Skip to content

Top Navigation

Travel + Leisure Travel + Leisure Travel + Leisure Travel + Leisure
  • Trip Inspiration
  • Plan Your Trip
  • World's Best
  • Destination of the Year
  • A-List Travel Advisors
  • Cruises
  • Travel Tips
  • News
  • Food + Drink
  • Travel Accessories
  • Check-In

Profile Menu

Your Profile

Your Profile

  • Join Now
  • Newsletters
  • Manage Your Subscription this link opens in a new tab
  • Give a Gift Subscription
  • Help
  • Logout
Login
Subscribe
Pin FB

Explore Travel + Leisure

Travel + Leisure Travel + Leisure Travel + Leisure Travel + Leisure
  • Explore

    Explore

    • World's Best

      World's Best

      The greatest islands, cities, hotels, cruise lines, airports, and more — as voted by you. Read More Next
    • The 50 Best Places to Travel in 2021

      The 50 Best Places to Travel in 2021

      Whether you're traveling solo or planning a family vacation, here are the 50 best places to visit in 2021. Read More Next
    • Let's Go Together Podcast

      Let's Go Together Podcast

      Start listening to T+L's brand new podcast, Let's Go Together! Hosted by Kellee Edwards. Read More Next
  • Trip Inspiration

    Trip Inspiration

    • Trip Ideas
    • Weekend Getaways
    • Spring Travel
    • Summer Travel
    • Fall Travel
    • Winter Travel
    • Solo Travel
    • Romantic Getaways
    • Luxury Travel
    • Beach Vacations
    • Adventure Travel
    • Road Trips
    • Family Travel
    • National Parks
    • Holiday Travel
    • Travel Photography
    • Photo of the Day
    • Culture and Design
  • Plan Your Trip

    Plan Your Trip

    Norwegian Cruise Line Will Require Vaccinations for All Passengers and Crew

    Norwegian Cruise Line Will Require Vaccinations for All Passengers and Crew

    Norwegian Cruise Line hopes to resume sailing out of the U.S. on or around July 4.
    • Travel Deals
    • Attractions
    • BookTandL.com
    • Amusement Parks
    • Festivals and Events
    • Bus and Trains
    • Flight Deals
    • Budget Travel
    • Hotels and Resorts
    • Disney Vacations
    • Airlines and Airports
    • Ground Transportation
    • Travel Guides
  • World's Best

    World's Best

    • Top Hotels
    • Top Cities
    • Top Islands
    • Domestic Airlines
    • International Airlines
    • Tours
    • Safaris
    • See All World's Best
  • Destination of the Year
  • A-List Travel Advisors
  • Cruises

    Cruises

    • Find A Cruise
    • Caribbean Cruises
    • River Cruises
    • European Cruises
    • All-Inclusive Cruises
    • Family Cruises
    • Alaskan Cruises
    • Disney Cruises
    • See All Cruise Vacations
  • Travel Tips

    Travel Tips

    • Travel Trends
    • Packing Tips
    • Points + Miles
    • Budgeting + Currency
    • Customs + Immigration
    • Responsible Travel
    • Travel Etiquette
    • Travel Warnings
    • Weather
    • Mobile Apps
    • See All Travel Tips
  • News

    News

    • Wellness
    • Celebrity Travel
    • Animals
    • Jobs
    • Offbeat
    • See All News
  • Food + Drink

    Food + Drink

    • Restaurants
    • Wine
    • Beer
    • Cocktails + Spirits
    • Bars + Clubs
    • Celebrity Chefs
    • Cooking + Entertaining
    • Food Fairs + Festivals
    • World's Best Restaurants
    • See All Food + Drink
  • Travel Accessories

    Travel Accessories

    • Travel Bags
    • Shoes
    • Travel Tech
    • Shopping
    • Style
    • Gift Guides
    • See All Travel Accessories
  • Check-In

Profile Menu

Subscribe this link opens in a new tab
Your Profile

Your Profile

  • Join Now
  • Newsletters
  • Manage Your Subscription this link opens in a new tab
  • Give a Gift Subscription
  • Help
  • Logout
Login
Sweepstakes

Follow Us

  1. Home
  2. Hotels and Resorts
  3. Luxury Hotels
  4. World's Strangest Hotel Mini-Bar Items

World's Strangest Hotel Mini-Bar Items

By Mark Ellwood
July 31, 2009
Skip gallery slides
Save Pin
Credit: Courtesy of Trump International Hotel Chicago
“When I travel, I want my creature comforts,” says Diane Ackerman, a private art dealer and collector who spends much of the year hopscotching around the world to attend art fairs, see clients, and make studio visits. “I like to treat myself, especially on short trips.” And one of the first things Ackerman checks in any hotel is its mini-bar.

