World Traveller "Auntie"

As you probably already know by now, I relish being an "auntie" everywhere I go, and this auntie gets the chance to travel every now and then. So I'm writing to you now from the plush and lux J.W. Marriott resort in Phuket on tips and tricks I've come across to get the best from your hotel room, regardless of how many stars the hotel is plied with. Best of all, most of them I found doesn't require you to feel like a crummy pilferer, and are completely part of the service of the hotel.

Hotel Standard: Luxury

• Forgot your spectacles case? Fear a scratch on your Oakley's? Shoe shine cloth/mitt (a clean one of course!) are fantastic for storing or polishing sunglasses or spectacles. Remember to wash only with water and never with soap of any kind as they may dissolve the special expensive coating on your lenses. Trust me for experience on this one.
• While on the topic of shoes, look again in the shoe shine area to see if the hotel provides shoe bags. Those in linen are especially charming. They make great storage for knick knacks and I suggest you keep a few for storing small items like socks, jewellery, toiletry bottles, laptop chargers and undergarments when you travel.

Hotel Standard: Business

• Have laundry to do and don't want to buy expensive travel washing detergent for delicates and hand-wash? Use hotel provided shampoo or shower gel! These tiny looking shampoo bottles are usually standard issue these days, and besides washing your hair, come in handy as detergent for doing the occassional laundry in the sink or shower. They foam easily and rinse off easily and best thing is, are usually conditioner free and so generally have more soap content than commercial shampoos. These make them perfect as laundry detergent. Bottom line is, you use them for your hair, they're free, why not use them for your clothes?
  
  Some less experienced aunties will take these bottles home with usually one of two excuses: 1) I would use them at home (really? They're of lower quality than generic brands used at home) or 2) They come in handy when I need travel size bottles to pack my home brands when I travel (or you can just find more of these travel sized filled bottles with the soap provided free when you travel...)
• Can't remember what time zone you're in because you've travelled halfway around the world? Fret not! Utilize the morning call service usually found in most business hotels to wake you up. Most places have an actual real life person from the Concierge call to wake you, which helps most people get up faster than does a routine rhythmic ring. What's better (and less known) is that if you have a real life person, you can actually request a snooze by asking them to call you back in 5/10 minutes time to make sure you wake up. Automated wake up call systems also typically have snooze features these days. Just make sure you're awake enough to figure out which button to press.
• Fancy cold feet? Me neither. Many people bring bedroom slippers back home but unless you do actually use them at home (like in the kitchen where it could be grimy on the floor) honestly, why bother? Sure they're flat packed and generally troublesome to find when you need them, but I can't remember the last time I used a pair of bedroom slippers at home. Most of the time, they come in handy only when you visit a country in which it isn't standard practice to issue bedroom slippers. And mind you, quite a few good, expensive hotels in Europe and the US miss these out.
  
  Which brings me to my favourite pet peeve. Griping about the disparity of amenities provided by hotels across the globe. Seriously, there should be an international standard of amenities provided which goes into the assessment of the star system. I can go to a 4 star hotel in Asia and be provided with cotton buds, facial cotton, bedroom slippers (of course!), comb, toothbrush and internet connection, or find myself in a similar 4 star in Europe where none of these exist! Some of them are even from the same hotel chain, which is even more appalling.
  
  Generally, I find that Asian hotels are fantastic in providing mass manufactured, small size hotel amenities. My favourites are the ones in LCLMs (low cost labor markets) like India, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand... as they tend to make laundry bags in linen, which make excellent excellent laundry bags and for all purpose use any time you need a drawstring bag. I tend to find myself pilfering a few of these for use at home - good for most things like as laundry bags back home, storing books (reduces yellowing), delicate clothes and other knick knacks.