Travelodge, the UK’s first budget hotel chain, has revealed the most bizarre requests that some of its 19 million customers have asked whilst staying in one of its 553 UK hotels during the last 12 months.
The Travelodge hotel teams across the length and breadth of the UK receive thousands of strange requests every year and the oddities range from:
· Can you stand in the queue overnight and hold my place outside Windsor Castle so that I can attend Prince Harry and Meghan wedding? I need to sleep so that I look good for the wedding
· Can you make a cat bunk bed ahead of my stay for my two Bengal kittens Simba and Nala?
· Can you arrange for it to snow tomorrow as I want a white wedding?
· Can you fill my room with 100 pink heart shaped balloons for my Grandmother’s 100th birthday which say ‘Happy Birthday Grandma Gladysis’?
· Can you please get four of your team members to dress up as the Beatles to perform at my friend’s wedding?
· Can you arrange for dolphins to be dancing in the sea at 9:00pm tonight at the same time that I propose to my girlfriend?
· Can you cover my Ferrari with a duvet tonight as it doesn’t like the cold?
· Can you fill the bath tub full with different flavoured scoops of ice cream for my wife’s 40th birthday?
· Can you arrange for a Mariachi band to perform on the Severn Bridge for my husband’s birthday?
Travelodge has experienced a significant rise in business customers now staying at its hotels. More than 50% of Travelodge customers are business travellers and detailed below are examples of some of the requests that Travelodge hotel teams have received from its business customers:
· Can you fly two tins of Beluga caviar from Russia for dinner this evening?
· Can you ensure that all the traffic lights are programmed to green from the hotel to my meeting venue to ensure that I arrive on time?
· What is the altitude and longitude of the hotel? we are arriving by helicopter
· Please can you rename floor four ahead of my stay as it is an unlucky number in my culture and put 8 gold dragons into my room for good luck?
· I can’t remember if I turned my house alarm on, could you go to my house on Sandbanks to check?
· Do you have a private car park so that I can park my Rolls Royce Phantom in?
· Can you book me a water taxi to take me across the river as the traffic is bad this morning and I can’t be late for my meeting ?
· Could you join a conference call to my New York office at midnight and take minutes
Shakila Ahmed, Travelodge Spokeswoman, said, “With 19 million customers staying annually in our 553 UK Travelodge hotels across the length and breadth of the UK, our hotel teams receive thousands of unusual requests from business and leisure travellers. Where possible, the teams will go above and beyond to help customers.
'They do like a good challenge. However there are some requests that they cannot help with, such as: arranging dancing dolphins at Lands End, for it to snow and to ensure all traffic lights are green for a business executive so that he gets to his meeting on time.”
Interestingly this year’s audit of bizarre requests does include a couple of celebrity requests. The reception team at one London Travelodge hotel were completely star struck when a Hollywood movie star ran into the hotel ‘Fast and Furious’ requesting a safe haven for some R&R in the Bar Café after filming a big scene for a forthcoming blockbuster movie. The hotel team at Salford Travelodge searched high and low to fill a room with 200 long stem white roses for a celebrity guest.