The concierge is probably one of the more difficult jobs in a hotel. Catering to the whims of their guests can be daunting. Some hotel special requests can be quite outlandish and I could imagine that more than a few concierges have questioned their career choice.
My Girlfriend Has a Tiger… No really!
I read today that an Englishman in Miami was staying at the Setai Hotel and asked the concierge to determine how to move his girlfriend’s pet tiger to London. This isn’t so much of a funny hotel request as it is an occupational hazard.
Man Who Catch Fly With Chopstick Accomplish Anything
There are stories about eccentric celebrities like surrealist artist, Salvador Dali (you remember the melting clock right?) Dali often stayed at the Meurice Hotel in Paris with a pair of pet ocelots. Not everyone would even know an ocelot if they saw one because they aren’t one of the big cats but if that isn’t odd enough for you how about asking the hotel staff to catch flies in the Tuileries Garden?
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Really good concierges are masters of networking. They have a wealth of resources at their disposal to please their clients and pull off the seemingly impossible request. Just knowing other concierges at other hotels can be a huge help and they quite naturally call upon each other for advice and favors, especially within their own chain of hotels (like Four Seasons).
Another valuable network used by concierges is the Clefs d’Or, an international professional group of concierges. Tommy Dean has been a concierge at the Four Seasons Hotel Austin for almost 20 years and says the Clefs d’Or provides access to concierges worldwide. “It’s an extended family that goes all over the world,” he explained.
Of course the Internet has make things a lot easier as the solution to some of the strangest hotel requests may only be a few clicks away.
Don’t You Hate It When Your Automatic Rifle Breaks?
But not all guest requests and expectations can be met. A Beverly Hills Hotel concierge was asked to find replacement parts for an AK47 for a guest, a wish that was denied.
I Love My Wife - Please Scare Her To Death
One guest at Parrot Cay in the Turks and Caicos asked the hotel to help surprise his wife on her 40th birthday. This was no problem until they realized that he wanted them to somehow arrange for fake sharks to appear while they were snorkeling with their friends.
Don’t You Love Pizza With Locked-in Freshness?
Another bizarre hotel request surfaced at the luxury Hermitage Hotel in Aoraki Mount Cook, New Zealand.
An American lady complained that she couldn’t get a pizza out of the microwave oven in her room. The staff went up to the room to help her and they found that she had placed her dinner in the room’s safe and locked it by pressing the buttons, thinking they were the oven’s timer. A locksmith was summoned and the pizza retrieved… safe and sound.
I’m Feeling Pretty Baaaaad But There Is One Thing That Can Help
Las Vegas is known for its wild stories and the concierges there have seen it all. One guest requested that a bathtub be filled with goat’s milk. I am actually surprised they didn’t end up pulling that one off.
“We call them ‘wow’ moments,” says Lee Ann Pearce, concierge supervisor at the Wynn Las Vegas, referring to the most challenging and colorful requests. If you can imagine it, the Wynn’s 28 concierges have probably heard it. They handle an average of 1,000 calls a day.
But there are some common requests that a concierge service commonly performs. Here are a few.
- Arrange gifts
- Find a doctor
- Charge your cellphone
- Find a minister
- Arrange for a bodyguard
- Hire a limo
- Charter a private jet
- Reserve front-row seats at shows
- Repair shoes
- Find a tuxedo
- Arrange a tour
- Plan birthday parties
- Map out a hike
“One woman planned her husband’s 40th birthday party out here, from soup to nuts, and she had us buy T-shirts for all the guests, organize the party, get gifts . . . and then five months later, we finally met, and it was great putting the face with the name,” Pearce says. “In those kinds of situations, a lot of times you bond with people. They share things with you that you never ever expect them to share, and then later when they show up, it’s like meeting up with an old friend.”
Sometimes, a concierge desk becomes family by proxy, witnessing at weddings or attending to details of the nuptials that might usually fall to a maid of honor or best man.
At the Hard Rock, where the hip and trendy gravitate, more bizarre requests have crossed the desk, including a request for Oompa Loompas at a party. Yes, they managed to find actors to do this. No, it wasn’t anything dirty.
Another strange and memorable request: “One guy called us and ordered a mariachi band to follow him around the casino all night while he gambled,” says longtime concierge Esteban Rey.
Did lady luck follow?
“Actually, yes. He did well enough that he had a mariachi band follow him around the next night,” Rey says. “He was in town by himself and wanted some companionship. I bet it was a great way to meet people.”
Not surprisingly, many requests involve wedding madness. Many Vegas concierges have been asked to find Elvis-impersonator ministers or to arrange elaborate nuptials, but even Rey was blown away when the entire Hard Rock concierge desk became wedding planners to organize one of the most lavish weddings he’d ever heard of.
“I had this couple who were getting married and wanted to do it, like, tomorrow. And they wanted it to be really decadent,” Rey recalls. “So it ended up being in the Grand Canyon, and we had to book about six helicopters to fly the guests out. We had to get the cake, the flowers, the photographer, a rabbi — all of that — and do it in a day. It was crazy.” Apparently, Rey says, the wedding came off without a hitch. “That one was really a challenge,” he adds, with a chuckle.
Another time, Rey had guests who wanted to attend Maxim magazine’s Hot 100 Party, which is “really hard to get into. I had a contact for that, and I needed to make that happen. We couldn’t do that for everybody, but these were very special guests at the Hard Rock.”
Two of the quirkiest requests Pearce has had involved a bathtub. One was the goat’s-milk bath, she says. The other was when a man called the hotel in advance of a friend’s arrival and requested the staff place a duck decoy in his pal’s tub so that when he checked into his room, he would find the webbed one floating around.
“The gentleman had the clay duck sent to us, and I guess it was an inside joke. That was pretty funny. . . .
“What I can tell you,” Pearce concludes,” is that you have . . . to be willing to go the extra mile to get something for somebody, and if you’re not like that, this kind of work is going to be very trying for you. And even if it’s a really difficult request, you have to treat it like you’re fighting for your best friend. Because, as we like to say, we’re here to create memories.”
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