“I’m not impressed if they have lots of crackers and junk,” says Ackerman. She even has her own mini-bar fantasy: a small fridge stocked with water, great red wine, unsalted almonds, and anything to combat jet lag–related eye bags. “I’d love to find a cucumber, so I could cut slices and put them on my eyes before I go to sleep.”

Luckily for Ackerman—and many travelers—hotels are maxing out on mini-bars to satisfy blue-chip guests...and, of course, entice them to return. “What a hotel stocks in the room can really show its personality,” says Juliet Kinsman, the editor in chief of boutique-hotel bible Mr. & Mrs. Smith. And, she says, the thrill of a hotel mini-bar can’t be underestimated—especially one that goes beyond conventional snacks and drinks. So while cucumbers might not be available yet, unusual items are increasingly showing up in mini-bars around the world.

For example, at the W Retreat & Spa in the Maldives, mini-bars include designer Heidi Klein bikinis. The Mondrian in Los Angeles curiously stocks an Alice in Wonderland hand mirror, designed by Benjamin Noriega-Ortiz. And sometimes, the items are nothing short of elemental: in China, at the Banyan Tree Ringha—which sits 10,000 feet-plus above sea level—cans of oxygen are perhaps the hotel’s best high-altitude treat.

“Consumers are well aware how every second they’re charged for something in a hotel—premiums on a phone call, for example—and the mini-bar is a chance to make you feel there are lots of treats and surprises,” says Kinsman. “For the value of a couple of dollars, you have much bigger value in word of mouth.”

But along with artisanal clothes or colas, Kinsman has her own mini-bar must-have that she seeks out whenever she checks in: Resolve, a vitamin cocktail. “I’m always a sucker for hangover kits,” she laughs.
Start Slideshow

1 of 10

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Alice in Wonderland Hand Mirror

World's Strangest Hotel Mini-Bar Items: Alice in Wonderland Hand Mirror
Credit: Courtesy of Mondrian

Hotel: Mondrian, Los Angeles

Details: Designer Benjamin Noriega-Ortiz reimagined L.A.’s iconic Mondrian hotel for the new century, tripping out the interior in a kitschy-cool tribute to Lewis Carroll and life through the looking glass. Mini-bars in the 230 rooms didn’t escape his makeover either: that’s where you can snap up a Noriega-Ortiz–designed souvenir, fittingly an Alice in Wonderland hand mirror ($25) that’s sold only at the hotel. The trippy-looking glass (in shatterproof acrylic) is the first in a series of unique in-room goodies that Morgans Hotel Group, owner of the Hudson and Delano hotels (among others), is planning to roll out for each of its properties.

1 of 10

Advertisement
Advertisement

2 of 10

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Heidi Klein Bikini

World's Strangest Hotel Mini-Bar Items: Heidi Klein Bikini
Credit: Courtesy of Starwood

Hotel: W Retreat & Spa, Maldives

Details: Produced in W’s signature purple, the halter-top bikini with silver hammered-chrome detail ($275) is designed by luxury beachwear label Heidi Klein, run by design duo Heidi Gosman and Penny Klein; the London label is a favorite of the hordes of Brits who frequent the resort. The suit is a limited issue sold only on-site, but don’t worry: if the size in your room isn’t skimpy enough, an on-call staffer designated the “Bikini Butler” will bring the perfect fit.

2 of 10

3 of 10

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

“Detoxifying” Room Spray

World's Strangest Hotel Mini-Bar Items: “Detoxifying” Room Spray
Credit: Courtesy of XV Beacon Hotel

Hotel: XV Beacon, Boston

Details: Mini-bars at this 60-room bolt-hole, Boston’s original boutique hotel, hide an offbeat, all-natural sleep-enhancer: the City Life Detoxer from Sprayology ($24). The homeopathic, FDA-approved oral spray is said to flush away all the urban toxins. Its key ingredient?St. Mary’s thistle, which allegedly eases breathing difficulties, coughing, and sluggishness, so you can crash for eight hours, Ambien-free. Sadly, there’s no word on whether it freshens your breath too.

