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Bring bathroom doors back to hotels

804 pointsposted 2 months ago

689 Comments

decimalenough

2 months ago

I once stayed at a very boutiquey, avant-garde hotel with a platonic friend. We had booked a twin room with separate beds, but what I did not expect was that the shower cubicle, with clear glass on all three sides, would be placed between the beds.

trhway

2 months ago

The world makes full circle. A 4-toilet (2 facing the other 2 for lively conversation) bathroom per floor, no walls whatsoever between the toilets, "open layout" so to speak, in our dormitory in high school (regional school for advanced science studies) in USSR in 80-ies come to mind. Looks like we were living the boutiquey avant-garde way of the future :)

madaxe_again

2 months ago

Sounds like the various RAF bases I did stints at as a cadet - the ablutions were just a great big room full of loos, showers, and bathtubs, all with dark brown water, and absolutely zero privacy of any variety.

The exposed loos were a novelty for me, at school we at least had shoulder height partitions - but we had communal showers and baths so it wasn’t a huge leap.

I also spent a year or so living in a studio where the loo was in the kitchen area - we at least installed a curtain.

technothrasher

2 months ago

> RAF

On a trip I took with my father-in-law, the first morning he waltzed right into the little hotel room bathroom while I was showering (in a glass shower) and proceeded to sit on the throne and take a crap. I was confused at his lack of basic respect for privacy, and then remembered he'd been a US Navy guy for many years. Military folks just get used to no privacy in such matters.

rsynnott

2 months ago

2 months ago

[flagged]

Ylpertnodi

2 months ago

"Some artists are communists".

KineticLensman

2 months ago

In London's Shard, the gent's toilets of the observation deck (on approx the 70th floor) have glass walls behind the urinals so if you look straight ahead while using them it is as if you are peeing on the city of London from a great height.

alexfoo

2 months ago

The old Warner stand at Lord's cricket ground used to be where the press watched from (before the new Media Centre was built). The urinals in old stand used to have windows above them looking out over the pitch so that the journalists wouldn't miss anything whilst they urinated.

2 months ago

2 months ago

wow, it is actually the one me and my SO stayed at! specifically this[0] kind of room. when reading your description i immediately thought about this one. we did have a gentleman's agreement, "can you please put on your noise cancelling headphones and don't look back, i gotta..."

It's called foreplay. Jk.

2 months ago

Was it made of glass?

I've stayed in a hotel where the toilet door was made of glass, and had big gaps. I was staying with an acquaintance, so things were really awkward. It didn't help that the shower was right in front of this frosted glass, so the person's entire silhouette was very visible when showering.

Another time, in Amsterdam, I stayed at an AirBnB where the toilet was on the balcony, and had a glass door (non-frosted) in the kitchen. Yep, if you needed to go, and someone was cooking, or was a neighbour, they were looking right at you.

thaumasiotes

2 months ago

In Hyperion, the character Martin Silenus is rich enough that he lives in a novelty palace where all the rooms are connected by teleporters. As a joke, the bathroom is a wallless raft on an ocean world.

Outside of the realm of science fiction, my sister followed a TV show for a while that was basically a set of advertisements for a modular home company. One episode featured the installation of a small home on a remote British island; the shower was a pipe outside the house itself.

Loughla

2 months ago

We installed an outdoor shower at our house. There's nothing as nice as a cold shower outdoors on a really hot day. It feels so luxurious that I can pretend I'm a rich person instead of lower- to mid-middle class.

We live way out in the boonies, so that helps.

tbrownaw

2 months ago

Also really good for a house that has beach access.

2 months ago

I've seen this. Sometimes, they have curtains. I don't really understand what the point is though. It's definitely not price. I would imagine that it's costlier to add a window to a wall than just to brick it. I thought it was to allow one to watch the TV while taking a shower or a bath. It's the most reasonable thing I could come up with.

kuschku

2 months ago

What I believe:

It's to encourage e.g. two coworkers to get separate rooms instead of one room with separate beds. The increase in revenue is more than the construction cost.

noufalibrahim

2 months ago

That's equal parts evil and clever. And completely plausible. You've just reduced my faith in humanity a little. Thanks. :-/

grugagag

2 months ago

Review and vote with your wallet and your feet

venturecruelty

2 months ago

This strategy is so successful, it brought down Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Philip Morris, Frito-Lay, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Monsanto, and Boeing.

Aloisius

2 months ago

People voting with their wallet are why Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Philip Morris, Frito-Lay, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Monsanto and Boeing are still in business.

dotancohen

2 months ago

This erosion of privacy is being taken to extremes.

