rbrenton88

In Athens, while eating the included breakfast each day, our taxi driver would pop in and join us for the meal before taking us away. Nobody ever commented.

In Paris, the hotel automatically charged 14 euro per day for breakfast. I never ate in the hotel, opting for a sandwich on the way to the office. I though it was going to get ugly trying to dispute those charges at checkout, but they simply asked if I ate, I said no, and they took it off without any fuss. Weird system.

Kneel

On a reverse of the them... What about being charged for breakfast you were told was included.

In May 2006 my family five and one guest stayed at a wonderful Sheraton hotel in Izmir, Turkey at a remarkable 2,000 SPG points per night. When we checked in I asked if breakfast was included, and was told "Yes". I was amazed as this was such a great rate, that I asked the question 2 more times. Upon entering the buffet I was asked for our room number, and then, as I was just stiiting down, I was presented with a bill for $150. Now the buffet was good, but certainly not worth that! I couldn't make a case with the waiters. Fortunately the clerk who told us the breakfast was included was on duty, and the manager didn't charge us. However, it did kind of ruin the breakfast experience. The hotel was still great though.

iahphx

I came across this thread searching for something else, but found it interesting enough to read. So I might as well post my two cents.

I think you need to make a distinction between hotels with "real" breakfasts (which I think would generally be difficult to poach due to name or key checks) and the type of inexpensive continental breakfasts offered at low to mid priced U.S.-chain motels (places like Fairfield, La Quinta, etc.).

I have never seen "breakfast security" at a La Quinta-like property in the United States. I guess if the staff noticed folks coming in from the parking lot or making repeated multi-day visits, they might try to stop them. But, otherwise, if you were a mildly clever, halfway-presentable-looking "travelling poacher," I think you could eat lowish-quality pastry and coffee clear across America.

Of course, the reason I don't think this is much of a problem is because the type of folks who know this is possible aren't too interested in stealing motel donuts. I mean, unless you truly didn't have enough food to eat, why would you do this?

I do agree that if the quality of the food was higher -- or if there were an opportunity for free alcoholic drinks -- the risks of poachers would be greater. For the cheap breakfasts, though, I doubt it's enough of a "problem" for hotel management to care about.

MissJoeyDFW

I can't stand the scrambled eggs on the majority of the buffets, there is no telling what's in them. I always order my eggs over medium so they aren't some kind of undetermined mix.

N830MH

We ate with breakfast buffet in the hotel when we stayed in TLV. It was free breakfast buffet for every morning when I have ate with scrambled eggs and other breakfast. When we ate breakfast during the times when we went on the tour around in Israel. It was just fine when I ate breakfast buffet in the hotel. I remember when I was in R floor means is Restaurant. It was very nice view front of beach near the hotel.

phillygold

Fully agree. There is nothing worse than arriving in the courtyard of an Embassy Suites, ready to eat breakfast....standing in the buffet line and discovering the scrambled eggs sitting in about 2 inches of "liquid". It totally ruins my appetite for breakfast !

Bulligan07

Ha, it's funny that somebody actually started a thread about this. One of my fondest college memories is hotel breakfast freeloading. I did it three times at the Embassy located on campus after long party nights. Me and a buddy actually took a 1 hour nap in the car while waiting for the 6am breakfast time!

JohnneeO

That was us at the Hampton Inn last year. We ate the free breakfast before checkout, then grabbed the bags for lunch. A cross-meal poach.

Raffles

About 10 years ago, I took an overnight train from Budapest to Prague. It had been a cr*ppy stay in Budapest with constant rain and I had left a day early to come back to Prague. Train arrived at around 6am at Prague station which was (still may be) a dump. Everything closed - I think it was a Sunday.

Despite being relatively poor at the time, I was fed up and decided I needed a good breakfast, so I wandered into the five-star place on the main street where the monuments are, heading up the hill.

I was fully prepared to pay for some food, but I was ignored by the staff despite walking into breakfast in a coat and carrying a bag. I had my breakfast and (on the basis that I hadn't cost the hotel any money since the food was all there anyway and would be chucked at the end of service .....!) I left without paying.

I don't regret it, and quite frankly it is actually less reprehensible than (for instance) when the hotel fails to charge you for something you signed for during your stay and you 'forget' to remind them at check-out.

pacer142

Still is. Just about the seediest and scruffiest mainline railway station I've ever had the misfortune to have to wait a couple of hours at.

Go upstairs and see what it *could* have been... compare this:-
http://www.ricksteves.com/images/eas...ue-station.jpg
with this:-
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/columns/0004/station030.htm

They wrecked a lot of things in the 70s and 80s...

Neil

Fornebufox

You have to have lots of turnover to avoid the eggs sitting in liquid, because it's just the nature of eggs to break down if cooked or held over too-high heat (one alternative is the weird scrambled egg cubes I encountered on the breakfast buffet at a BW in Kongsberg, Norway. I chose soft-boiled )

At hotels in Scandinavia there's usually a generous breakfast buffet. I've often noticed a sign on the individual tables "inviting" guests to make up a lunch packet -- at a cost of $6-10. But I've never felt guilty about pocketing an apple for later.

hobo13

I read elsewhere that this thread existed and went looking for it. Rather funny. Now I'm going to up the ante -- have you ever poached the pool at a hotel?

Back in my youth, my school group was staying at a cheap motel on the strip in Gatlinburg, VA. Several of us were upset that our school club was being cheap and that our motel didn't have an indoor pool (it was early spring). So we went next door, got in the elevator dressed in street clothes with swimwear underneath. Between floors everyone pulled off their street clothes, stuffed them in a bag, and exited on the pool level. The operation was reversed on the way out.

Mostly, it was for the thrill of it. But it did make for good stories.

Raffles

Yes. Was staying in a B&B in Sandton (Johannesburg) in 1996 and had a free Sunday - this was a work trip. I went to the InterContinental round the corner and spent the day by the pool reading the abridged version of 'Long Walk To Freedom'. And a very pleasant afternoon it was. I paid for all the drinks I ordered so the hotel didn't lose out.

I'm surprised more people don't 'crash' pools. Or perhaps they do - its obviously hard to tell.

ElkeNorEast

I used to work at a luxury hotel that was near a lot of luxury ($2.5million +) homes. Every freakin' day I'd have to stand on the meeting room level to shoo away the locals who would come over for their free breakfast - they would walk around and just help themselves to whatever was on the breakfast & break tables outside the conference rooms.

I also worked at another luxury hotel that had residences on the top floors; they could order room service & charge things to their apartments. Our restaurant opened for breakfast at 6.30am, but room service was 24hours. We put out coffee & muffins for the folks checking out before the restaurants were open. Every day one of the wealthiest men living in the apartments would come down the private elevator into the lobby at 5.30am and take 4 of the 8 muffins and fill a big carafe full of our coffee, and then he'd go back upstairs. When the breakfast guy was late he would sit on the sofa in his see-through robe from 1962 and complain. I finally sat him down and told him that if he would like muffins and coffee we could deliver them to his room as a standing order each day. He complained to the GM and the GM told him the same thing. Jerk.

N965VJ

Even if I’m staying at a hotel with a pool, I don’t go in. There’s either too much chlorine or not enough. Too many people these days with fresh tattoos and body piercings. Normally I’m not afraid of getting cooties, but that’s just gross.