(Geoff Glave) writes:

It's the same with the mini-bar. The prices are so hight it's
literally comical - If I'm at a major chain I don't even bother
opening the thing. If, however, I knew a tin of pringles was only a
little bit more than what I'd pay in the 7-11 downstairs I'd probably
be in the thing all the time.

I've recently derived a perverse pleasure from asking the hotel to
completely remove all the cruft in the mini bar so that I can use it as
a refrigerator. Reactions have varied...considerably. Of course,
this is pointless with those electronic minibars where so much as
looking at a can of drink runs up the tab.

The hotel I stayed at in Fremantle Western Australia had a charge of
55c/min for the internet. I didn't even ask what the gouge would have
been on a phone call, preferring to use a mobile. One hotel in Melbourne
[Grand Chancellor] has free internet in rooms and charge a very
small premium for phone calls. They also have a nifty feature I haven't
seen anywhere else: the safe in the room has an inbuilt power socket for
recharging a notebook computer. So you can leave it behind and charge it
up without worrying whether it will be there when you return.