One of my short stories takes place in a not-to-distant future, where there is absolutely no privacy. In one chapter a child goes to a bathroom in an old building, and he sees that there is not only a door, but there is a contraption on it. A lock! The child runs out of the bathroom in fright. The audience learns only a little later that the child is frightened about what human-eating animals might stalk prey in that area, that anybody would ever think to lock themselves in there.

kakacik

2 months ago

It was quite shocking for me as somebody from eastern Europe to see ie Danish or Dutch homes having no curtains whatsoever, so me walking on sidewalk looking at them 3m from me behind the windows having breakfast, in pyjamas, kids doing early morning nasal cavities treasure hunt with finger etc.

Same for living rooms and bedrooms (those I would expect to at least have some curtains aside).

Still not used to it, i like my privacy and ability to shamelessly say scratch my butt when alone if needed.

2 months ago

That sounds utterly dystopian

Welcome to 18th-century small-village politics.

TitaRusell

2 months ago

Priests used to visit houses if the wife had not been pregnant for a while.

Most of us do not realise how utterly NEW individuality and freedom is. Not so long ago we were all Taliban.

dotancohen

2 months ago

Most of us (humans) still are. Only in Europe and the Americas is privacy or individually widely acknowledged.

jonasdegendt

2 months ago

The Dutch simply shamelessly scratch their butt, and if someone's watching that's their problem ;)

2 months ago

I’m sorry, do you mean Orwell’s “1984”? Because all I can find for “1948” is an Israeli autobiographical novel, that, as far as I can tell, doesn’t resemble “We”. (Although, imho, “1984” is quite different from “We” as well.)

dotancohen

2 months ago

Yes, I meant 1984.

RoyTyrell

2 months ago

Yes! I was just recently traveling for work in a decent hotel but not a suite, just one with two queen beds but by myself. It had a glass barn door and the top half was frosted glass with "painted" glass on the bottom. Irritating but at least it was just me.

tohnjitor

2 months ago

The worst aspect of the TWA Hotel at JFK Airport was the sliding bathroom door. Almost everything else about the place was really great but the bathroom door wae 1/2" from the face of the wall and bounced off the end of the slider track.

bcoates

2 months ago

2 months ago

Oh, yes it can.

There was a time, over a year ago now, when I was working on a project that required some very raunchy, dirty, absolute gutter language.

ChatGPT would only get about 30% of the way there, and never further. It stayed restrained, always.

But ChatGPT + image gen? This produced unfiltered amazement.

It played out like this: Tell the bot to generate an image involving some ludicrously filthy text backstory, and it would generate and display a prompt for Dall-E. But that generated prompt seemed to bypass the filters and could be absolute trash -- plain, no nonsense, dirt-nasty holy-fuckballs craptacularity.

Dall-E would refuse the prompt, of course, but it remained in the chat log for perusal.

Later, they made the generated prompt disappear when Dall-E refused. (This may in fact be my fault. I sent it on some pretty deep dives.)

And nowadays, it seems that we don't get to see the generated prompt at all, even when Dall-E accepts a (very normal, not pushing boundaries at all) prompt and generates an image.

shmeeed

2 months ago

You're joking, but my wife got us a box emitting bird sounds when the motion sensor is triggered. Suffice to say that it does absolutely nothing to mask the sounds that are produced on a toilet, it's just another ridiculous layer on top of it.

2 months ago

Tell that to my asshole. I’ve tried training it to be silent on the shitter for near 40 years but it fails more often than not.

Loughla

2 months ago

I had a friend growing up who ate with his mouth open. I fucking hated it. But he had problems breathing through his nose due to something with his soft tissue in his throat. So, you learn to ignore it.

snypher

2 months ago

It would be virtuous to not judge others based on some small thing they do that annoys you, just as you do things that annoy others.

yunwal

2 months ago

Actually what’s virtuous is just having a fucking door on the bathroom

2 months ago

In China making noise with mouth when eating is considered respectful.

Eisenstein

2 months ago

No it isn't. You can slurp noodles without being rude but they do not consider 'loud mouth noises' respectful.

throwaway-0001

2 months ago

https://ali.mk/posts/the-role-of-noises-in-chinese-dining-et...

https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/6w5hux/slurping_nood...

+ personal questions to real Chinese people.

Eisenstein

2 months ago

First link: That is a Swedish robotics blog and the sources linked are just landing pages for Chinese tours or language lessons.

Second link: Where do they say that 'making loud mouth noises is a sign of respect'? They say 'people slurp noodles' which is exactly what I said.

throwaway-0001

2 months ago

> It's so common that the only logical explanation is that it is encouraged. It appears to be the norm and the non-slurper is the exception. I'm glad that your parents taught you to not slurp. You are an exceptional individual.

Anyway I’ve asked enough Chinese people about it to get the same answer. Not all do it, but some do it for these reasons.

I doubt you ever asked any Chinese.

