It’s now easier than ever to order little luxuries with a few taps of your smartphone or a quick phone call. From meals prepared by a celeb chef to deejay equipment or an opera serenade, the options for what can be delivered to your hotel room are seemingly endless.
For decades, hotels have been delivering food, toiletries, towels and drinks to guests in the comfort of their rooms, but an increasing number of hotels are offering more creative deliveries, from whimsical items like warm milk and cookies at bedtime to seemingly vital amenities like oxygen. Many of these items are free.
Can’t find what you want within the confines of your hotel or are too lazy to leave the property? No problem. A number of apps and companies will deliver an encyclopedic collection of items, from massages to dry cleaning.
Here are 20 of our favourite items that can be delivered to your hotel room.
Jam session gear
The 22 Hard Rock Hotels & Casinos worldwide let guests channel their inner rock star and jam out with the free three-part Sound of Your Stay program: “tracks,” which allows guests to download a 15-song playlist at check-in; “picks,” which sends your choice of 20 electric Fender guitars including Stratocasters and Telecasters to the room for guests to play; and “mix,” which provides Native instruments deejay equipment and mixing lessons in-room. A Mustang floor amp and Blue Mo-Fi headphones are included to ensure no noise complaints.
Room Shopping
Can’t be bothered to shop, but really want new clothes, shoes and accessories from your travels? Room Shopping at The Dylan Amsterdam, a luxury boutique hotel located in the heart of trendy Amsterdam shopping district De 9 Straatjes (The Nine Streets), lets fashionistas order from an exclusive in-room menu of items and have the purchases delivered within an hour to the room or shipped directly to the traveller’s home from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily (purchases made after 5 p.m. are delivered the next day). From local art pieces to children’s clothes and toys to shoes and purses, guests can order from several shops. Returns are equally easy – just leave them at the reception desk and hotel staff will handle the rest.
Suitcase Packer
No more sitting on your suitcase to cram it all in. The Muse Hotel in New York City has a team of packing professionals that can come to your room to help you pack your suitcase – for free! The Kimpton Hotel’s on-call packing team will fold and fit your travel treasures into your suitcase and, if you bought more than your suitcase can handle, they will package and mail the items to your home.
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Pillows
Have the ultimate pillow fight or just ensure a comfortable night’s sleep by ordering off the pillow menu, an increasingly popular – and free – option at many hotels. Graylyn International Hotel & Conference Center in Winston-Salem, N.C. offers guests a hypoallergenic Heavenly Down (synthetic) pillow, but guests can also order a goose down with 650 fill power European white goose feathers; a body pillow perfect; or memory foam contour pillow made with 100-per cent hypoallergenic antimicrobial foam. The boutique JW Marriott Cancun Resort & Spa’s Club 91 in Cancun, Mexico offers a variety of pillows, including memory double curve, memory hard foam and gel hypoallergenic pillows. One of the most extensive pillow menus on offer is at the Lorien Hotel & Spa, a Kimpton Hotel in Alexandria, Virginia. Guests can drift to sleep on their choice of nine pillows, including a magnetic pillow, water pillow, buckwheat pillow and Snore-No-More pillow.
Opera Serenade
Located in the heart of Verona, Italy, home of the opera and Shakespeare’s fabled lovers Romeo and Juliet, guests of the romantic Italian retreat Palazzo Victoria in Verona, Italy can order a 30-minute serenata (opera serenade) performed by a tenor in their suite. The in-room performance is $1,100.
Hangover Help
Had a little too much fun in the sun? W Fort Lauderdale has you covered. For $150, hungover guests can order the Relieve & Revive Recovery, a DIY Bloody Mary kit with Tito’s Handmade Vodka, tomato juice, lime and celery; bottled water; BAND-AIDs for blisters or other “war wounds;” and headache and stomach remedies.
Bubble Bath
Too lazy to run your own bath? No worries, just call down to Il Salviatino’s “Service Ambassadors” who can arrange for The Ultimate Bubble Bath, a luxurious bubble bath of your choice of Prosecco, Spumante or French Champagne drawn in the 15th century villa’s Ojetti Suite, a two-story haven with a rooftop Jacuzzi that overlooks Florence, Italy. An additional chilled bottle is placed next to the bath so you can toast your good fortune to afford this expensive bath that starts at $10,062.
Oxygen
Before or after a day of exploring Machu Picchu, guests at the JW Marriott El Convento Cusco, Peru that are too lazy to open the door and breathe fresh air can order up oxygen, which is piped into the room’s oxygen-enrichment system. The $20 oxygen is not just for the lazy; it also helps guests acclimate to the altitude. Need more help? Order a hot cup of coca tea made with leaves of that coca plant and used in the Andes as a local remedy.
Books
Want to catch up on your reading? Call The Commons Hotel’s Book Butler, who will bring a classic novel or bestseller for you to read while staying at the Minneapolis hotel. (Sorry, you have to leave the books behind upon check-out.) The literary quotes left on guests’ pillows at turndown and Sudoku puzzles delivered with each in-room breakfast order add more geeky fun.
Pet room service
Even your furry friends can be lazy. West Inn & Suites in San Diego, Calif. will deliver dog beds, bowls, treats and aromatherapy to ease travel anxiety at no charge for four-legged guests. The Commons Hotel’s SmartPAWS program features a Bark Butler, who delivers room service meals for dogs and cats (meals start at $3) among other goodies like plush pet beds, water bowls, and dog walking adventure maps.
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Food, glorious food
While hotel room service is ubiquitous, sometimes you want fast food or other treats not available on property. Delivery.com has partnered with Hotels.com to deliver food, groceries, wine and spirits, laundry and dry cleaning to hotel guests, who can order online or via smartphone app. There are 12,000 merchants in 38 cities in the U.S. Bonus: there is no delivery charge! If you’re bunking through at a home rental booked through Airbnb, ask your host if they are subscribers of Wellobox. If so, you can get groceries, booze, and local perks like discounted Uber and Lyft rides and free items at local restaurants. Hosts who have signed on for Wellobox pay for the subscription, so guests only pay for the items they order. Currently, Wellobox is only available in Boston, but it is expanding to other cities.
Coloring book and crayons
Struck with a creative impulse or just want to relax with an old-school pastime? The Awesome Adult Coloring Book will deliver an 18-page tablet-sized colouring book for grown-ups staying at Holiday Inn Express, La Quinta, Comfort Inn, Hampton Inn and Sleep Inn in Douglasville, Ga., located 20 minutes from Atlanta. This cheap thrill – $4.99 for the colouring book plus a $3 delivery fee – is available 10 a.m. to midnight daily. For $3 more, guests can get coloured pencils too!
Comfort food
Feeling under the weather? West Inn & Suites in San Diego, Calif. will deliver soup and crackers to guests who are sick for free.
S’mores
Who doesn’t like the ooey gooey deliciousness of s’mores? At Paradise Point, a resort on a 44-acre private island on San Diego’s Mission Bay, the staff will deliver a free s’mores kit and bonfire set-up for guests to roast marshmallows and make s’mores in the bonfire pits located just outside the bungalow rooms. At the Creekside Bed & Breakfast in Paso Robles, California, the innkeeper’s daughter will deliver a complimentary basket of marshmallows, chocolate, graham crackers, and skewers to guest rooms so guests can make s’mores at the inn’s outdoor fire pit, which is conveniently located just outside the guest rooms.
Stargazing gear
At the Lorien Hotel & Spa, a Kimpton Hotel in Alexandria, Va., guests can order sleeping bags and a telescope for stargazing out on one of the hotel’s many open-air terraces for free.
Massage
Melt stress away with an in-room massage. Many hotels offer the option for in-room massages from the spa, but two smartphone apps offer massages too. MassageClicks offers a lower priced alternative to hotel guests in Orlando. Simply schedule an appointment and two hours later, a therapist arrives at your hotel to deliver a 60-minute massage for $79 (available 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily). The app is expanding and will soon offer massages in Atlanta. Zeel offers same-day massages on demand to hotel guests in eight metro areas, including cities like Boca Raton, Fla., Boston, Chicago, Fairfield County, Conn., Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the Jersey Shore, New York City, Palm Beach, Fla., Los Angeles, Miami, San Diego, and San Francisco. With a few taps on the smartphone app or a few clicks on a laptop, a massage therapist arrives in as little as an hour, from 8 a.m. to 12 a.m. daily (including holidays). Guests can choose from Swedish, deep tissue, sports, prenatal and couples massage, request a male or female therapist and pay through the app.
Morton’s Steak
Craving a Morton’s steak? When a regular steak won’t do, simply call downstairs and order a centre-cut filet mignon, porterhouse steak or prime New York strip steak off The Inn at Union Square’s “Secret Room Service Menu.” Soon after, your favourite buttery cut of meat will arrive at your door. It doesn’t come cheap (Morton’s adds 15 per cent to the cost of the steak and the hotel’s standard delivery fee is 20 per cent), but this is the ultimate San Francisco treat!
Teddy bear
For children (and grown ups) who have left their plush pals at home, guests at the Lorien Hotel & Spa, can order warm milk and cookies ($15), storybooks (complimentary) and a teddy bear ($20).
Birthday party
Want to throw an impromptu birthday party complete with a birthday cake and balloons? West Inn & Suites in San Diego, Calif. has you covered. With some advance notice, the staff will deliver both – gratis.
Ski Butlers
Why bother with hauling your ski and snowboarding equipment around or wait in long lines at the ski shop when you can have it delivered to your room. Ski Butlers delivers boots, skis, poles, snowboards and accessories to a customer’s hotel at over 35 ski resorts in North America, including Aspen, Colo., Park City, Utah and Whistler, British Columbia. Ski Butlers’ service includes a personalized fitting by a ski technician, free pickup of equipment on the final rental day and any required on-mountain adjustments. Ski Butlers’ most popular rental equipment is now offered in identical models at all locations, so re-renting is quick and simple. Prices vary by location, equipment rented and rental duration.
(Main image: Hard Rock Hotels & Casinos)
