Ask any veteran hotel concierge what the job is really like, and you’ll rarely hear about restaurant reservations or theater tickets. Instead, you’ll hear about camels, chocolate statues, mare’s milk, and unicorns that mysteriously “migrated” for the season. Luxury hospitality has long operated on the unofficial motto that no request is too strange to at least attempt, and over the decades that philosophy has produced a surprisingly consistent list of oddball favorites.
These stories aren’t isolated flukes either. Across five-star properties in London, New York, Tucson, and beyond, similar categories of strange requests keep resurfacing, suggesting that wealthy and eccentric travelers tend to think alike. Here are seven types of bizarre requests that concierges say come up again and again.
1. Tracking Down Exotic Animals on Short Notice
Few requests test a concierge’s network quite like being asked to produce a live animal out of thin air. At the Loews Ventana Canyon Resort in Tucson, a newly hired concierge was brand new on the job when a guest requested a pair of camels, and she did her best to locate two perfect-seeming camels within 35 minutes[1]. The punchline arrived when the guest went to see the camels but opted out of the purchase when he found they were each missing a hump[1].
Camels aren’t the only creatures concierges have been asked to summon. One guest at the Grand Del Mar in San Diego wanted to surprise a friend heading to Peru, so he negotiated with the hotel staff to bring a llama, since they were going to Peru, and the hotel was able to fulfill the request before returning the borrowed llama home[2]. Even five-star London properties aren’t immune, as one head concierge listed a bride who wanted an elephant included in her ceremony among his most outlandish requests, though it was declined since only small animals were allowed on the grounds[3].
2. Sourcing Ultra-Rare Food and Drink From Anywhere on Earth
Concierges often function as personal supply-chain managers, and nothing proves that quite like requests for hyper-specific ingredients. One concierge was tasked by a wealthy guest to track down a specific brand of barbecue sauce that was only made in small batches by a company in Louisiana, then shipped not to New York but to the guest’s home on a Caribbean island[4]. It’s the kind of errand that sounds simple until geography gets involved.
Sometimes the ingredient itself is the strange part. The head concierge at the Lanesborough in London once fielded a request for mare’s milk, and it turned out the guest actually needed it to feed a hungry foal that had been orphaned while its owner was away, so the concierge managed to source all fifty kilograms of it and have it sent to the guest’s farm[4]. These requests rarely make headlines, yet concierges insist they’re far more common than most travelers would guess.
3. Unusual Bathing Rituals Fit for Royalty
Bathtubs seem to inspire some of the most extravagant demands in luxury hospitality. At The Savoy in London, a guest reportedly believed she was a reincarnated queen and asked for a bathtub of wild goat’s milk to bathe in[5], while over at The Ritz, another guest wanted to bathe in fresh seawater instead[5].
Not every unusual soak involves dairy or ocean water. A concierge in Montreal was once asked to handle what he called one of the most bizarre requests he had ever handled, when a celebrity client wanted his bathtub filled with jelly beans[4]. The scale of the task forced him to contact nearly every candy shop in the city just to gather enough to fill the tub completely, according to the account.
5. Saving the Day for Weddings and Last-Minute Proposals
Concierges frequently double as emergency wedding planners, and brides in particular seem to test that skill under pressure. At the Kimpton Hotel Vintage in Seattle, a bride realized just hours before her ceremony that her dress had been stained the night before, so the concierge personally made a trip to the local dry cleaner, helped clean the wedding dress, and then met the bride at the venue shortly after[7].
Celebrations tied to major life milestones can get equally elaborate. At the Inbal Jerusalem Hotel, a wealthy guest celebrating his son’s bar mitzvah asked the concierge to arrange a football pitch and an actual professional team to play against his son and friends, and the staff were able to put him in touch with one of the largest Jerusalem soccer teams, who were happy to participate[7]. These aren’t everyday requests, but concierges say some version of “make my celebration unforgettable” comes up constantly.
5. Pampering Pets Like VIP Guests Themselves
Traveling with pets brings its own category of demanding requests, and concierges say parents of pets can be just as particular as parents of children. One luxury concierge company recalled doting clients who wanted staff to fill a bathtub every morning, gently add the family’s pet fish, then hand-wash and air-dry the fish’s accompanying items daily[1], treating the animal like a full member of the traveling party.
Dogs get similarly royal treatment. At the St. Ermin’s Hotel in Westminster, a guest requested a daily supply of premium Kobe beef fillet exclusively for his dog, and the concierge team ended up buying and couriering the steaks from a nearby restaurant every single day[8], with two 150-gram Kobe beef steaks retailing for roughly fifty dollars in England[8]. It’s a small but telling reminder that in luxury travel, pets often get better room service than their owners.
6. Testing the Limits With Playful, Impossible Asks
Sometimes guests aren’t looking for a real solution so much as they’re curious whether staff will actually try. At the Hotel Indigo in Asheville, a guest asked for a unicorn to be waiting in his room, and concierge Katie Brown purchased a unicorn plush toy and drafted a cheeky but amiable note as a special surprise[8], explaining that real unicorns were currently out of season due to their migratory habits[8].
Other guests turn the whole exercise into a game with absurdly specific rules. One recent account describes a guest who ordered exactly three single M&Ms, not packages, with one for the guest, one for a partner, and one to split later, down to the exact count requested[9]. Concierges say these playful stress tests happen constantly, and the staff who handle them with humor tend to become the most memorable part of a guest’s stay.
What ties all seven of these categories together isn’t the animals, the food, or even the bathtubs. It’s the underlying belief, shared by high-end hotels worldwide, that hospitality means saying yes whenever humanly possible and getting creative when it isn’t. Concierges rarely complain about these stories either, since the strangest requests often become the ones they tell for decades afterward.
So the next time you’re tempted to ask a hotel for something outlandish, take comfort in knowing you probably won’t be the strangest call of the week. Somewhere, a concierge has likely already sourced a camel, filled a bathtub with jelly beans, or apologized for a unicorn’s poor timing.