Eisenstein

2 months ago

They are saying it is normal to slurp noodles, which is what I said in my first reply to you. They did not say that they make 'loud mouth noises' as a sign of respect.

Ask this specific question: "Do you make loud mouth noises while you eat as a sign of respect, or is it just normal to slurp noodles?" and see what answer you get.

m463

2 months ago

But it is a good argument for privacy.

mitthrowaway2

2 months ago

According to aerial photos, it was built in the 1950s. It resides within a small but very industrialized city that was positively booming at the time the home was constructed; it definitely included plumbing from the beginning.

A previous house in the same city was definitely built before indoor plumbing. It was even built before separate kitchens were considered normal or necessary. It originally had only two rooms downstairs, and two rooms upstairs. Heating and cooking would have been provided by a central stove (probably wood-fired, and with no ductwork).

While it was stick-built, it was initially only a step or two above a fairly primitive log cabin in function.

By the time I lived there, it also had a kitchen, laundry, downstairs bathroom, another upstairs bedroom, and subgrade basement added. The bathroom was part of the kitchen addition, and one entered the bathroom through the kitchen.

I've actually lived in three houses so far that were initially constructed like that -- with two rooms downstairs, and two upstairs.

Only one of those 3 had a bathroom that was separated from the kitchen by a room, and that one was perhaps the oldest: The floor joists for the first level were made from logs that were hewn flat[ish] on the top by hand, and that still hard bark on them. For that house, the bathroom was its own small separate single-story addition that jutted off of the side of [what had become] the dining room.

The house I grew up in was larger and much more-nicely finished in terms of things like woodworking and trim, but was also very old by US norms. It was built before both plumbing and electricity, though it included gas lighting (!) in every room. The partial basement, kitchen and downstairs bathroom were additions, but the bathroom connected to two different common rooms even though it was physically adjacent to the kitchen. There also was an upstairs bathroom, and which was created by taking part of the master bedroom and making it into a hallway while the the original bedroom closet became the bathroom (with a small and somewhat haphazard roof extension where the bathtub was).

Anyway: The point, other than that old houses present interesting evolutions, is that old houses often (but not always) had bathrooms attached to the kitchen -- and that we usually seek to keep them separated these days in newer construction, at least in the US.

I've also lived in a few different apartment buildings (many of which were "old", but all of which were initially intended to be apartment buildings), and all of those bathrooms were separated from the kitchen by a hallway.

And all of these bathrooms had doors. I don't understand the questioning of bathroom doors that I see here in some comments -- at all.

(I shall spare at this time the details of the house I once owned that had been an old farmhouse (with no gas, no lights, and no plumbing), and which had subsequently been divided into a triplex that contained a total of 17 distinct rooms. I could probably write a whole book about that place.)

ghaff

2 months ago

My house is early 1800s (old farmhouse). Yes, the bathroom is pretty much right above the kitchen/pantry presumably because that was the most straightforward way to pipe it. Not even sure what is original and what was probably installed/built around 1900 or so.

No real opportunity to put in another bathroom and I've talked with contractors. You could squeeze a really minimalist half bath in the pantry but then you lose the pantry and the washer/dryer need to go somewhere and the basement isn't really a good idea for various reasons.

eru

2 months ago

In Singapore (of all places) many apartments have one of their toilets right next to the kitchen. Seems to be fine.

mitthrowaway2

2 months ago

But they have a door, right?

eru

2 months ago

Yes, of course, we are not barbarians.

(Just to be clear: I think doors on bathrooms are great. I just don't think they really contribute to hygiene or health--apart from mental health.)

drowsspa

2 months ago

Sure, you can't get rid of everything. But you can mitigate a few things, and closing the door is such an easy fix... There's worrying too much, and there's not worrying enough

kgeist

2 months ago

So that poop particles didn't spread beyond the bathroom.

eru

2 months ago

Have you considered closing the toilet lid?

2 months ago

You can't get covid from contact infection. Or at least it's really, really hard. We could dig up studies for that, but you can also look at how food delivery which exploded in popularity all over the world during the lockdowns apparently did not transmit Covid.

flowerthoughts

2 months ago

mitthrowaway2

2 months ago

Yes, but I've also considered the previous guest not closing the lid.

2 months ago

So, would you state that you generally advocate for hinged surfaces in bathrooms, and being able to use them to adequately close/shield a larger space from a smaller space? ;)

eru

2 months ago

Doors are great. I never doubted that. I'd want a proper door on my bathroom.

But I'm under no illusion that it would help with health or hygiene. Perhaps with mental health; the door is mostly there for social reasons.

shmeeed

2 months ago

>But put it back up again after because <reasons>

What reasons?

