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10 Things Travel

What cities have the cheapest room service?

Who doesn’t love a little bit of room service?

Chances are, if you’ve stayed at a fancy hotel, you’ve called down for a pizza at night or a made-to-order breakfast for the morning.  Not everyone has the time to head downstairs for the $18 buffett when all you’re looking for is two eggs and some toast.  Why not have it freshly made and at your room so you can eat on your schedule instead of theirs?

At Your Service: A Hands-On Guide to the Professional Dining Room
At Your Service:
A Hands-On Guide to the Professional Dining Room

One game a friend of ours likes to play is “Guess the Room Service Price” using the room service menu from his many hotel stays.  Yup, it’s just like The Price Is Right, but without the prizes.

In one city, a bagel with cream cheese and some coffee ran $38… plus tip.  He should have gone down to the coffee shop or grabbed something at Starbuck’s after all.

So TRIPADVISOR decided to take the exact same meal and price it out at room service in cities around the country to see how things panned out.  The selected meal:

  • A club sandwich
  • dry cleaning of one shirt
  • and from the mini-bar: bottle of water, some peanuts, some vodka, and a soda

Maybe we’re just lucky – many hotels we stay at are offering water for free, and some also offer a “Raid the Mini Bar” coupon, allowing you to take one item for free to be comped at checkout.  Sure, it’s not every hotel, but the service-oriented ones are paying attention to things like this.

So what CITY WAS NAMED THE LEAST EXPENSIVE CITY FOR ROOM SERVICE based on the above critieria?

  1. Denver
  2. Seattle
  3. Minneapolis

For international travellers, you’ll want to hit

  1. Tunis, Tunisia
  2. Cape Town, South Africa
  3. Marrakech, Morocco

The most expensive room service?  Surprisingly it wasn’t New York City.

They were second, of course.  Who was first on the pricey list?  Las Vegas.  Number three was Washington DC.  If you’re travelling internationally, don’t order room service in Helsinki, Finland; Oslo, Norway; or Stockholm, Sweden.