3 of 10

Advertisement

4 of 10

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Alexander Wang–Designed Condoms

World's Strangest Hotel Mini-Bar Items: Alexander Wang–Designed Condoms
Credit: Courtesy of Thompson Hotels

Hotel: Thompson Beverly Hills, Los Angeles

Details: Trust playboy hotelier Jason Pomeranc to come up with a tweak on the now-standard mini-bar condom kit. His entire Thompson chainlet, including this 100-room L.A. newbie, now offers designer condoms with subdued black-and-white packaging, masterminded by downtown darling Alexander Wang ($5.99 for three assorted). Proceeds benefit Planned Parenthood. And if you can’t make it to the hotel, you can buy Wang’s designs at www.properattirecondoms.com.

4 of 10

5 of 10

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

“Things by Tina Thor” Handmade Jewelry

World's Strangest Hotel Mini-Bar Items: “Things by Tina Thor” Handmade Jewelry
Credit: Courtesy of The Cooper Square Hotel

Hotel: Cooper Square Hotel, New York City

Details: This 145-room East Village hotel (opened in December 2008) is the brainchild of German hotelier and Claridge’s vet Klaus Ortlieb—an obsessive style junkie who feels that the mini-bar should also be a shop for original souvenirs (he personally oversaw and curated the jewel box–like mini-bars). Ortlieb tasked downtown jeweler Tina Thor, for example, to create unique pieces ($95) for sale at his hotel (he’s also tapped makeup artist Loraine Abeles and lotion-peddler Red Flower). The mini-bars will be refreshed, like a concept store, with new items seasonally.

5 of 10

6 of 10

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Voodoo Love Dolls

World's Strangest Hotel Mini-Bar Items: Voodoo Love Dolls
Credit: Courtesy of Omni Hotels

Hotel: Omni Royal Crescent, New Orleans

Details: Though it’s a sprawling corporation, Omni has tweaked its mini-bars so that each hotel can customize the so-called Sensation Bars in its rooms to better reflect the local culture (indie music CDs in Austin, for example). Nowhere is it more cheekily in evidence than at the 97-room New Orleans site, where for $10 you can make your own Love Voodoo Kit: inside the box is a stuffed doll, a box of pins for skewering, and a voodoo love-life manual. The hair and nails of any inamorato, unfortunately, you’ll have to supply yourself.

6 of 10

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

7 of 10

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Pink Duct Tape

World's Strangest Hotel Mini-Bar Items: Pink Duct Tape
Credit: Kristen Taylor

Hotel: Custom Hotel, Los Angeles

Details: The 250-room Custom Hotel was originally conceived of by Welton Beckett, the mod architect behind the witty Capitol Records building. Hotelier Avi Brosh continues the quirkiness inside, offering an off-kilter mini-bar that goes well beyond beers and colas in each of the rooms: there are balsa-wood airplane toys ($7) and striped calf socks from American Apparel ($13). But the canniest addition to this in-room Aladdin’s Cave is undoubtedly the bubblegum-pink duct tape ($3), ideal to mend a torn suitcase—though it has plenty of other potential uses too.

7 of 10

8 of 10

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Botanical Sodas

World's Strangest Hotel Mini-Bar Items: Botanical Sodas
Credit: Courtesy of Tyvan Pulis/McLean Design

Hotel: Rosewood Sand Hill, Palo Alto, CA

Details: The 123-room Sand Hill, just outside San Jose, gives several nods to northern Cali’s outdoorsy lifestyle; the hotel has design touches intended to blur the boundaries between indoors and outdoors, menus featuring only ingredients from local sustainable farms, and even botanical sodas in the mini-bars. Compared with the hours-long process of commercial brands, the retro Fentimans Curiosity Cola ($6) is brewed botanically using a century-old recipe, where the proprietary herb blend (it does include energy-boosting catuaba and guarana extracts) steeps for a week to infuse the flavor.

8 of 10

9 of 10

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Oxygen Canisters

World's Strangest Hotel Mini-Bar Items: Oxygen Canisters
Credit: Courtesy of Banyan Tree Hotels and Resorts

Hotel: Banyan Tree Ringha, China

Details: The mini-bars at this 32-berth Tibetan hotel—as high up (almost 10,500 feet above sea level) as it is high-end (a two-bedroom lodge is $1,000 per night)—have a secret altitude-beating treat stashed inside: special bright blue canisters of oxygen. Simply attach the mouthpiece supplied to the nozzle and spray bursts of pure O2 like lung-boosting breath-freshener. Each contains almost 10 liters of pure oxygen, which offsets the thinner air in the mountains, whether you’re lounging in the grounds or taking one of the hikes through the scenery with a Sherpa guide (each of whom carries extra tanks just in case).

