Leaving room key at the front desk?

[fourcats]

Is it common practice in Spain and Italy to have to leave your key at the front desk if you go out?

[agabbymama]

No, you don't leave the key at the front desk in Italy. We stayed at a hotel in Rome and another hotel in Venice in Oct '08. You keep the key.

[Susan-M]

We stayed at a fairly small hotel in Rome adjacent to Piazza Navona where we left our key at the front desk (they asked us to leave it... it was too large to carry around), and I'm pretty sure it was the same practice at the hotel in Barcelona. In Venice (Sofitel) we kept our key.

[Captain Canuck]

it was a large brass key with a fairly sizeable knob attached to it...not as bad as a tire rim to an old gas station bathroom but the same idea...too big to lug around

[cruisemom42]

It varies by hotel. If the hotel uses room keys (true keys) as opposed to electronic card keys, they will often be attached to a quite large fob to discourage you from carrying it with you.

[chipmaster]

Is it common practice in Spain and Italy to have to leave your key at the front desk if you go out?

 

In Venice the policy in our little hotel near st marks was to leave the key. We felt fine with that. BTW it was one of those old traditional keys from yesteryears.

 

In Barcelona at obviously a different more modern hotel it used a card key and as such we took it with us.

 

YMMV

[bellagirl]

At this particular hotel in barcelona, the keys are SO huge you have to leave them at the front desk! They have a slot at the front desk to slide them in. shelly:)

[nparmelee]

Depends on the place. At the Locanda Orseolo we left our keys with the desk, they were huge and heavy so we were happy to do so. The other hotels had the more modern credit card style keys except our B&B in Rome where we had a bunch of keys so we could get through the three doors we needed to at any time of day.

[fourcats]

Thank you to everyone for your feed back. I can understand why now I do remember seeing photos of the key fobs.

[texancruzer]

Also..... in some hotels the key must be placed in a slot to make the electric work when you enter your room. We were told they are a bit expensive to replace and were asked to leave them when we went out as they are lost frequently.