Edit: apparently the virus has spread, and some US hotels now don’t have them

Now those places anre on the wrong side of the depreciation curve, and every chain hotel is a little worse every day. They bill upfront since COVID, don’t clean the room, shrink the towels and deliver a shittier level of service. I was at a Marriott recently where the room had no linens - no towels, sheets, pillows, nothing.

I called and was instructed to do everything myself, and the hotel GM’s attitude was that “shit happens”.

But then hotel do dumb things like fully enclose a barfridge in a cupboard too.

There does not seem to be a tag for it yet. That there are apparently hundreds of instances, and it being definitely something you'd want to select for, makes me think it's a good fit for OSM. Currently, hotels can already have tags like phone number, reception opening hours, WiFi fees, etc. It might even be a good fit for the toilets:* namespace, since this has overlap with toilets in (semi-)public spaces offering different levels of privacy

When you are bootstrapping and flying a team to a conference, sharing twin rooms is standard procedure to stretch the runway. There is nothing that kills the vibe of a "strategic roadmap discussion" faster than realizing you have zero acoustic privacy from your co-founder using the toilet 3 feet away.

It feels like hostile architecture specifically designed to break the "business frugality" use case. We ended up switching to Airbnbs solely because of this.

I now need extra wide space in the bathroom, so before booking I always check images on hotel-booking web sites, read reviews and look up video reviews of the hotel on YouTube.

There are surprisingly many video reviews of hotel rooms out there. Videos can also sometimes reveal whether a hotel bathroom has a particularly noisy fan, which is important to avoid for sleep.

The weirdest hotel bathroom I've encountered was in a top-floor suite. It had a door, but... multiple toilet seats and showers with no individual doors in-between them, nor to the multiple washbasins. There was no shortage of space for doors or partitions.

Boldest choice thus far was the one with the OPS next to the kitchenette.

There are some very strange people out there...

Yes, it was a one-way mirror looking in. A number of people who had booked rooms together had an exercise kicking their roommate out of the room to take showers that week.

Somehow I seem to be in the minority with this opinion. But if we’re sharing a room we’re probably pretty comfortable with each other.

What I want is:

- clean, comfortable bed. Preferably without pubic hairs from the previous occupant (which is what happens if the hotel cuts corners on servicing the rooms).

- a simple but functional shower with hot water

- enough toilet paper. I don't care about anyone folding the first sheet over. Who does that at home? Absolutely no-one I know.

- Power plugs next to the bed so I can charge my phone and use it while I'm on it.

- A window that can open and an AC with an off button.

- Wifi that works just like at home and doesn't kick me out every morning because some cookie expired.

- Bonus points if I don't get to listen in on the TV next door.

What I've found in some expensive premium hotels is the exact opposite of all of the above. Stuffy warm rooms. Barely functional plumbing. Windows that cannot open "for my safety", ACs that are producing noise and bad air 24x7 that are turned off at night to save energy. But the light fixtures are beautiful. And there are 20x more pillows and blankets on the bed than I need.

Some of the best hotels I've had were very affordable budget affairs aimed at return customers that are like me. Basically good management and pragmatic decoration is all you need to turn a mediocre room into a very comfortable one.

Another hotel in a small town here in Germany where it had shutter-style doors and where the roof of the bathroom didn't go all the way to the actual ceiling, so you can hear everything.

Both in the name of aesthetic, clearly.

https://davebarry.substack.com/p/hotel-showers

What happened to bathroom doors? [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFPGUTyo9Yk

(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46062242)

I really prefer bathrooms with a separate door for the separate toilet from the rest of it. And the shower has to be a walk in, but bathtubs are really only common in North America outside of higher end resorts that have both a separate walk in shower and a bathtub.

As for showering, I don't really care to be honest. I'm cleaning my naked body. It's not some super secret affair that nobody is allowed to see.

Having said that I've yet to encounter a hotel where the toilet/shower isn't private.

