{"id":4812,"date":"2026-07-31T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/?p=4812"},"modified":"2026-07-31T05:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T05:00:00","slug":"are-you-being-demanding-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/?p=4812","title":{"rendered":"Are You Being Demanding Enough?"},"content":{"rendered":"

If your biggest ask on your next vacation is an extra towel, you may discover you’ve been wildly underplaying your hand.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"hotel<\/div>\n

The world’s top hotels pride themselves on making the impossible possible<\/em>. But what happens when guests decide to put that promise to the test?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Such as? How about sunset on demand? Snow in the tropics? Breakfast with a giraffe? For luxury hotel GMs, these wonderfully absurd requests present a rather unique challenge: Just where do you draw the line when your brand is built on saying yes?<\/p>\n

As the number of UHNWIs continues to grow (by 2030, Altrata<\/a> forecasts the global ultra wealthy population will be up by 31 percent from H1 2025), so too does the appetite for once-in-a-lifetime experiences that money might \u2013 just might<\/em> \u2013 be able to buy. In part, the luxury hospitality industry has created its own predicament. For years, it\u2019s been assuring loyal guests that nothing is too much trouble. After all, the hallmark of great hospitality is making the improbable feel effortless \u2013 even if that comes at the unfortunate expense of the staff working behind the scenes to, metaphorically speaking, deliver the Moon on a stick.<\/p>\n

\"woman
\u00a9Shutterstock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So, what are some of the most lavish requests ever received? At Villa D\u2019Este in Lake Como, a delegation that was renting out an entire floor once asked for \u201call of the furniture to be removed, so they could replace it with [furnishings from their] own palace,\u201d the GM says. They arrived at the hotel with \u201cthree trucks full of furniture\u201d and staff transformed the entire floor to mirror the interiors of the guests’ home (which kind of defeats the point of staying in such a storied establishment).<\/p>\n

Another family, who had booked out the entire hotel and its residences for a few days, insisted there be \u201cno white or yellow flowers\u201d anywhere across the property. It was an awkward request, considering those colors have been in Villa D’Este’s signature floral scheme for decades. Nevertheless, the hotel obliged \u2013 replacing the extravagant displays at a cost of approximately $30,000 (charged to the guests, of course.)<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, over at H\u00f4tel Barri\u00e8re Le Majestic in Cannes, one guest was disappointed to discover that there was no padel court. No problem: the hotel swiftly resolved the issue by renting a nearby villa, rapidly redesigning its interiors to the guest’s specifications, and \u201cconverting the property’s tennis court into a padel court,\u201d says the hotel\u2019s GM. Requests for multimillion-dollar suite renovations, he says, are also routine.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"woman
\u00a9Shutterstock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Across the Atlantic at Jade Mountain in Saint Lucia, owner Karolin Troubetzkoy has fielded some requests that are harder to accommodate. She recalls one guest who was \u201cabsolutely determined that a monkey should deliver the engagement ring during his proposal.\u201d There was just one slight problem: \u201cSaint Lucia does not really have monkeys \u2013 but even had we found one, we had all kinds of horrifying visions of it disappearing with the ring.\u201d The resolve? \u201cWe spent considerable time persuading the gentleman that the lady in question would find it far more meaningful if he presented the ring himself. In the end, romance prevailed over the monkey \u2013 and, fortunately, the ring remained safely in human hands.\u201d<\/p>\n

On another occasion, a guest asked whether the hotel could \u201carrange for a limousine to drive them up Gros Piton.\u201d As you may know, Gros Piton is a steep mountain trail, not a road, and \u201ceven the most ambitious limousine would not make it past the starting point.\u201d The impossible request did, however, inspire the hotel\u2019s \u2018hiking butler\u2019 experience. «If we could not provide a limousine,» Troubetzkoy says, «we could at least bring limousine-style pampering to the mountain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, if all these stories prove one thing, it\u2019s this: If you don’t ask, you definitely<\/em> won’t get. Even if what you’re asking for is, say, a camel in a tuxedo (Ooh, that\u2019s a thought\u2026).<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If your biggest ask on your next vacation is an extra towel, you may discover you’ve been wildly underplaying your hand.\u00a0 The world’s top hotels pride themselves on making the impossible possible. But what happens when guests decide to put that promise to the test?\u00a0 Such as? How about sunset on demand? Snow in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4813,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","beyondwords_generate_audio":"","beyondwords_project_id":"","beyondwords_content_id":"","beyondwords_preview_token":"","beyondwords_player_content":"","beyondwords_player_style":"","beyondwords_language_id":"","beyondwords_title_voice_id":"","beyondwords_body_voice_id":"","beyondwords_summary_voice_id":"","beyondwords_error_message":"","beyondwords_disabled":"","beyondwords_delete_content":"","beyondwords_podcast_id":"","beyondwords_hash":"","publish_post_to_speechkit":"","speechkit_hash":"","speechkit_generate_audio":"","speechkit_project_id":"","speechkit_podcast_id":"","speechkit_error_message":"","speechkit_disabled":"","speechkit_access_key":"","speechkit_error":"","speechkit_info":"","speechkit_response":"","speechkit_retries":"","speechkit_status":"","speechkit_updated_at":"","_speechkit_link":"","_speechkit_text":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}