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Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? Guess this Room Service Bill.

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As I mentioned here the other day, I recently spent a fun weekend at one of those fancy pancy resort hotels in Scottsdale, Arizona.

You know the kind. This place has every amenity a Kardashian girl could ever want including a spa, the obligatory trendy bar, gourmet restaurants, a beautiful swimming pool, and, of course, spacious multi-room suites that are almost as big as my home’s entire second floor. It also boasted a championship golf course, and bike and hiking trails.

The suites also had a very expensive hotel mini-bar that offered lots of overpriced beverages and snacks for sale like a liter of bottled water for $8, a mini-can of Pringles potato chips (with about 20 chips in it) for $5, and 6-ounce packages of cashews for $14.

Oh yeah, this place had it all — including room service. Which brings me to this month’s 5th grade economics test.

Here is a breakfast room service bill from the aforementioned resort:

  • Bowl of corn flakes with milk
  • Banana (1)
  • Wheat toast (2 slices)
  • Orange juice (1 large glass)
  • Coffee (3 cups)

Now here’s your challenge: tell me how much the final bill came to. Be sure to include any service charges and/or other room service fees you think the hotel might be so inclined to include, if any. Also assume an Arizona state sales tax of 6.6%.

Leave your answer in the comments section — and no cheating! I posted the actual room service total cost here, in my weekly Black Coffee column.

Good luck!

Photo Credit: danperry.com

Comments

  1. 1

    Thirty-five dollars!!! (love the blog!)

    • 2

      Thank you, Tracee!

  2. 3

    $30?

  3. 4

    $42, and let’s hope it was deductible.

    • 5

      I hope so too. 😉

  6. 8

    $37

  7. 9

    $25.45

  8. 10

    $22.50

  9. 11

    30.50

  10. 12

    I’m guessing about $45 and hoping you charged it on your Upromise credit card…..

    • 13

      Nope, but I did charge it on my dividends card!

  11. 14

    I came up with a guess of $26.22 including fees around 20% and taxes of 6.6%. Look forward to seeing how much corn flakes run, lol. 🙂

  12. 15

    I say $27

  13. 16

    $53.30

  14. 17

    $56.50

  15. 18

    $47

  16. 19

    I came up with $38.08.

    • 21

      Ah ha! We have a contrarian in our midst! 🙂

  18. 22

    $38.52

  19. 23

    $27.50

  20. 24

    $22.22

    did you drink all 3 of those cups of coffee?? I would have totally needed the morning off if I drank that much! 🙂

    • 25

      My limit is two cups per day, Kris — but usually only one! (I just get too jittery.)

  22. 27

    I should ask people how much breakfast cost at the hotel I stayed in India last week 🙂

    • 28

      Oooh, you should.

    • 29

      Okay, I’ll bite. How much?

  23. 30

    50 bucks!

  24. 31

    How about $27.50 total – wow, I really hope you enjoyed it!!!

  25. 32

    My guess is $25.00

  26. 33

    $32.50

  27. 34

    $28 but I imagine when you see it itemized it looks painful “One Slice of Dry Toast – $3”

  28. 35

    Considering that you stayed at a “fancy pants” resort in Scottsdale, my guess would be $105.00, tip not included.

    • 36

      LOL! Well, I will say it wasn’t THAT fancy pancy, Richard.

  29. 37

    I’m way late to the party and haven’t been in a hotel for a very long time. Before seeing the responses I came up with $42.50.

    If that is high, I started with $10 for the corn flakes and also added 20% fees to my total before adding $2.50 (rounded estimate) for tax. The coffee I rang up at $3 a pop.

  30. 38

    Whew, that is a relief…I was over by not quite $14…at least hotel pricing is not quite as exorbitant as I had feared.

  31. 39

    I am going to guess $35 for food and then $7 for the added tip plus fee for room service $7.50 Plus tax..$50 bucks total

  32. 40

    “I mean, it’s one banana, Michael. What could it possibly cost, ten dollars?”

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