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Monday August 12, 2013

Lost and found: bizarre items left behind by hotel guests


What goes on behind closed doors in hotel bedrooms is anybody’s guess but the cat might now be out of the bag as a UK based hotel group spills the beans on the sort of items left behind by its guests.

According to myhotels belongings to the value of £10,000 are regularly left in the bedrooms of their properties each month including a few bizarre and sometimes embarrassing objects. Topping the monthly list were phone chargers – 100 of which were forgotten – followed by 60 pairs of underpants, 15 passports, 10 i-pads, electric toothbrushes, adult toys, umbrellas, shoes and books. Some of the odd and puzzling possessions abandoned by guests and found by housekeeping staff were false teeth, prosthetic limbs, taxidermy birds, heavy duty rope, a dummy head, wigs and beluga caviar. The best find was a wallet containing £1000 in cash. One wonders if anyone ever lay claim to it.

How I wonder did those travellers who left their passports back at the hotel manage to exit the country and what became of the guests who’d bizarrely forgotten their prosthetic limbs? Wouldn’t they feel that a part of them was missing? The presence of heavy-duty rope is a little suspect. Might it have been abandoned by a potential suicider? Perhaps we’ll never know.

I asked some Majorcan hoteliers about the kind of items most commonly left by holidaymakers at their properties during the summer season. Louise Davis, PR manager of luxury boutique hotel La Residencia in Deia village agreed that phone chargers took star position closely followed by bikinis, beachwear, sun and reading glasses and, of all things, teeth braces. Cristina Alcover, co-owner of Aimia, a popular beach hotel in Port Soller listed sunscreen, shades, hats, shoes and books and recorded the largest item, a child’s cot. Christine Crespo, for the five-star St Regis Mardavall hotel in Costa d’en Blanes told me that along with all the more obvious items, a client once forgot his prized Majorcan cheese which he had accidentally left in the bedroom minibar.

Similarly to many others I have left phone chargers and umbrellas in hotel properties abroad although fortunately rarely items of great worth. I once left a huge Easter egg gift in a London property because I simply had no room left in my suitcase and during a holiday in ibiza absentmindedly forgot to pack a favourite feather pillow.

So, over to you. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever left or found in a hotel bedroom?





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