2 months ago

The problem here begins even before the mathematical issue - it's that web sites that live from listing bookings have an incentive to offer a way to delete reviews that are not in line with what the owner wants to see.

rsynnott

2 months ago

2 months ago

I've seen it at cheap hotels (EasyHotel and similar) but generally only in tiny single-person rooms (of the "single bed and just enough space to walk past it to the bathroom, which is the size of an airplane toilet" variety), where it's basically _fine_.

abustamam

2 months ago

I've stayed in probably 15 hotels in the US in the past 15 years and at least one of them had either no bathroom door, or a glass door, or a bathroom door and a shower that had a glass door.

My sister shared with me a home listing that had a bedroom and basically a toilet in a closet, and no door — just a curtain for privacy. That was weird.

etskinner

2 months ago

You've never seen a sliding door rather than a fully closing one? That's one of the types of doors that the author is complaining about

happyopossum

2 months ago

The author of TFA doesn’t really mention sliders at all - just harps on about “no doors”.

AmbroseBierce

2 months ago

The author does point out glass doors being an issue that he asks about.

2 months ago

In London that will get you a different set of problems. Like gaps in the window frame, and a damp smell in the bathroom without ventilation.

bregma

2 months ago

Ah, just like home.

rsynnott

2 months ago

My most recent encounter with no-bathroom-door was in a hotel in London that was under 100 pounds a night. Though the room was so tiny that I'd honestly be happy enough to give them a pass on it.

user

2 months ago

[deleted]

2 months ago

While we’re at it, bring back shower doors/curtains. It’s such a pain having this huge puddle outside the shower just because they decided it shouldn’t have one. It’s not so common to be missing one in US hotels, but it’s common internationally.

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

danilocesar

2 months ago

I was talking about this with my wife the other day: Newer hotel showers are "Hostile Architecture" disguised as modern design. They add those little annoying details with the intention of lowering their water bill. They want showering to be slightly discomfort, so you shower faster without noticing. It's a feature, not a bug.

Tor3

2 months ago

Some years ago I stayed in a hotel outside London, and they apparently had a policy of saving as much as possible on soap bars.. so they used some horrible high-pH soap, very cheap looking. But it was nearly impossible to rinse it off.. took me fifteen minutes of hot water usage after I was, or should have been done with the shower. Whatever they saved in soap they lost many times over in water and even more in energy use.

And in a tourist place on an island farther south the room had an information binder which also asked that you shouldn't waste water as there weren't many natural resources for water there. However, the hot water came from the far end of the narrow, rectangular-shaped long hotel, and the pipes were outside and weren't insulated, they were completely bare. Whenever you turned off the hot water for a few minutes it would take some five minutes to get it back, water running, as the pipes got cold right away (there are many other usages for hot water than just using the shower - the rooms had kitchens). So of course all the guests used many times more water than they would have needed, not to mention the wasted heat. Totally baffling.

trymas

2 months ago

Also they probably save on cleaning costs.

2 months ago

See also: washing machines. If you have three pairs of underwear and all day, Europe’s washing machines have you covered. Otherwise, you’re SOL.

tgsovlerkhgsel

2 months ago

I've never really run into capacity problems with European washing machines, but the run times are definitely real. Most of them have a well-hidden faster mode. Still not as fast as a US machine on fast mode, but not the mandatory-default-by-law three-hour program.

Which would be even longer than 3h if some EU bureaucrat didn't realize that making the default unacceptably long for everyone will result in nobody using it.

rsynnott

2 months ago

> Most of them have a well-hidden faster mode

My shiny new (2025) Bosch washing machine has a big button on the front which switches from the default 3 hour programme (for 40 degree wash) to 1hr 30m. Like, it's not very _well_ hidden :)

Interestingly, the 3 hour programme isn't really a 3 hour programme. If you use it, the timer will generally start at 3 hours and drop to an hour or so after 20 minutes. I have no idea what the heuristic is, and the manual is silent on the matter.

seanmcdirmid

2 months ago

2 months ago

I really like the extra space and not needing to transfer clothes when drying. To each their own though. Only Samsung is making a vented combo so far, and it’s a beast to install and drag up three stories of stairs.

account42

2 months ago

How much useful extra space do you really get? You can stack separate washers and dryers on top of each other without issues.

dragonwriter

2 months ago

> How much useful extra space do you really get? You can stack separate washers and dryers on top of each other without issues.

Stacking still takes up usable space; in rooms designed for unstacked washers and/or dryers the space above is frequently used for cabinets

seanmcdirmid

2 months ago

Enough space for me, but you are right stacking would provide similar benefits. Don’t undervalue not needing to transfer clothes to your drier, and you never have to worry about mold and mildew in your washer.

tgsovlerkhgsel

2 months ago

No, this is just about washing machines, not washer-dryers or doing both in sequence.

thaumasiotes

2 months ago

> Denmark loves their 'wet' bathrooms in hotels, no shower door and a drain in the center of the room.

