A Hotel with a Complimentary Rab Bergen Jacket?
Hotels are in the business of making you feel comfortable, including providing things that you may have forgotten to pack. It's not common for hotels to provide complementary shampoo, toothbrush, razor, and other common toiletries; some even provide robes and ironing boards. If you're wealthy and staying at the finest hotels, you can expect a well-stocked bar as well as complimentary meals and snacks.
As competition in the hotel industry has increased, hotels are continually looking at new amenities they can provide customers. Wouldn't it be awesome if you arrived at your hotel, found you had forgotten your coat, and were able to call down to the front desk and get a complimentary Rab Bergen jacket? That would be awesome! Well, that's not likely to ever happen, but hotels are still offering amenities today that no one ever would have dreamed of just a few years ago.
Just this past January, the Holiday Inn in London began offering a complimentary bed warmer service. That's right; a perky hotel employee arrives at your door dressed in a special fleece bed warmer suit a few minutes before you're ready to turn in. He or she climbs in your bed and occupies it for up to five minutes; when the time expires, the bed warmer moves on to his next client, while you climb into a lovely warm bed. Holiday Inn plans to extend this service to other locations if the London experiment goes well. You know it will.
For the kids, the Four Seasons hotel chain offers an amenity strictly geared to them and their love of sweets. At a prearranged time, the ice cream man will arrive at your room and prepare ice cream sundaes for your children according to their requests. If the Hotel is smart, they'll send the bed warmer up while the ice cream man entertains your children.
Not to leave out the pets, Hyatt Regency is now starting to offer doggie beds as well as a canine menu created specifically for man's best friend. Now you can bring your dog with you on vacation and let him enjoy the same lap of luxury you do. They can enjoy dedicated canine room service complete with entrées, like lamb, and even a canine desert known as the Dog-Ice Frozen Treat.
The list of strange and excessive amenities continues to grow as hotel chains vie for the wealthiest and most affluent customers. You may never reach the threshold of personal tanning butler or chef, but at least you can call down for a spare toothbrush. The day they start offering complementarily Rab Bergen jackets though, is the day I start visiting a lot of hotels...while conveniently forgetting my jacket.