While we often complain about all the problems we encounter in our travels, I thought I would share some "good news" about two hotel lost & found adventures. Both were at Hilton branded properties, where I usually stay.

Our family did a Disneyland trip trip about two years and we stayed at the Hilton Suites in Orange, CA. When we went to check out, we did the usual mad dash of packing everything up and headed off to the airport. When we got home, my wife asked me if I had remembered to check the draw under the TV cabinet at the hotel. I did a mental playback of where I checked for clothes and other items and figured that I probably missed that spot.

I then call the hotel and explained that we had earlier in the day check out of room xxxx and that we probably left some clothes behind in one of the drawers. They put me in touch with housekeeping and they said they would get back to me. I figured that I would probably not hear anything back but an hour or two later I get a call from a woman who says they found our stuff. They said they would mail it to me at no charge to me. They said that was their hotel policy. I thanked them profusely and felt great that we were able to find the stuff.

About two days later a package arrives from the hotel. We weren't exactly sure what we left behind, so it was somewhat of a surprise when we opened the package to find that it contained about a half a dozen pair of my 6 year old daughter's underwear! If I knew what the contents were, I probably wouldn't have even bothered. Anyhow, we all had a good laugh about it.

My second story involves my wife who attended a convention at the Doubletree Hotel Seattle Airport. One of the nights they had costume party and she had borrowed two rings from a friend. She was told that the rings were strictly costume jewelry. During the party, she had lost one of the rings. As the convention had about a 1,000 people attending, we figured it would be hard to find a ring among all of those people. Anyhow, she contacted the lost and found department and they said they would look for it. Several weeks went by and we pretty much gave up on the ring. Then my wife gets an e-mail from the hotel containing several digital photos of a ring they found. Sure enough, it was the lost ring. They mailed it to us and she was able to return it to her friend. I thought it was cool how they took the time to take photos of the ring and e-mailed them to us.

I'm sure that there are many other stories like these out there. Anyone want to share some of your better ones?

We're 1/2 with hotel lost and found. I don't know why, but my kids liked to unpack no matter how brief the stay.

We stayed overnight at a Travellodge (Yuk) at SFO, mainly to leave the car for 8 nights while we were in Maui. My son left his sunglasses in a desk drawer. When we got back, I asked at the desk and the clerk came out of the office with a box full of stuff. His sunglasses were in the box.

We spent a few nights at a Best Western in Port St Lucie FL and one of the boys left all his toys in a drawer. I called the next day and, no there were no toys turned in. I figure one of the maids took them home.

You want to see an impressive collection of lost stuff, go to Disneyworld. I had a friend who got a replacement battery for his camcorder every visit there by going to Lost and Found. They always had one that fit.

I often leave stray items behind, and don't usually bother chasing. My worst lost however related to my house and car keys which I left in a drawer in a hotel room in Paris (I'd got a bit paranoid about carrying them because I'd already been mugged that trip ), and completely forgot about when I checked out. The hotel staff found them, and phoned my travel agent to try and contact me to let me know they had the keys. Fortunately I had time after my meeting to return to the hotel to collect them before I had to fly out - was very impressed they had actually tried to find me to get the keys back. I had realised during the day they were missing, turned on my phone, and got a message from my TA saying the hotel were holding them at the front desk

Second kind of lost and found was actually a breakage. Was staying in the Thistle Aberdeen Airport, got back one evening to discover the headphones of my cd player had vanished. Bit perplexed, searched the room, and then went down to reception to inquire if they knew what had happened to them. During room cleaning, they had got damaged by the hoover (sucked up and wrecked), so one of the staff was dispatched out to buy a replacement set. He couldn't find any in the local town, had to go into the main city centre to find them, and they were given to me with many apologies - I was really impressed because a) the staff owned up, b) they replaced them instead of just giving me some cash c) they went to a lot of effort to replace them d) the pair I got in return were higher quality ^ Thistle Aberdeen Airport (and very jolly staff there too!).

Usually my lost-in-a-hotel items remain lost forever, but last summer I had a positive experience at the Courtyard Marriott in Pasadena. When we got to San Diego the evening after we checked out, we discovered that I had left a totebag containing a couple of other purses behind in a drawer in our room. These items were pretty expensive and I could have kicked myself all the way to Mexico.

I phoned the hotel and the only person interested in helping me was the male phone operator, housekeeping blew me off. The phone guy took it upon himself to call the room I had stayed in and sure enough, the items were in the drawer. This phone guy went to the room on his break and retrieved my property, then turned it in to lost and found. I picked the items up, had to make a special trip back to Pasadena but it was worth it. I wrote an effusive orchid letter and left an envelope with a monetary award for the operator.