If you're renting an apartment in Shanghai, a cheap one will have a door to the bathroom, but the shower won't be a separate fixture. The entire bathroom functions as the shower (the hose or fixed piping is mounted on a wall), and there's a drain in the floor.

A more recent apartment will have a shower installation that is, say, separate from the toilet.

seanmcdirmid

Did the designers not know water flows down?

2 months ago

Turn head to wall.

frank_nitti

2 months ago

Every single place I’ve stayed in Europe had no shower door, and nothing to prevent the water from spilling out. Occasionally I get lucky and the floor is constructed sufficiently concave so at least the water flows into the drain

dgaudet

2 months ago

it has become unfortunately common in marriott hotels in the (western) US, specifically the current generation of residence inn; and i think i've seen it in new towneplace suites as well. it's entirely a form over function decision: you end up with cool air wafting in while you shower, and you end up with a wet bathroom floor (including a soaked floormat).

the same hotels have a kitchen sink tap which has hot/cold selected on the vertical axis, with no indication of which direction is hot/cold.

form over function. so annoying.

corywright

2 months ago

This is one reason I'm staying at more Hilton hotels than Marriott brands these days. Having a wet bathroom floor is high on my list of pet peeves, enough so that I'll abandon lifetime elite status with Marriott to stay at hotels with doors on the showers.

btbuildem

2 months ago

Shower curtains are very much a North American thing (well, US and Canada at least). It's a cultural difference you're seeing not a weird hotel trend.

tallanvor

2 months ago

That's an overly broad generalization. Shower curtains are pretty common in Norway, and I've found them in hotels all over Europe and even one in Japan.

crazygringo

2 months ago

I assume curtains are just far more labor to keep clean? They build up soap scum on a daily basis, and you can't just quickly wipe them down like tile or glass. A glass shower door just feels so much more hygienic.

But I'm with you about the confusion around showers that don't even have a door. Never seen that in the US. But abroad, I truly don't get it.

jasondigitized

2 months ago

But before that, for the love of god, solve the automatic slamming door problem. I understand we need heavy doors for fire safety but please implement soft close with dampers.

Spooky23

2 months ago

The hotel industry is bizarre. I feel like we hit this maxima circa 2005 where prefabrication made for the shockingly cheap/nice Hampton Inn style hotels in the US.

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”.

lvspiff

2 months ago

I've traveled more recently for a new job and the downgrade in hotels has been the same. I've stayed at a la quinta that was no better than a motel 6 with a barely cleaned room and towels that were more like old wash cloths, a Marriot down the road from raven's stadium in Baltimore that had the stupid open shower thing and room stank like mold, and the surprising belle of the ball has been a best western "plus" which has essentially been what a midrange Hilton/Marriot was just a few years ago.

jen20

2 months ago

I’d assume that was a franchise hotel, and calling Marriott corporate would have got you some compensation at minimum.

Spooky23

2 months ago

Kendra Gaylord released a video on the topic yesterday too.

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

GCUMstlyHarmls

2 months ago

[flagged]

stickfigure

2 months ago

I watched this and it doesn't seem like anti-patterns to me? I spend more time in hotels than most and ironing boards, closets, minibars, and "bigger rooms" are not things I care about. I don't hang out in the room; it's a box I enter to shower and sleep.

michaelt

2 months ago

It depends on the market you're aiming for.

A younger, lone traveller staying 2-3 nights is probably going to be out doing things in the day, and in the evening. And they won't have much luggage either.

Elderly travellers might not have the same level of energy; they might prefer to spend a few hours quietly relaxing with a book. And they might want an armchair per person, rather than sitting on the bed to read.

Business travellers might need somewhere to set up a laptop and work from, power, decent internet connectivity, and someplace they can iron some shirts.

Longer-term travellers (e.g. someone visiting a city to supervise like the building of a warehouse) will have more luggage, and they'll want to make themselves a bit more at home - they won't be out on the town every night for a month. They're more likely to use the hotel gym.

For some people, holidays are all about relaxing and doing things at a leisurely pace. Perhaps they want to spend the morning sitting on a balcony reading the newspaper - if you have a balcony.

For couples on honeymoon, they might want a nice room with a great bed.

Families might have two children and two adults sharing a room, with the children going to bed earlier and the adults sorta hanging out nearby; in this market, the hotel room sofa might fold out into two beds suitable for under-10s.

And of course, if you want to target all of these markets at the same time you end up with the classic cluttered hotel room with wardrobe, desk, desk chair, armchair, bedside tables, reading lamp, ironing board, TV, etc etc etc

ghaff

2 months ago

For me, in addition to a clean comfortable bed, and a good shower (I don't like a deep bathtub I need to step into), I like having a desk and at least a comfortable chair (ideally a sofa).

