Personally, the worst I've done is take the notepads from a certain suburban NY hotel as they were the perfect size for shopping lists.

I do volunter convention work, and for us, the best story along this line was at the 1988 World Science Fiction Convention in New Orleans and the line to check in to the main hotel was *horrendous* due to a huge percentage of the hotel staff stationed in the stairways as the prior convention checked out and they were trying to take things like furniture, lamps, etc. That takes cojones!

The worst I can claim to have nabbed were the plastic gold coins on the bed at the Luxor in Las Vegas (as well as the mini shampoo/lotion/etc. bottles since they smelled particularly yummy) and the stationery from a number of hotels across the country (and actually there might be a few pads of paper from abroad too that I nicked before I left).

I know, I know, oh-so-daring. :)

No, I don't pull a Homer Simpson/Mindy Simmons in hotels ("Free shower curtain!"). Wonder if anyone actually does that, though...or did so as a result of that episode in the early '90s.

I've taken the nice paper-cloth bags that a certain hotel uses to hang your newspaper frpom the doorknob. They make excellent shoe bags.

An ice bucket from the hotel in San Juan during our honeymoon!

A luxe hotel in Vegas supplied us with two sets of lotion, shampoo and conditioner every day. We were there six days, so I brought them all home with me, and now I use them at the gym - perfect solution to not having to lug full size bottles to the gym.

Toiletries and notepads, but that's it. Oh, I did walk off with a navy blue swipe-key once, but that's because I thought I had lost it and found it months later blending into the lining on my navy blue purse.

My grandparents and DH's grandparents OTOH...my grandparents' bathrooms were fully stocked with Holiday Inn towels, and DH's grannie is notorious for "aarping". The biggest thing she's aarped was a hurricane lamp from the Mount Vernon Inn restaurant. We found it going through stuff for a garage sale, and she was surprised that we all were appalled LOL. She decided to give it away in the garage sale to get the karma off her record, as it were.

When we were cleaning out my grandmother's house after she passed away last Christmas, we found a beautiful white towel with the Mayflower Hotel logo -- evidently from her and my grandfather's honeymoon in 1948!

I have taken a couple of ice buckets - really, only a couple - from different hotels. They are great for a variety of things.

A couple of real-glass glasses seem to have migrated from Mandalay Bay into my cupboard...

A former colleague (a law professor, for the record) used to stock up on the toiletries and then donate them to the local women's shelter. I do believe there's irony here.

Aren't the toiletries there to be used anyway? What's the difference if you use them there or take them home? They are handy for travel or the gym. Anyway -- can't confess to taking anything bigger than notepads and pens. Oh, yes an ashtray from a hotel in Paris. For sentimental reasons. I don't smoke.

We're supposed to take toiletries, notepads and stationary. Ice buckets? Towels? No, haven't taken those. But I'd like to know how that gold tub went missing. Not like you can hide that in your suitcase.

We're supposed to take toiletries, notepads and stationery. Ice buckets? Towels? No, haven't taken those. But I'd like to know how that gold tub went missing. Not like you can hide that in your suitcase.

Heh-heh-heh - lots of anonymity here today...

I always take as many pens as I can from the DoubleTree. The one you use to check in, the two (replaced daily) in your room, the one you use to sign your bill at the bar, the one from check-in again when you go to ask for another cookie...

They write so smoothly.

I'm a fairly frequent biz traveler, and I take the stuff I'm meant to take -- toiletries, branded pens -- within reason (IE, I don't take everything not nailed down, and I don't take them if I haven't opened them). I've never taken towels or ashtrays or robes. I took hangars once, but that was because I'd sent my shirts to the laundry, and they came back on them. I'm not sure whether that was right.

I do walk out with swipe-keys a lot. But I think those are fairly well meant to be disposable, and I certainly don't profit by having them.

I travel frequently for work, and stockpile the mini-toiletries for donation to my local homeless families shelter. I'll take note pads (any shape) to keep in purse or car for shopping/grocery lists, reminders, etc. Doubletree's Bic pens are great! A hotel repair chap who'd come to my room to fix something commented that people will take anything not nailed down-- one of the most-frequent problems they have, he said, is people taking the lightbulbs!

Have never taken them, but have certainly thought about: luxe terry bathrobes, and those large wooden closet hangers.

Taking the plastic credit card like swipe keys is a good idea and not theft at all. A lot of personal information is stored on those keys. I always take mine and then cut them up the way you would with an old credit card.

That thing about hotel key cards being encoded with personal information is an urban legend:
http://www.snopes.com/crime/warnings/hotelkey.asp

I still have a lovely brass key fob from the Hong Kong Hilton, back in the 70s when they had actual metal keys for the rooms. The fob is huge and heavy - the intention was to prevent you from taking it, accidentally forgetting to turn it in or deliberately swiping it. As it turns out, I really did accidentally forget to turn it in, and after I got home and discovered it in my bag, I just couldn't bring myself to part with it, it's such a great reminder of the trip. Mea culpa.

I confess I took some incredibly wonderful smelling bark out of a dish of potpourri setting on my desk in a room at a Hyatt. I knew I'd never find the same "beachy" scent and it was heavenly. It's in my powder room now and every time I smell it, it brings back great memories of our trip.

I have a friend who applies this rule: Checkout at 1PM, she takes nothing. Checkout at 12, she takes the toiletries. Checkout at 11AM,pens and paper, too. Checkout before 11AM, everything that is not nailed down!

I take toiletries and shower caps to use at the gym.

Toiletries ... Big time

How does one steal a bathtub??? Do tell!

I run a literary themed inn (yes Gary Lee, you've been here..) and I would say that the vast majority of folks who stay here are very tidy, considerate and honest. My worst guests are bicyclists who use our expensive towels to wipe down their greasy bikes and shoes (we do charge them now for damaged goods) or the NEUROTIC sisters who rearrange EVERYTHING in their rooms--furniture, nick nacks--so strange. Perhaps it's the literary types we attract who are more considerate than most, nothing ever stolen at our Booklovers bnb.

I run a literary themed inn (yes Gary Lee, you've been here..) and I would say that the vast majority of folks who stay here are very tidy, considerate and honest. My worst guests are bicyclists who use our expensive towels to wipe down their greasy bikes and shoes (we do charge them now for damaged goods) or the NEUROTIC sisters who rearrange EVERYTHING in their rooms--furniture, nick nacks--so strange. Perhaps it's the literary types we attract who are more considerate than most, nothing ever stolen at our Booklovers bnb.

Once I took a really nice Bible from a Marriott, but wasn't that (sort of) the intention of those who put it there?