hotel lobby). Believe me, I'm taking full advantage of that. So, if Stinky, Hans, Rolf and Tutu want to enjoy the time I’ve put into my island and the rooms I've lovingly decorated and probably taken far too much time doing so, so be it. I’ll be enjoying it, too.

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