Of course, now we're getting into a fair fit of space in a dense city.

nimih

2 months ago

I don't hang out in my hotel rooms either, but an iron, ironing board, and closet with hangars help me not look like a slob when I want to put on some nice clothes and go out for the evening.

hdgvhicv

2 months ago

Things I want, Socket next to bed, light switch next to bed, decent mattress and pillow, blackout blinds, no noise from next door/corridor

I do like a good shower too, rather than those stupid bath things like it’s the 1980s, and get rid of American hotels which seem to be allergic to providing shower gel

al_borland

2 months ago

It blows my mind that sockets on the nightstand aren’t standard by now.

I just stayed at the Westin in Rome, supposedly a 5 star place, but I don’t think it’s been updated in 30 years. I had to move the nightstand and unplug a lamp, so I could plug my phone in next to the bed. So go get my phone socket I had to lose the lamp. It didn’t even have an alarm clock on the nightstand; there would have been nowhere to plug it in. Maybe they expect everyone to get a wake up call, but the phone was across the room too.

I used to travel with a little power strip, but stopped since I never actually used it. That place needed one badly.

It did have bathroom door though, so it had that going for it.

toast0

2 months ago

> I just stayed at the Westin in Rome, supposedly a 5 star place, but I don’t think it’s been updated in 30 years

Nobody comes and takes your stars away. They earned them once and they're still using them.

walletdrainer

2 months ago

The stars are typically assigned based on silly checklists anyway, that’s how you end up with “4-star” $2000+/night Aman properties.

thaumasiotes

2 months ago

> Maybe they expect everyone to get a wake up call, but the phone was across the room too.

For a wakeup call, that's an advantage.

raw_anon_1111

2 months ago

When I use to travel for work, I exclusively stayed in Embassy Suites because it didn’t feel like a shoebox and it gave me space to decompress after a full day of active like I like people.

Even now that I work remotely, my wife and I might spend a week back home in Atlanta where our adult children and friends live. We “live” in the hotel like we live at home. I’m usually working during the day, she might hang out with other friends who don’t work during the day and we plan things at night.

2 months ago

> I hung a towel over him.

Be careful, that's probably a felony.

lysace

2 months ago

Seems like it. Randy from Cupertino should probably avoid visiting UAE again.

https://uaelegislation.gov.ae/en/legislations/2131

> Section Two: Crimes and Penalties; 2. Slander, challenge, or insult the Divine Essence:

> Anyone who commits one of the acts stipulated in Clauses (2, 3, and 5) of Article (4) of this Decree by Law, by any means of expression or other forms or by using any means, shall be punished by imprisonment for a period of not less than one year and a fine of not less than (AED 250,000) two hundred and fifty thousand UAE Dirhams and not exceeding (AED 1,000,000) one million UAE Dirhams, or by one of these two penalties.

While this is obviously grotesque, it's both funny, sad and telling that the overarching name for the legislation is Federal Law by Decree Concerning Combating Discrimination, Hatred and Extremism. UAE learned this from the US/Europe.

Nextgrid

2 months ago

> the Divine Essence

Surely this refers to God/Allah though. I would expect using such a monkier to refer to the king would be shirk (associating/comparing something with God), one of the worst sins in Islam.

So Randy is probably safe.

dhosek

2 months ago

Looking over the linked legal page (with the caveat that I spent ten seconds and I am not a lawyer although I did use to watch Law and Order every week), I didn’t see anything that would make the portrait of the king subject to the law.

analog31

2 months ago

In The Good Soldier Svejk, the tavern keeper Pavilec is arrested for taking down his portrait of Emperor Franz Josef, because the flies were shitting on it.

_carbyau_

moralestapia

2 months ago

It probably is.

Door closed + extractor makes gaps have negative pressure, no way anything goes into the room.

refulgentis

2 months ago

Extractor, what I’d call a bathroom fan, fair that effectively stops airflow, I’ll go with “close enough to negative pressure for civvies that they fool themselves” (I.e. ain’t actual negative pressure like a cdc lab)

A door stops airflow? No.

fluoridation

2 months ago

>A door stops airflow? No.

I mean, it literally does. Put something that smokes in a bathroom, open the window, close the door, and caulk the gaps. See how much smoke phases through the door.

refulgentis

2 months ago

I forgot HN isn’t exactly the demographic that tries this and finds out exactly how well it works. I guess for this demographic, I’d suggest telling your tenants it’s okay to smoke in the bathroom as long as the door is closed and the fan is on.

akersten

2 months ago

It's not about saving a few bucks on a door. It's about discouraging you and your friends from sharing a single room. Hotel sees the money they're leaving on the table and will trade you for it for the low price of watching your buddies do their business.

majormajor

2 months ago

I don't think that adds up.

