I’ve written broadly about my hotel pet peeves, as we all have our own preferences when staying at hotels. Regardless of whether we’re talking about luxury or limited service hotels, I appreciate a functional and well designed bathroom. There are certain hotel bathroom design choices that drive me bonkers, and leave me scratching my head.
Along those lines, there was recently a national story about how hotel bathroom design keeps getting worse. I’d like to talk about that a bit, and then share the hotel bathroom design choices that frustrate me the most.
In this post:
Are hotels cutting costs on bathroom privacy?
Big picture, we’ve seen the enshittification of the hotel industry as time has gone on, particularly in the United States. Hotel owners want to maximize their profits, and the major hotel groups only care about growing their total room count, even if it comes at the expense of quality or brand standards.
The Wall Street Journal recently had an interesting story about how “hotels are getting rid of proper bathroom doors and guests are revolting” (thanks to Jason for flagging this).
The story is specifically focused on how an increasing number of hotel rooms don’t have real doors between the main part of the room and the bathroom. Admittedly I think this applies more to limited service properties than more luxurious ones, but the idea is that we’re seeing more hotel rooms with sliding panels, frosted glass, curtains, or no separation at all, between the bathroom and the rest of the room.
Hotel owners suggest that this trend is due to rising construction, maintenance, and energy costs, which are causing them to cut corners. Simplifying room layouts not only reduces construction costs, but also reduces long term costs.
However, an increasing number of guests are furious about these design changes, and point out how it makes it increasingly awkward to share hotel rooms with others. The idea is that what happens in the bathroom shouldn’t be seen, heard, or smelled, outside of the bathroom area.
Some people don’t even like this layout when staying at a hotel with a long-term spouse, but say it’s manageable. Meanwhile they say it’s completely unacceptable for situations where you’re staying with a friend or other family member.
Now, I’m not sure to what extent this is actually impacting stay decisions, but some people claim they’ve started calling hotels before their stays to ask about what the bathroom setups are like, for situations where it’s not clear based on the website.
Proper doors seem to be the latest thing to be eliminated from hotel rooms, following the elimination of things like proper desks, seating areas, etc. And let’s not even talk about the elimination of things like housekeeping and room service.
My hotel bathroom design choice pet peeves
I’d like to think that I’m not too much of a diva when it comes to this stuff, but it never ceases to amaze me how poorly designed some hotel bathrooms are. You’d think that if you’re going to take a design and use it hundreds of times (across all rooms in a hotel), you’d make sure that it’s functional. Yet all too often, I’m just in disbelief at how poorly designed hotel bathrooms are.
Let’s start with privacy:
- Just like the above complaints, I agree that hotel bathrooms should have proper privacy, separating them the bathroom from the rest of the room; this should be a real door, and not frosted glass, or anything that’s sliding (even from a light pollution perspective, if someone needs to use the bathroom in the middle of the night)
- For hotel rooms that aren’t super compact, ideally there’s actually some proper separation between various parts of the bathroom, with the toilet being in one room with a door, the sink and shower area being in another part of the room, etc.
- All of this glass shield and peep show stuff needs to stop; like, it’s fine to have a glass shield if it has blinds that can be lowered all the way, but unless you’re renting hotel rooms by the hour, bathrooms should be about functionality, and not helping people put on some sort of a sexy show
- It’s particularly important for privacy to be a consideration in rooms with multiple beds, where it’s less likely that the guests are a couple
Then there’s the shower situation:
- Showers should be completely enclosed so that water doesn’t flood into the rest of the bathroom; it always amazes me how many showers just have a half glass shield, and then the shower is elevated above the rest of the bathroom, so that water flows out
- The temperature and pressure controls should be clearly labeled and easy to use; I’m not claiming to be a stable genius, but I’m also not some complete idiot, and if I can’t figure out how to use the shower controls, then they’re too complicated
- The shower controls should be controllable without having to step into the shower; that seems so obvious, but so many showers require you to get wet to even select the pressure and temperature, and it shouldn’t be that way
- Personally, I very strongly prefer a walk-in shower or a proper soaking tub, and I hate the shower/tub combos, as I feel like they give you the worst of both worlds
Privacy and poorly designed showers are my two biggest hotel bathroom issues. However, it’s also worth mentioning the whole category of hotels that try too hard to make their bathrooms look stylish, rather than focusing on function (which partly overlaps with the above).
For example, take SAX Paris, Hilton LXR. The below bathroom looks stylish, right? Double sinks in a room the size of a broom closet is nice, but the issue is then that there’s virtually no counter space. So it’s a situation where I almost wish the sinks were smaller (or there were one sink), so that there would be more room to actually place things. And don’t even get me started on how the sinks sprayed, and how they were oddly difficult to use.
Bottom line
There are many things that contribute to a good hotel stay, including functional and thoughtfully designed bathrooms.
It seems that hotel bathrooms are the latest area of cost cutting for many hotel developers, as they choose to no longer have proper doors between bathrooms and the rest of the room. That’s not great, and it’s a trend that many guests aren’t happy about.