What I really care about when travelling is being able to sleep which means the correct noise level and temperature. Far too many hotel rooms are simply too warm. Who the hell can sleep at 23 degrees with gigantic fluffy duvets designed for Nordic countries and no fan/airflow?

I've thought about making a similar site for this issue before but, ultimately, I don't travel anywhere near enough for it to be worth it. These days I just assume travelling will be shit sleep, and if it isn't then it's a bonus.

Rooms with two queen-sized beds sitting next to each other are pretty standard, even in mid and high range hotels, while I’ve never seen those elsewhere.

So yeah people share these rooms as it’s usually quite cheaper than getting two rooms. I did it with friends and my in laws.

Not only do they leave a multiple inch gap, but are very easily opened by my curious one and two year old children.

There was zero privacy the entire trip.

Bring back real doors, with locks!

Well, there was this hip-high divider wall, barely enough to hide my cheeks while I took a shit. Forget about masking sounds and smell.

I generally enjoy eye contact with my wife, but not while I'm pooping!

One doorless bathroom if you are interested:

https://cf.bstatic.com/xdata/images/hotel/max1024x768/919323...

Has become this new weird step to take during bookings.

A standalone web site isn't going to make it into the hotel's metrics, "the most driver of sub-9/10 ratings is the lack of bathroom doors" will make them find a way to reinstall them pronto.

Personally I like having both. Doors are great for a variety of reasons, not just privacy.

The free wifi in my last hotel in Tokyo was 800Mbps symmetric. I’m ruined forever.

In what country or region are we here? I've never seen a bathroom without a door in a hotel.

Or anywhere, really, for that matter.

Although I’ve never stayed in a hotel without bathroom doors, they frequently have sliding doors which don’t seal properly. So that’s the first thing I look out for nowadays.

The worst I've experienced was a sliding barn door which covered either the bathroom or the clothes rack. If I wanted my clothes to breathe, I had to shut the bathroom with a door that only impedes movement and does not provide privacy. If I wanted to move around freely, I had to shut my clothes in!

"There has to be a safety/design reason for this," I thought. And, sure enough, there is: https://old.reddit.com/r/hotels/comments/1gmearh/hotel_desig...

TL;DR: Sliding doors are an easier way to keep hotel rooms up to code long-term than doors that need to be refitted/redesigned if the room changes.

To me, what's more annoying than sliding bathroom doors (which honestly haven't bothered me that much, though I usually travel alone) are:

1) Sliding shower doors that are ill-fitted and don't close properly, and

2) Bathrooms without proper ventilation (though I learned why vent fans are uncommon in hotels in the US: https://old.reddit.com/r/CasualConversation/comments/18z9sd0...)

Joking aside, I find this far more in newer European hotels for whatever reason (though I'm sure it exists stateside and elsewhere too). My wife and I at this point just agree to tell each other when we're going to occupy it because we don't feel like it getting weird. Feels like - if the conspiracy-ish theory of it being used to dissuade people sharing rooms is true - they're inadvertently throwing out the couples dynamic.

To borrow another Seinfeld bit: there's good naked and bad naked. The glass door problem invites the latter.

No door, one less thing to worry about.

- bullshit wifi connectivity (e.g. captive wifi + OTP)? - normal wifi but with very long password? - is there a place to put toiletries in the shower? - clean? - time to check in and check out?

Where I travel the hotels without bathroom doors have not proliferated yet. I've been in a few, even when I am alone I hate the experience.

On the topic, though... I want a desk that isn't made of glass so that I can use a mouse. Optical mice have been the standard for years, and of course I don't carry a mousepad. Who thinks glass desktops are good?

https://dynamic-media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-o/2e/9...

They have a reason for this choice. I remember studying it at university—the professor said that when people have intimacy, there's no need for doors.

But what if you have a guest? And what if your poop stinks?

Incredibly low-IQ people.

Is it just me, or have hotel rooms gotten dimmer?

It seems less cheerful.

    - ceiling lights
    - shower curtains or glass box
    - 7 ft tall (minimum) shower head
    - firm mattress