Pillow mints and gratis shoeshines are kid’s stuff. In the increasingly competitive world of value-added services, hotels are taking “Western hospitality” to a whole new level.

Hotel Grand Pacific, Victoria
Concierge Stephen Vincent regularly completes improbable missions, like filling a room with one hundred long-stemmed red roses. The trick? “You phone a lot of people, and be very nice.” But he says the Hotel Grand Pacific’s toughest request came from the guest who returned to his room at 2:30 a.m., after a comprehensive tour of the city’s pubs. All he wanted to do was curl up with a plate of tandoori chicken, but the hotel’s kitchen (like most of early-to-bed Victoria) was closed. The solution involved the improbable combination of a bellhop, a luggage van, and a Nepalese/Tibet restaurant on the verge of locking up for the night. The result? “He got his chicken,” says Vincent, “so he was a very happy man.”
(250) 386-0450,
www.hotelgrandpacific.com

The Met Hotel, Edmonton
If guests aren’t satisfied with martinis or “beer in a bucket” (that’s bottled beer served in an iced bucket, not a pail brimming with draught), the Met will happily dispatch a bellman to fetch a bottle or three. “And the guest usually needs a package of cigarettes,” notes Grant McCurdy, general manager of the Met Hotel and its sister establishment, the Varscona, “so we’ll pick those up, too.” Bellmen will also indulge guests’ unwavering brand loyalties by fetching double-tall-skinny-no-foam-soy cappuccinos from specific cafés (Starbucks, Second Cup, etc.). These troupers will even go that extra mile. Literally. In your car. For $15 (tip included), the valet will detour to the nearby Bubbles Car Wash – “The Champagne of Car Washes – no less!), where your ride will receive a soft-brush, interior-exterior pampering.
1-866-465-8150,
www.methotel.com

Delta Bow Valley, Calgary
On the eve of a big presentation, a business team discovered their laptop sound card was kaput: They needed the Top Gun soundtrack, and badly. (Don’t ask.) “It’s surprisingly hard to find,” says Delta Bow Valley chef concierge Jonathan Allen, but a bellman was up to the task. When a high-profile guest – again, discretion is the word – really, really needed to play backgammon , half an hour before toy stores closed for the night, a desk clerk rose to the challenge. And when a guest arrived at a 9 a.m. meeting on the other side of the city, only to discover he’d left his false teeth back at the hotel, Allen himself chauffeured the mislaid choppers across Calgary. “It wasn’t something I could send in a taxi,” he says. “So I met the guest in the lobby of his office building and discreetly gave him his teeth back.”
1-877-814-7706,
www.deltahotels.com

Fort Garry Hotel, Winnipeg
The staff of this historic hotel feels your pain knows that the most extreme indulgences are those you needn’t request. The concierge furtively scans incoming visitors for telltale signs of sickness (sneezes, coughs, runny noses) not out of hypochondriacal self-preservation, but love! After they check-in, ailing guests are surprised with a complimentary bowl of steaming chicken noodle soup. “They don’t have to ask for it,” says Ida Albow, Managing Partner. “It’s just a little something we like to do.” No tin cans were harmed during this kind act, either: The healing broth is made entirely from scratch in the hotel’s acclaimed kitchen, just the way Grandma used to make it. (Or Bubbe — the Garry does kosher, too.)
1-800-665-8088,
www.fortgarryhotel.com

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