To take the body lotion and soap from a £250 a night hotel? They have asked for it back!!!

[mum2sons]

DH and I spent our wedding anniversary in a v expensive boutique hotel. I took the body lotion and soap home as I usually would do (sad, but I get v excited about these things!)Yesterday we received a letter from the hotel asking for us to send the 2 items back for the future enjoyment of guests!!! Talk about humiliation! Looking forward to MNetters views

I have not read the full thread (up to the link to the hotel) but I found this under their "Green Awareness" section:

"Luxury bathroom miniatures have been replaced with refillable pump dispensers helping to reduce plastic bottles to landfill by 97%, instead one excellent product that can be used as shampoo, bath foam or shower gel, manufactured by a company which does not test on animals and has their own environmental ethics which re-endorses Strattons own position. "

I don't know how special those dispensers where but they seem to be not the thing the maid would keep in her trolley...

But perhaps a £250 bill per night should cover the cost of replacing them. Having siad that, I have stayed at hotels about that price range and the toiletries are usually miniatures worse in quality than what you would get in The Body Shop (although some of them are beautiful like ceramic with a cork lid- but still small enough for it to be understood that they are meant to be smuggled out).

Appologies for the crossposting.

And I would say that an MD of a large successful company and his wife who is highly regarded in her profession are exactly the kind of customers they would want.

mum2sons, it's obvious you didn't mean to "steal" them, you thought they were yours to take, I don't think anyone is accusing you of deliberately nicking stuff. But it's become more of a debate on whether or not people think large toiletries are there for the taking (does that make sense?)

And FWIW, you seem to have been very little involved in all the emailing and slagging off of the hotel, so please don't think you are being got at.

It's a shame that you feel it has spoiled what whas obviously a lovely time... hopefully you can just forget about it now, it's done, and just concentrate on the great time you had?

As I said I did not read the small print. DH booked it. It was spontaneous and because it looked nice.

Message withdrawn

I don't think it is the toiletries which are the issue it is the letter which is extraordinary, you would think they would just chalk it up to experience and either make it clear that the bottles are to be left or if as they say it is never a problem except on this occasion then just forget it...

if i make a mistake in business then i use it as a tool for next time I don't hound the customer after and say I shouldn't have let you have special delivery you'll have to pay..I change the process

how can she?
the memory is tarnished forever.

It's not so much slagging of the hotel - it seems a lovely place and m2s said she couldn't fault it.

It's the handling of the situation and their pious attitude that is under fire.

never mind, m2s, it is still not as bad as the mnetter who once posted innocently "I was forced to double park" outside her child's school, and sparked a huge thread about double parking!!

I would have been mortified in your shoes as well.

it does look nice..

zippi are you contemplating one of their special offers?

The Horney little devil's dirty adventure by Savonnerie....

Racy, cute & cheeky package, including single use camera, pointy feather, red lipstick and handtie.....ahem

£39

'pointy feather'?
'handtie'?

well I could probably srape together the 39.00 quid but they would have to throw the room in free unless they wanted me to do it in the car park

"the memory is tarnished forever"

Ever dramatic, NB

If mum2sons chooses to put it behind her, she can. I am sure the hotel did not mean to humiliate her. If it had happened to me, I'd probably have got the giggles, said to DH "ooh, I'm a criminal" and just sent them back.

they could use the handties to stop guests whipping the soap away

dramatic?
moi?

Message withdrawn

That is EXACTLY how I picture you!

If it had happened to me I'd have

• posted in AIBU
• Written a stroppy letter to Strattons
• Posted reviews on Tripadvisor and Laterooms (if I had booked through them, which I have done for other hotels in the past and I have reviewed after my stays)
• Vowed never to stay there again
• told people about my experience

It doesn't really matter what the morality of taking hotel soap is, the facts are:

• MOST hotels EXPECT or sometimes encourage guests to take toiletries, as Aloha/Expat/others have confirmed. It's very, very usual practice.
• Had Strattons not wanted guests to follow usual practice they should have explicitly stated so because otherwise most guests might assume that Strattons policies are the same as most other hotels, which would be fair enough.
• Even if they didn't want guests to take them to actually bother writing to a customer to say 'send them back' under the guise of environmental policy is just a) slightly obsessive imo b) out of all proportion to the actual costs, as we've already established c) customer unfriendly in the extreme d) terrible, terrible PR

and after tll that it achieved nothing other than the hotel received 2 poxy plastic bottles back from a pissed off customer. And that action saved them, what? £4? Even if you double it and say it saved them £8 or a tenner or twenty quid, it's NOTHING compared to the bad publicity they've garnered.

Commercial suicide imo. Big companies employ PR/publicity/media people to make sure exactly this kind of thing is avoided. But snotty Strattons have exacerbated the situation by defending their stupid policies and crap customer service.

It's quite breathtaking, their attitude.

perfectly put www!

I know, I know am just feeling sensitive about it all today.

Have been dreaming of being rounded up and put in an orange jumpsuit and taken to Guantanemo.

This could be the start a soap phobia, I could start being really smelly, lose my Dh to a more fragrant woman, lose my job due to poor personal hygiene and have to fork out for cognitive behaviour therapy to gently re-introduce myself to soap.

change your name to "whiffymum2sons"

it does make me think that if you are upset and can obviously afford to stay in this kind of place without thinking too much about it..just how would someone for whom it was a big once in a life time 25 aniversary occasion feel...you feel bad they would feel terrible

Maybe we should suggest soap on a rope to them - only it would have to be soap on a chain, and the other end fixed to something!