9 of 10

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

10 of 10

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

“Water Library”

trump-hotel-minibars-200905-ss
Credit: Courtesy of Trump International Hotel Chicago

Hotel: Trump International Hotel, Chicago

Details: This soaring, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill–designed tower thoughtfully includes kitchens in all its 339 rooms, and each features a Sub-Zero fridge that doubles as a mini-bar (albeit one with a poetically named “Water Library”). Donald, the famous teetotaling developer-cum-hotelier, ditched bottles of his own brand vodka in favor of four hard-to-find waters: Welsh Tau, Australian Tasmanian Rain, 420 from the South Island of New Zealand (all $10/bottle), and the Paris Hilton–ready Bling H20. Sure, Bling H2O is virgin spring water, but the real lure is its Swarovski crystal–studded bottle—which ups the price tag to a champagne-matching $25.

10 of 10

Replay gallery

Share the Gallery

Pinterest Facebook

Up Next

By Mark Ellwood

Share the Gallery

Pinterest Facebook
Trending Videos
Advertisement
Skip slide summaries

Everything in This Slideshow

Advertisement

View All

1 of 10 Alice in Wonderland Hand Mirror
2 of 10 Heidi Klein Bikini
3 of 10 “Detoxifying” Room Spray
4 of 10 Alexander Wang–Designed Condoms
5 of 10 “Things by Tina Thor” Handmade Jewelry
6 of 10 Voodoo Love Dolls
7 of 10 Pink Duct Tape
8 of 10 Botanical Sodas
9 of 10 Oxygen Canisters
10 of 10 “Water Library”

Share options

Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message
Travel + Leisure Travel + Leisure

Magazines & More

Learn More

  • Subscribe this link opens in a new tab
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise
  • Content Licensing this link opens in a new tab
  • Sitemap
  • Travel Guide Sitemap

Connect

Follow Us
Subscribe to Our Newsletters
Other Travel + Leisure Sites
Other Meredith Sites

Other Meredith Sites

  • 4 Your Health this link opens in a new tab
  • Allrecipes this link opens in a new tab
  • All People Quilt this link opens in a new tab
  • Better Homes & Gardens this link opens in a new tab
  • Bizrate Insights this link opens in a new tab
  • Bizrate Surveys this link opens in a new tab
  • Cooking Light this link opens in a new tab
  • Daily Paws this link opens in a new tab
  • EatingWell this link opens in a new tab
  • Eat This, Not That this link opens in a new tab
  • Entertainment Weekly this link opens in a new tab
  • Food & Wine this link opens in a new tab
  • Health this link opens in a new tab
  • Hello Giggles this link opens in a new tab
  • Instyle this link opens in a new tab
  • Martha Stewart this link opens in a new tab
  • Midwest Living this link opens in a new tab
  • More this link opens in a new tab
  • MyRecipes this link opens in a new tab
  • MyWedding this link opens in a new tab
  • My Food and Family this link opens in a new tab
  • MyLife this link opens in a new tab
  • Parenting this link opens in a new tab
  • Parents this link opens in a new tab
  • People this link opens in a new tab
  • People en EspaƱol this link opens in a new tab
  • Rachael Ray Magazine this link opens in a new tab
  • Real Simple this link opens in a new tab
  • Ser Padres this link opens in a new tab
  • Shape this link opens in a new tab
  • Siempre Mujer this link opens in a new tab
  • Southern Living this link opens in a new tab
  • SwearBy this link opens in a new tab
Meredith Travel + Leisure is part of the Travel + Leisure Group. Copyright 2021 Meredith Corporation. Travel + Leisure is a registered trademark of Meredith Corporation Travel + Leisure Group All Rights Reserved, registered in the United States and other countries. Travel + Leisure may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice. Privacy Policythis link opens in a new tab Terms of Servicethis link opens in a new tab Ad Choicesthis link opens in a new tab California Do Not Sellthis link opens a modal window Web Accessibilitythis link opens in a new tab
© Copyright . All rights reserved. Printed from https://www.travelandleisure.com

View image

World's Strangest Hotel Mini-Bar Items
this link is to an external site that may or may not meet accessibility guidelines.