Why Aren’t Hotels Supplying Us With Toothbrushes & Toothpaste?

Typical hotel bathroom toiletries. Photo credit Chris Vollick aka @Canadian88

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When you go to a hotel they give you all sorts of toiletries from shampoo & conditioner to body lotion to special soap for your body versus your face. In my hotel stay experiences I’ve seen shower caps on the offer as well as sewing kits but never have I ever seen a small tube of toothpaste and/or a toothbrush in a hotel bathroom waiting to be used. Why is this? I have a couple of theories and have done a bit of research into it.

First, the toothbrush. You’d think that it is such a personal thing that no one would ever want to use a random toothbrush but to that I have two answers:

1. I have discussed travel options for toothbrushes before but even this isn’t the ideal especially if you travel regularly as seems to warp and mash the bristles of the toothbrush over prolonged periods of the brush being forced into the container.

Valet Parking Tipping Etiquette

24 Hours: Tips for Valet Parking by Keri Potipcoe (Click to enlarge)

Tipping. It’s a part of North American society that we deal with on a regular – some of us daily – basis. For certain services it is expected that you tip. Get a beer at a bar? Tip the bartender. Eat at a restaurant? Tip the waiter. Take a cab somewhere? Tip the driver. Have your car parked by a valet service? Tip them. But for parking valets who and when do you tip?

This was the question my friend Keri (aka @keriblog on Twitter) set out to answer. Keri is a journalist and wrote an article on January 9th about proper tipping of people who work as parking valets. Above is a screenshot of the article which I recommend reading because this blog post is a response to her article. (You can find the article yourself by going to http://eedition.toronto.24hrs.ca/epaper/viewer.aspx, clicking “Calendar” in the top bar and choosing Wednesday, January 9, 2013, and then going to AUTONET on page 20. Also, check out more of Keri’s stuff on her Autonet.ca Bio and Archive page here.) For all of you wondering who want me to cut to the chase, I respectfully disagree with her findings. (For the most part, below my little list I do discuss when I agree with her.)

It all started about two weeks ago when Keri tweeted the tweet below:

Interviewing valets for next week's articles. Basically – tip them both when picking up and dropping off.

— KeriBlog (@KeriBlog) January 2, 2013

I read it and was thrown by the idea of being expected to tip valets twice because of the concept that the parking and retrieval of the car are each separate services. Therefore, much as a I am all for the awesomeness that is Keri as a writer and person, I had to disagree and here’s four reasons why: