With long hours, high pressure and exacting standards to meet, working in a hotel can be a tough job at the best of times - and that's before you even start dealing with the public.

The hardworking teams at Leicester's Travelodges are used to being kept on their toes by their guests, but despite their best efforts to be as helpful as possible, they're sometimes stumped by the questions they get.

The budget hotel chain has now revealed some of the strangest requests visitors have made to staff at its three Leicester hotels this year, from someone wanting some free secretarial support, ranging to an invitation that was hard to refuse.

Questions from Leicester

Here are some of the strangest requests made to staff in Leicester:

  • Can you put some liquid gold in my room for me to cleanse my skin?
  • Will you come to my sister’s wedding with me? My date can’t make it

Sorry, but you might have to go to that wedding alone
Sorry, but you might have to go to that wedding alone
  • Will you take notes whilst I dictate to you? I have an important speech this evening
  • Can I borrow your shirt?
  • Where is your doggy crèche?
But surely every hotel has a dog crèche?
But surely every hotel has a dog crèche?

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.”

Hotel staff across the country now keep track of the oddest requests they receive, so they can compare stories each year.

The Leicester Forest East Travelodge

This year’s audit of bizarre queries has revealed a couple of celebrity requests.

The reception team at one London Travelodge hotel were completely starstruck when a Hollywood movie star ran into the hotel requesting a safe haven for some R&R in the Bar Café after filming a big scene for a forthcoming blockbuster movie.

And the hotel team at Salford Travelodge searched high and low to fill a room with 200 long stem white roses for a celebrity guest.

Travelodge's strangest requests

Customer Request

Travelodge Hotel

Are you able to fly in some Beluga Caviar from Russia for dinner this evening?

London City

Can you hold my place in the queue to Harry and Meghan’s wedding whilst I go to sleep tonight?

Windsor Central

Can you make a cat bunk bed ahead of my stay for my two Bengal kittens Simba and Nala?

Bristol Central

I can’t remember if I turned my house alarm on, can you drive to my house in Sandbanks and check?

St Austell

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 tonight as the band has cancelled?

Liverpool Central

Can you arrange for the dolphins to be dancing at 9.00pm – the same time that I will be proposing to my girlfriend?


Can I have a duvet to ‘tuck my Ferrari in’ outside? It doesn’t like the cold

York Layerthorpe

Can you rename floor four ahead of my stay as it is an unlucky number in my culture and put eight gold dragons in my room for good luck?


Can my horse stay in my room tonight?


Can you arrange for a Mariachi band to perform on the Severn Bridge for my husband’s birthday?

Telford Central

Can you ask that the London Eye rotates in an anti-clockwise formation?

London Waterloo

Can you make sure all the traffic lights are all programmed to green so that I am not late for a very important business meeting?

Edinburgh Central

Please can you call the airport and ask the aeroplanes not to fly during the night as I am a light sleeper?

Birmingham Airport

Can I please have a comprehensive list of all the names of the roundabouts in the area to put in my log book?

Milton Keynes

Can you fill my bath with different flavoured scoops of ice cream as a birthday present for my wife’s 40th birthday?

Brighton Seafront

Do you have a private car park so that I can park my Rolls Royce Phantom in?

Derby Chaddesden

What is the altitude and longitude of the hotel, we are coming by helicopter and need to land?

Fort Williams

Could you point me in the right direction to your onsite library?


Can you book me a water taxi to take me across the river – I want to impress my client?

Newcastle Quayside

Can you arrange for it to snow tomorrow as I want a white wedding?

Cardiff Central