Sex Packets Becoming Popular Hotel Amenity

At The Water Club, the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa's ultra-posh luxury hotel, you've got 60 seconds to decide if you're in the mood.

If a package of adult personal care items including condoms and other intimate products called "The Passion Kit" isn't put back on the shelf by then, the hotel automatically charges you for it.

Since the hotel opened next to the Borgata at the end of June, the sex kits are the top-selling in-room item. Drew Schlesinger, vice president and general manager of The 800-room hotel, says they've sold more than 1,500 of the kits at $18 a pop.

"I actually had one woman get upset because there was only one kit in her room," he said. "I didn't ask why."

It's definitely an edgier trend in the hotel business, but one that's catching on. Some hotel chains offer similar packages, and a few hotels in Manhattan offer free condoms as part of their bathroom array, along with the toothpaste, shampoo and soap.

At Six Columbus, a hotel in New York City, guests can purchase a "Shag Bag" including condoms and other intimate items. Its sister property, 60 Thompson, offers an `Intimacy Kit," which is "a step up from the regular Shag Bag," spokeswoman Olivia Taylor said.

The kits are a big seller at the Thompson properties as well.

"It's kind of an easy way to purchase these items without having to go to a store," she said. "Guests really seem to like it."

At The Water Club, right there on a display atop the dresser next to boxes of peanuts, chocolate-covered cherries and other goodies, sit the Passion Kits. A light sensor determines when the item is lifted from its spot in a dresser-top display, and automatically charges the item to the guest's bill if it's not replaced within a minute. (Schlesinger assures that someone who doesn't use the kit but is billed for it will get a refund upon request.)

The Water Club kits also include scratch-off "lottery tickets" that tell which particular type of intimacy the user has "won."

"If you do it right, everyone is a winner," Schlesinger said.

The hotel definitely discourages children. You must be 21 or older to rent a room there, and even if accompanied by an adult, children are still banned from using the hotel's spa and five swimming pools.

"We would actually rather you didn't bring your children," said Larry Mullin, the Borgata's president. "You've got a Passion Kit in the room; that's for adults to have fun with."

The kits can be hidden or removed from a room if a guest requests in advance.

And last but not least, the hotel's "Do Not Disturb" signs go into much greater detail than those elsewhere, with a movable wheel listing numerous possible reasons why the occupants don't wish to be interrupted at a given moment. The appeal of the signs is so great that they have become collector's items.

"I lose those things by the thousands," Schlesinger said.