My frustrations with hotel bathrooms go beyond that, though. Yes, privacy needs to be a huge focus, but I also think that so many hotel showers are so poorly designed, in terms of ease of use, stopping water from gushing outside of the shower, etc.
What do you make of the evolution of hotel bathrooms, and what are your pet peeves?
The half shower doors, I understand that frustration as it literally makes the bathroom floor soaked.
The privacy part has an easy solution. Stop sharing rooms with adult friends. The number of women who do that is mind blowing. If you have a child, get a connecting room for them and hire a nanny lmao. Otherwise, get an Airbnb or Vrbo. Or hell, use the hotel lobby bathroom to take your post coffee dump.
If an hotel cannot offer a two bedroom, two bathroom suite, for our preferred dates, then we look for an alternative.
How about shower heads mounted so low on the wall that if you are taller than 5 feet tall you have to duck to not bash your head into it?
Not enough towel bars and hooks (especially when they have a placard asking you to reuse hotels for environmental concerns)
Some of the pictures really drive the point home:
Water spilling out? Check.
Unintuitive placement of shower controls and toiletries? Check.
No shelf/rack to put my own toiletries? You bet.
Towel rack with fresh towels sitting right in the splash zone? Of course.
I mean, I've stayed at cheap Etap hotels that featured a shower inside a glass tube right in the room. At least the glass was frosted in strategic places. You expect better at an upscale hotel.
Are there really hotel rooms where the toilet is not separated by a door from the sleeping area? That seems difficult to imagine. Shower/tub/sink not separated by a door (could be ok in some contexts) is a very different issue from the toilet not separated by a door (is never ever ok).
I have yet to encounter a walk-in shower at any hotel—whether independent or chain, at any price point or star rating—that features a design not virtually impossible to clean and maintain, particularly with respect to mold and mildew. Sliding doors or half-doors invariably have seals or gaps that foster mold and mildew, and housekeeping staff cannot easily clean those areas. Most hotels are too cheap to regularly replace runners, seals, or caulking.
Bad:
no bar of soap, just communal liquid soap
toilet paper behind you, not to the side or in front of you
minimal counter space
no handheld shower head
sliding shower door on a shower/tub combination with a track on top (not on the ceiling) so you can bump your head while getting into the shower, along with tub faucets that twists to the side. This was in a cheap hotel near JFK
Glass walls in the bathroom are more common in other parts of the world than Europe; glass is not as thick as a wall.
I hate them wherever they are.
and if they are going to put them there, have some dimmer lights available (not in place of stronger lights - which is also a pet peeve)
With you 110% on the complaints about showers and lack of counterspace!
The elimination of desks sucks, and what the Hell happened to drawers in hotel rooms?!?
I generally agree with everything Ben wrote, but I have to admit that there was a time when I appreciated a design choice like this. Once, when on a business trip, I was put up in a hotel more upscale than I typically stayed in at the time. I don't normally take baths, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to try out the oversized Jacuzzi in the bathroom. There was a glass window that allowed...
I generally agree with everything Ben wrote, but I have to admit that there was a time when I appreciated a design choice like this. Once, when on a business trip, I was put up in a hotel more upscale than I typically stayed in at the time. I don't normally take baths, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to try out the oversized Jacuzzi in the bathroom. There was a glass window that allowed me to look into the living room and watch the living room TV while in the Jacuzzi. I really enjoyed watching TV from the bathtub.
I might have felt differently had I been sharing the room with someone else.
My biggest recent issue is the bottles of soap/shampoo/conditioner attached to the wall of the bathroom. I don't mind the actual bottles, but since I need readers to see, I can never read which is which. Either the font is too small, or the contrast between the letters and the bottle color is not contrasting enough. Very simple solution, enlarge the font and make it readable.
As for the rest, I'm an exhibitionist, so I could care less about privacy :)
Can't stand the half shower wall. Can't stand the lack of counter space.
(Reposting for the nth time...)
I don't get the point of double sinks unless it's a positively enormous bathroom. You'll likely need to be moving about, retrieving things etc when you try and do the shaving, makeup or whatever it is for which you need the sink/mirror combination for more than a few seconds, it just doesn't work for me if there's another person around.
I haven't really observed a trend of worsening bathrooms. If...
(Reposting for the nth time...)
I don't get the point of double sinks unless it's a positively enormous bathroom. You'll likely need to be moving about, retrieving things etc when you try and do the shaving, makeup or whatever it is for which you need the sink/mirror combination for more than a few seconds, it just doesn't work for me if there's another person around.
I haven't really observed a trend of worsening bathrooms. If anything, I find that encountering a walk-in shower with lots of pressure in an Ibis Styles or similar midscale hotel is a lot more likely now than it used to be 10-15 years ago.
In my experience, the glass partitions are less about saving on construction costs and more of a case of trying to incorporate edgy design and/or make the room seem slightly bigger than it actually is.
100% agreed about double sinks. I don’t get it. I never share the bathroom with someone (at the same time) and both my wife and I want as much counterspace as possible.
And, both showers and bathrooms should - of course - be fully enclosed :)