I left my favorite pillow at a hotel in Kingman(?), AZ. The family was doing the Route 66 roadtrip. I called. They never found it. I’m almost 100% sure I left it there.
I still wonder about that pillow. Cheap, worn-in, comfortable.
How did you get back into the country if you needed them to get back into the country and didn’t get them until you got home?
I was once sent from work to attend a conference at the Greenbrier, a very swanky resort in West Virginia. I left two pairs of trousers in the closet. When I realized, I called them, and they shipped them back to me at no charge. It was my only experience with that level of swankiness and I’m glad I didn’t have to pay for it myself, but it was a very good experience.
Left a really nice Buck knife in a Las Vegas hotel a while back. I called within a couple of hours of leaving but no one had seen it (surprise surprise).
On honeymoon in Antigua, the first night we were there my beloved left her handbag in the hotel restaurant. It contained £1,000 in cash, assorted credit cards and our passports. The next morning when we discovered it was missing we hotfooted it to reception in a total panic, only to find that our waitress had handed it in.
She got a hell of a tip the next time we saw her.
Sometimes they are too pro-active. One time I got a FedEx package at home after staying in a hotel for a business trip. It was a phone charger… It wasn’t mine.:smack: I guess someone else had left it there.
They had charged my credit card for the shipping too. I intended to mail it back and get the charges reversed, but I finally threw it in the garbage after it had sat on my kitchen counter for a coupla weeks. Oh well, they tried.
I just left a stuffed animal (“Emma”) in a hotel room that I have had for 11 years. It has almost been a week and I’ve called almost every day. The hotel can’t find her and swear they are looking. They also swear no one on their hotel staff would take her (shes a ragged old thing anyway–not very nice to anyone but me). I don’t know what to do. I am completely devastated. I can’t believe something would just disappear. Should I keep checking or is it time to give up?
Why would anyone have a hotel room for 11 years? 
oh sorry for the confusion…i’ve had the stuffed animal for 11 years.
I was just about to say something that it turns out I already said in this thread two-and-a-half years ago.
A dead body. They were nice enough to send it FedEx without involving the local police.
Well, technically, it was only part of a dead body, and really only the skin. Rather, than tanned hide of a cow so the death was never investigated. I did get my jacket back.
The library called me today. The lady said, “Your hotel mailed one of our books to us, and asked us to let you know. They didn’t charge you.”
I hadn’t even noticed yet that we’d lost it. Damn kids.
Only left something once, my fairly nice camera. Realised on the way to the airport, had time to go back, got it back. Staff hadn’t even cleaned the room yet but I wasn’t actually worried about losing it, because it’d be too risky for them and I do actually trust most hotel staff anyway. Cash I might have been worried about, but a camera from someone on holiday? Nah, you’d have to be an arsehole to take that, and most hotel staff aren’t arseholes.
I think I actually also might be one of those people who’s left a charger somewhere and not gone back for it because I lose chargers so often that I’d barely notice.
All the stories of people hunting for favourite toys and blankies are heart-warming. 
My daughter lost her one and only named toy (as in, she loved it enough to give it a name) in a circumstance that was much less my fault than the company’s (not a hotel), and she never got it back. She’s never forgotten it, either. She’d also never forget it if she had got it back. I’d be bigging them up endlessly and I’d give them great reviews.
Wow, that’s extra nice of them. Hope you posted the above onto their tripadvisor page?
When we left California, we spent the last night in a hotel. Mrs. B. managed to leave her Kindle behind. We called; they had it; our daughter retrieved it and mailed it to us. (We were a little frazzled, because someone had broken into our car overnight, taking mostly junk but delaying the start of our relocation journey by most of a day… which meant I didn’t get to drive past Lake Tahoe on the way out, for which the perps may burn in hell.)
I left a favorite shirt in a hotel somewhere - I toss dirty clothes on the closet floor as the week goes by, an I managed to overlook a dark green, band-collar shirt I treasured. (Still have the companion that’s just a tad small in the neck and chest and not as comfortable.) Didn’t even notice for too long to try and get it back.
I left my Kindle in a hotel room once. Got it back FedEx 48 hours later. Of course, we were staying at Wynn in Las Vegas, which is known for that level of service.
I left an iPad in a hotel room once. They mailed it back to me.
Once. It is a curious story. In 1969 I was heading to a conference in southern Germany and decided to spend a week in Zurich (where I had lived for a half year). I was staying at a hotel called Rigiblick (from which you had a good view of the Rigi mountain). A friend was supposed to meet me there and we go up to Germany together. In the middle of the week, I got a call from my wife that my father had died. I left the hotel in a hurry and left my pajamas hung on the back of the door. Then my friend arrived, discovered the pajamas and thought, how curious that the hotel provided pajamas. However, he discovered that they didn’t, worked out what had happened and brought them back to Montreal for me.
In 1988, my son was in Princeton to celebrate his 10th reunion. He was accompanied by his family that included his 2 1/2 year old daughter. She had a favorite doll, Grover from Sesame St. From Princeton, they drove to NY just for sightseeing and then were driving to Boston where my other son was receiving his M.Sc. from MIT. They left Grover in the hotel in Princeton. They bought a replacement in NY, but she rejected it. It was new and the “real” Grover wasn’t. She couldn’t nap without it.
Meantime, I had driven to Princeton where my brother lived and was staying with him. We were also heading to Boston for my son’s graduation, but a few days later, skipping NY. So I stopped at the hotel, picked up Grover, and met them in Boston. My granddaughter just about jumped out of her skin when she saw the real Grover. Crisis over. Incidentally, Bill Clinton spoke at the graduation and security was tight. Another speaker was an AIDS doctor who announced that AIDS was now something you lived with, rather than just died with.
My husband left his wedding ring in a hotel once - he takes it off to put lotion on his hands and he doesn’t always put it right back on again. When we called about it, they said they couldn’t find it. We were somewhat pissed about having to replace it - as it was, it was a replacement, the first having been ruined when he wore it while welding.
Now he’s wearing my grandfather’s wedding ring. I’d be super-upset if he lost it, but he’s been really good about keeping track of it.
Other than that, I don’t think we’ve ever left anything behind. Certainly nothing we ever missed.
Not my story, but recent and on-topic: Housekeeper finds, returns $8,600 to newlyweds
I should add to my prior post that I’m a bit anal about packing up from hotel rooms and the like. I will bring everything in the room to the bed, pack it all, stand the suitcase aside, then take another thorough look around the room. ANYTHING not being packed goes in a pile on the bed next to things like my jacket, shoes, wallet.
I think a lot of things get left behind because people leave them scattered around, assuming they will remember to go around and pick them all up - the ring on the sink, the jacket in the closet, the pajamas by the far side of the bed, the glasses on the night stand.
Bring it ALL together as step 1 and you’ll forget fewer things.
Our oldest used to visit and promptly scatter his (backpack of) belongings in a thin layer throughout the house, where they would stay until the minutes before he left. He never failed to leave at least two things, one of which was critical enough to come back for or have us ship. Sigh.
About 15 years ago I was on a 3 day trip in Virginia with my wife. The first night we stayed at a terrible hotel and had to move to a different, better hotel for the second night. We had a terrible time and were both out of sorts.
When we got home the next day we got a call from the second, better hotel. My wife had left her engagement and wedding ring on the nightstand. Neither one of us even realized it. We sent them a check for the cost to Fedex it home.