"Staying in a hotel with a romantic partner and/or family" is at least as primary a use case for hotels as "staying in a hotel with a platonic friend" and is still a scenario where you want a door but is NOT a scenario where "just get separate rooms" is a logical conclusion. "Get the hell out of that hotel and complain about it to everyone you know," on the other hand, is.

The much more specific way to target platonic buddies/coworkers from sharing a room would be eliminating rooms with two beds since the "couple" scenario would generally be perfectly happy with that still.

godelski

2 months ago

Also even in the single person case I want to have the bathroom door closed when I take a shower because it keeps the heat in. Which is why I also dislike (most of) the barn door style doors. I can't be the only one that likes to step out of the shower and into a nice and steamy room. Like what, you want to step out and be cold? That's masochistic.

Not to mention no door doesn't bother me with another person because I can easily avoid "seeing them do their business" by being in the main room. I've never been in a hotel room where the bathroom door faces the beds. It's always in the hall just after entering the room. I'm sure there's exceptions but that's the standard setup.

chasil

2 months ago

I stayed in this place where the shower was directly adjacent to the bed, and the commode had its own separate room.

https://hunters.com.co/

It had some other interesting problems.

godelski

2 months ago

Ahhhh... nothing like sleeping in a wet bed... full of mold...

It could have been worse. They could have put the toilet there and you could be smelling the sewer all night...

jamincan

2 months ago

The master bath in my parents' old place had a massive bathroom and gigantic shower that seems to be all the rage now in more "luxurious" bathroom designs - often with a bathtub in the shower as well. I had to use their shower once while I was there, and it was terrible - it was cold and drafty in the shower, even with the shower on its highest setting. Luxury shouldn't be uncomfortable.

noduerme

2 months ago

For the same reason, I hate the showers without a door in a bathroom with a door. I've never understood the reason for that.

jmye

2 months ago

I don’t know how to ask this without it seeming like snark, but as genuinely as I can ask (and with the assumption that we otherwise agree there should just be a door):

Why don’t you just turn on the heat in the room?

godelski

2 months ago

Locality and humidity.

I also don't mean to be snarky here, because I'm not sure how to say this in a way that can't be interpreted that way and feel like I'm just explaining being human...

The answer is really just physics. The feeling of comfort is generally about differential in temperature, not absolute. (That's also a logarithmic relationship too) So to have that nice feeling of stepping out of a hot shower then the room needs to be a decently high temperature. Mind you, you're also wet. This makes the temperature differential more influential. So two things happen when you dry off. You no longer have that water to transfer and maintain heat and you've also cooled down a bit. Now when you walk into the normal room temperature the differential isn't so bad.

If I turn the temperature up in the whole hotel room I will then have to turn it down. Now that introduced AC and we have the opposite problem... Plus both get rid of humidity.

To be snarky and try to be a bit humorous:

Haven't you ever noticed that 100F/38C is "hotter" and more uncomfortable in a humid environment than in a dry environment? Haven't you ever noticed that 15F/-10C is "colder" in a humid environment? Haven't you noticed that being in a hot tub or sauna is comfortable but if it was that temperature outside you'd be cursing the gods? Haven't you noticed that in the summer 50F/10C is cold and most people won't wear a short sleeve shirt yet if it was the winter that's a nice day to go out and wear shorts? Haven't you... lived in a body?

It's winter man, here's a trivial experiment for you:

  - Heat up your house:
    - Shower with door open
    - Shower with door closed
  - Don't heat up your house:
    - Shower with door open
    - Shower with door closed

Tell me the results. Which is the most comfortable? Also tell me your power bill for each day... You can figure this out in 4 days with essentially no cost of time or effort?

LorenPechtel

2 months ago

The temperature that's comfortable when stepping out of the shower is not the same as the temperature that's comfortable after you have dried off and put something on.

2 months ago

What country is this? I've never seen a hotel site that didn't sell rooms as either 2 Queen or 1 King. If I didn't know it was a king bed I wouldn't book it. Does that now make me a spoiled first world rich person?

xp84

2 months ago

Generally, what I’ve seen is on travel sites like Priceline, sometimes they list a room as like “standard room” and they don’t specify and (in the fine print) explicitly do not guarantee how many beds - with some cheaper rates. Basically trying to discourage people from booking them. The thinking being if you don’t wanna end up in 1 King bed with your bro, you’ll pay the extra $13 for the explicitly 2-bed room, which is always listed as well.

noduerme

2 months ago

Which is odd, since I feel like I always end up paying $13 extra for one king bed with my girlfriend to make sure we're not sleeping in a queen next to an empty one

xp84

2 months ago

This guy has a girlfriend ^

ghaff

2 months ago

>Does that now make me a spoiled first world rich person?

