Taking food from a hotel breakfast buffet- cheeky??

I wouldn't have any moral or ethical issue with taking extra. I don't eat much breakfast and I've paid the same as people with plates piled high. Also there is always lots of waste which gets binned so taking perishables saves that. However, I'd be a bit embarrassed to do it in reality because of the judgement.

That is very different to staying in the hotel, paying for breakfast, having something to eat while you are there, and taking something else to have later on.

I wonder what people think of people who don't actually want to eat breakfast in the hotel at all (but have paid for it) so go in and take a pastry and apple to eat on the go?

I really don't see how the timing of when you eat something is remotely relevant.

Well I'm still entitled to eat one - whether I sit down and eat it there and then, or eat it later I am still taking one from the later risers.

And if hotels don't have enough food for everyone, that's the fault of the hotel.

Many people are quite small and don't eat large quantities. It's not for the size 8 women to effectively subsidise the very large men who eat loads!

But those are the moral items apparently, taking bread rolls, cheese and deli meat, which are 99% of the time bountiful, have lots to spare and often go to waste, is scruffy, immoral and theft.

I don’t normally but did take a couple of sachets of gluten free cereal from the Premier Inn at the airport when we went away recently - always worried about finding gluten free stuff for intolerant dd2

Some hotels don’t always replenish the pastries and croissants once they’ve run out. So taking them for later might result in someone else not getting one.

I presume the staff follow whatever guidelines are set for them at the hotel.
We stayed in a 5* at Dubrovnik and I was surprised to see a sign at the breakfast entrance saying that taking away food would not be tolerated. That was an amazing breakfast buffet as well, they even had a smoothie bar where they would make up your personal choice for you. I guess people making up their pack lunch would ruin the feel of the place.

But I suspect most of the moderate chain hotels are told to turn a blind eye to food taking provided it's not too blatant. I guess hotels have to work on a maximum average consumption, rather than a moderate one as there would be complaints if they ran out of food.

And are charming😁

I have a friend who works at a hotel and she would rather people take the food because otherwise it literally goes in the bin. They cook up loads of toast eggs etc and it's all laid out in the morning for a buffet style breakfast. Then before lunchtime it's all scraped into the bin. You can even get bags to take away on certain food saving apps for a couple of pounds because the hotel would rather see people eat it than the food go in a landfill.

Anybody advocating for wasting food is living in the past. If it effected the hotels bottom line they would simply have breakfasts made to order but they don't. The food doesn't magically saving the company money by going in the bin, that is some very old fashioned thinking. These are large corporations with very carefully balanced books. They don't care and they don't lose money for you take some toast with you.

Why would the staff care it's not like it's their personal food

I assume some people on staff care about the bottom line and how expenses determine that. It's the reason that staff police random folks dropping in to the buffet who are not staying at the hotel, even though it's not the staff's personal food.

This reminds me of a sweet B and B I stayed in once in Dungeness. In the room was a fridge with bottled water and a jug of proper milk. There was also a slice of home made cake, a little bowl of fruit and a bowl of sweeties. All replenished every day. As you finished breakfast ( delicious) she would bring round an elevensies snack to take out with you, brownies, or flap Jack, I don’t know how she did it for the price she charged ( less than the B and B down the road with no extras). She just loved feeding people and looking after them I think.

This is only ok if you look European though so please bear that in mind.

She is saying he drinks their prosecco.

Everybody was taking food nobody was hiding it. Your in the parks all day so it's convient for eating on the go. Why would the staff care it's not like it's their personal food and the more that's gone it's less to clear at the end.

Oh. You're doing them a favour then? I'm sure they will be able to get plenty of bookings from people who can actually afford the holiday without expecting the hotel to subsidise their lunch. If you were so sure that your actions were reasonable, you could have asked if you could take food away.

If it means people actually go then their making money. They also saved time throwing 4 less crossaints in the bin that day. I was not willing to spend £15 each on a baby and a 3 year old to take one bite of lunch and not eat anymore it was bad enough we was doing that at tea time.

I'm waiting for the "but breakfast items not lunch items" ignoring the fact that continental breakfast items exist for a reason... because they ARE breakfast foods in many European countries.

Also apparently "popping " an item in your bag makes it less heinous than lifting it. So "popping in" an apple or croissant or whatever is completely different and in no way comparable to taking a roll with ham and cheese in it.

Why is it ok to take fruit and muffins (fruit that hasn't been chopped up is often reused) but it's not ok to take a bread roll, a bit of cheese and slice of deli meat? What's the difference? What makes your taking of fruit, muffins, croissant etc moral and not cheeky but bread, cheese and deli meat is different?

Why is it down to the hotel to enable you to afford lunch while on holiday?

Cheeky to make sandwiches but we've taken some fruit and mini muffins in the past when the DC were younger - it's not like they eat a lot of breakfast so taking a couple of extra snacks for later is fine I think.

Although I do remember going to London with DH when we were poor students and we did make ourselves a whole packed lunch from the breakfast buffet haha! I wouldn't do it now though!

This thread take me back 20 years to my repping days of the prolific complainers of nothing that has anything to do with them. What a total divide this topic is.

I'd bet some of you on here were the kind that complained to me no end, when I passed on theme park tickets I was given to lovely families that I knew were struggling (often 7 day holiday makers got 14 days for the price of 7 so would give me their tickets on leaving to use at my discretion) and I bet a few of you were the kind that would have passed on the tickets to me.