Pinching stuff from hotel rooms/villas

[Januaryisjustaweirdmonth]

Do you do it? Is it acceptable, is it illegal? I actually have no idea.
Would you take bath soaps/bubbles etc, loo rolls, towels, a robe?
Just curious really
I’ve always taken the little bottles/soaps with me when I’ve left somewhere I’ve stayed and thought nothing of it.
Do people take more though and is that illegal actually?

What a waste. Get it out and use it, woman! Life’s too short to keep nice things for best or shut them away in drawers and cupboards. I found so many lovely things kept for best when I cleared my parents’ house. It made me really sad.

Normally I would agree with you @Blossomtoes but this dazzlingly white and soft Descamps seahorse towel is something special. I am stroking it how before putting it back into my cupboard of special things that includes a hexagonal soap bearing a bee and an image of a Demeter (I think) that I took from the bathroom of a posh hotel in Athens. It's a bit crumbly now and the honey scent has gone but the memory of our magical stay lingers. I can remember the choking air pollution too.

When I cleared out my mum's house I rediscovered my soap museum which was a small bedside cabinet of things produced by Avon for Christmas. Partridge in a pear tree, Little Bo Peep and some squirrels of unknown provenance. It was a bit macabre. They were desiccated and grey but something about Bo Peep's ravaged and crumbling face from Christmas 1974 spoke to me about the hope and transitory nature of youth and beauty.

Of course it's irrelevant, everybody's opinion is irrelevant, that's the point of these threads. I'm explaining why taking crap from hotel rooms isn't for me, for which I was called unimaginative upthread.

@Dummycrusher my opinion is very important. I think it is very sad if you think yours is irrelevant but still felt compelled to treat us to it. That's why I suggested you lacked imagination.

I'm explaining why taking crap from hotel rooms isn't for me

No, you went on to say what different approach you thought the other poster should take.

It isn't for you. Cool. Another poster thinks that is for them. Also cool.

Hotel shampoos and body wash are awful quality, at least in the embarassingly cheap hotels we stay in, so we never take those. But we definitely would if they were nice!

We always take a toilet roll or two. Those cheapo, papery ones are great for keeping in the boot of the car for children's emergency wees on the side of the road.

We also take a few croissants and extra fruit from the complimentary breakfast to have as morning snacks later in the day. We get one rubbish, cheap family holiday a year, so we're making the most of it.

I've never given it a second though before this thread, and am baffled by some of these responses.

I used to like the cheapo pens and pads but don't see them as much now

i take biscuits or just eat them

i don't get why people would take toilet paper and why that is comparable to taking a towel on this thread!

@woodhill apart from the towelling slippers my husband loves the propelling pencils with the rubber on the end from the Hotel Majestic, Barcelona, that we stay in quite a bit. They still do them.

I never like the biscuits, they get to stay in the room.

We also take a few croissants and extra fruit from the complimentary breakfast to have as morning snacks later in the day.

There was a thread about people making sandwiches at the breakfast buffet to eat later in the day, (I think it was at Disneyland) I have never seen that myself but would love to.

I’ve seen it and it disgusts me.

IIRC loads of people said making lunch from the breakfast buffet was absolutely fine, but I wouldn't want to eat those sandwiches.

I've never done it but my parents did. Now I look back I realise that in their funny little way they enabled me to be the sophisticated creature I am today moving effortlessly between social situations at international hotels.

As long as people don't go mad at the breakfast buffet I can forgive them their little foibles. Don't you agree @Sparklingbrook ?

When we used to go to Spain in the 60s and 70s the people we went with always snaffled a shed load of food from the breakfast buffet for lunch.

Utterly embarrassing.

I travel with work a lot and usually have inclusive breakfast, I'm not a big early morning eater, though. I usually have a croissant, a yoghurt, maybe some Nutella to take away for when I am hungry. I've always asked and never been refused. Most of the time, they send me away with a takeaway coffee too.

I never take anything. Mini bottles of shampoo don’t interest me - I might think again if they were ever 2 in one with conditioner but they never are.

I’ve usually eaten all the biscuits, if there are any.

Dh was once contacted by a hotel where he’d taken a small foreign delegation for work. One of them had nicked a hairdryer so they were asking for payment - can’t say I blamed them.

We once stayed at a hotel in Cuba where there were actually signs in the dining room forbidding food going into bags.

At a hotel in Prague I once saw a table of 4 very well dressed and apparently affluent people, slipping loads from the breakfast buffet into bags - yoghurts, fruit, croissants, Danish pastries, rolls which they’d filled with ham and cheese, you name it. It was a fascinating spectacle - seeing them furtively looking around each time to make sure no staff were watching!

Their table was close enough for us to overhear some of their conversation - I was very relieved that they weren’t Brits!

Dh was once contacted by a hotel where he’d taken a small foreign delegation for work. One of them had nicked a hairdryer so they were asking for payment - can’t say I blamed them.

A hairdryer* *@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER? I'm imagining that in an Edith Evans Importance of Being Earnest voice.

Not to mention that every hairdryer in every hotel I've ever stayed in has been fixed to the wall. If you tried to steal it you would make a substantial hole in the wall and it wouldn't work at home whichever benighted foreign country you came from.

Are you sure this happened?

The hairdryer here is on a shelf in the wardrobe.

Hairdryers at places I've stayed in have always been in the dressing table drawer.

Fools. You can buy a hairdryer for £20 in Argos. An adaptor plug is a couple of quid. I still don't think hairdryer larceny is something that troubles Interpol

Ooh, what kind of posh places do you stay @Sparklingbrook? Are they the kind of hotels that have normal coathangers, no the anti-theft ones?

I stayed in a hotel that had Dyson hairdryers. I understand people wanting to steal those, though they'd be easily caught.

No hotel hairdryer has been as good as the one I have at home, and depending on the trip even if I know there's one there I'll take my own if I have room in my luggage.

Normal coathngers here, too. Although lacking on actual hanging space...