Outrageous hotel guest stories
From outlandish requests to crazy behavior and “unusual” lost and found items, the stories told by the front desk, housekeeping and maintenance staffs are truly a marvel. From east to west coast and sometimes in between, you just can’t make up some of this crazy stuff!
Celebrity work-out
“Years ago, a major recording star wanted to stay in our upscale, upper east side Manhattan hotel and of course, had her extensive list of room and amenity requirements. The most difficult was the need for a private gym area for her to work out. The hotel didn’t currently have one, but built one specifically for this guest. It worked out in the end that they could continue to ‘sell’ this private workout space to other high rollers who rented the luxurious suites this hotel is known for. Talk about going the extra mile, our hotel really stepped up to meet this over-the-top guest request.”
––Anonymous former employee at upscale Manhattan hotel
Laundry rocks!
“Robert Plant was in Colorado for the Now and Then Tour performing at Red Rocks. The band and entourage was staying at the Hotel Boulderado in Boulder over the July 4th holiday weekend. They arrived and needed laundry services, but because it was a holiday weekend, the hotel’s laundry service wasn’t immediately available. To accommodate the group, I took the laundry home and did it for them as a courtesy – it took all night because of the number of people, including the roadies, the sound techs, the band and their guests. As a thank-you, the band took me with them in their van to the concert at Red Rocks that weekend as their guest and I made a personal connection. I ran into Robert Plant again years later when he was back in town and recounted the story to him – he remembered and once again invited me to the concert with a back stage pass!”
––Anonymous employee at Hotel Boulderado, Colorado
She got called out…
“In our luxury New York City hotel, we had a regular guest in the dining room: a wealthy, older woman who everyone thought was a little ‘eccentric.’ She loved having someone call her at the hostess station and having the hostess come to find her in the dining room to take the call. She would take the phone, get up and walk all around the room while she was talking so everyone could see her. It must have made her feel important. One time, she was holding the phone and walking around pretending to take a call, and the phone rang in her hand! She was just talking to herself and not on a call at all.”
––Anonymous employee at luxury NYC Hotel
All tied up
“Maintenance is often called to do repairs in a guest’s room, but this ‘repair’ is the most memorable one we’ve encountered. We had to call maintenance to cut off the handcuffs that were locked to a brass headboard by our recently departed guest. We’re STILL laughing about this one.”
––Anonymous worker at Colorado hotel
Impossible to please
“The staff wanted to do something special to celebrate a guest’s milestone birthday… so we arranged to upgrade her room to the Presidential Suite. She was very excited and appreciative. We got her all settled in and 20 minutes later she came back to the front desk requesting another room because there was no TV in front of the bed in our Presidential Suite. It was the first time a guest wasn’t satisfied with our most luxurious room.”
––Anonymous Front Desk employee at San Francisco Hotel
The case of the missing lingerie
“We often have guests calling the lost and found asking about a shoe or missing shirt. One of the funniest calls came from a woman who was missing a purple bra. She could not remember the room number or the name of the person she was with, but thought she ‘lost’ the bra on the patio during the evening or in the downstairs bar later on. We looked all over, but never did find the purple bra.”
––Anonymous housekeeping employee
Naked and afraid
“Back in the ‘Mall Crawl Days’ in Boulder over the Halloween weekend, our hotel was the place to stay. It was a wild time back then and full of surprises – people would dress up in costumes and parade up and down the pedestrian mall and party like crazy. My job was to walk the hallways early in the morning on the day after the crawl and make sure everything was OK. I found a gentleman riding up and down in the elevator who not only was badly hung over, but very lost and trying to find his room. The only problem was that he was totally naked and didn’t seem to be aware of it!”
––Anonymous employee at Hotel Boulderado, Colorado
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