Sort of. I'll take a King by choice but if a Queen is the only option I don't really have an issue with that. And I'm not a short person.

mrandish

2 months ago

This particular trip was in Europe but I also encountered it on a different trip to Las Vegas. It occurred on some hotel sites but quite a few hotel aggregator sites.

saurik

2 months ago

So like, in the United States, if you book directly via Marriott, the number of beds isn't guaranteed unless you have some reasonable status at the hotel.

noduerme

2 months ago

If you book a queen room isn't it always 2 beds? A king room is usually 1 bed. Is there some option where it's just totally random what room you get? I don't have any Marriott status but going on their site I can clearly see a choice of rooms, and each one says what amenities it has.

saurik

2 months ago

The point is that you aren't guaranteed the room type you select: you'll show up at the Marriott and they'll give you a room with one king instead of the room with two queens you thought you booked; your selection is just a preference, not a lock.

https://www.marriott.com/loyalty/member-benefits/guarantee.m...

^ you have to have Platinum status to get the type "guaranteed"... and, even then, they might just give you $25-100 and say "sorry" (it is more of an SLA with a penalty; though, this is also true of the reservation itself... FWIW, getting a random room type is MUCH more common than getting bumped).

mrandish

2 months ago

> this is also true of the reservation itself...

Too true. If you have a normal reservation (vs some kind of pre-paid room), they oversell their capacity based on a statistical model. This means if everyone with a reservation shows up, some of the last to check in won't have a room (which tends to occur during statistically unusual events like a large trade show, where every reservation is more likely to show up). The hotel will basically just say "sorry" and suggest another hotel which may have rooms. I think they try to recommend hotels that are nearby and similar but sometimes that either doesn't exist or is also sold-out.

One of the benefits of having platinum status at Marriott is they'll actually guarantee your room but platinum status isn't easy to get. I used to frequently drive into the bay area late at night to avoid traffic, arriving at the hotel at midnight or later. Being platinum at the time, I'd sometimes get a call on my mobile from the manager after 9p to find out if I was showing up for sure and I'd tell them "Yep, I'm driving now." That's how I knew they were sold out and bouncing people with reservations. They didn't want to keep holding my room if I wasn't going to show up (being platinum there was no penalty for no-showing on a reservation).

A tip: if you have a non-guaranteed reservation and you think the hotel is likely to be full but you're arriving later in the evening - call the actual hotel front desk before 5p (not the reservation center), ask to speak to the manager on duty and ask them to check you into your room over the phone. Ask for the actual room # and then have them actually print out your card key and put it in an envelope under your name at the front desk. Once your reservation has been checked in, a room assigned and a key printed, it can't be given away by the late shift.

ghaff

2 months ago

>If you book a queen room isn't it always 2 beds

No, although that is pretty common for business hotels in the US.

If they cannot afford sending me on a business trip they probably shouldn’t do so.

What kind of company are doing so?

lokar

2 months ago

I recall Sun doing this in the late 90s

I think part of it is the idea that getting to travel for work (site visit, conference, convention, etc) is a perk. It’s madness.

citizenpaul

2 months ago

How do you complain and go to another hotel if every single hotel is owned by four companies that are colluding together to do the same thing. This ignores the very obvious fact that you may not want to search for a hotel at 2AM in a strange city when you are exhausted. Keep making excuses for your masters though, this is the world you live in.

Marriot,Hilton,IGT,Hyatt own almost all hotels in any area you want to go to.

Enshittification is not just for apps anymore.

2 months ago

Yep! Government regulation is basically when the industry puts their heads way too far into the sand.

2 months ago

The mistake is assuming we have to act as individuals.

venturecruelty

2 months ago

Turns out, society can actually do things collectively when a bunch of people work together instead of just pulling the libertarian "move your family into the woods and suffer" lever that's so popular online.

toast0

2 months ago

> Marriot,Hilton,IGT,Hyatt own almost all hotels in any area you want to go to.

Best Western, Choice, Wyndham, IHG (typo?), Accor, Blackstone (Motel6), Radisson, Red Lion, Red Roof. Etc. There's lots of choices.

Many (most?) hotels are franchises and the name on the hotel can change. I haven't run into a hotel with no bathroom door yet, but I only have 2-3 stays a year and one is usually in the same hotel every year. I have noticed housekeeping creeping back up to mostly every day though.

ghaff

2 months ago

I was a bit surprised that a Marriott property I was staying in in NYC a couple weeks ago actually had daily housekeeping service. I didn't really care but hadn't seen that in a while.

verst

2 months ago

Very common. Every Autograph Collection, Luxury Collection, JW Marriott, Marriott, Westin, W, St Regis, Le Meridien, etc has daily housekeeping - and many of those brands / collections have turn down service too.

2 months ago

I have stayed in Airbnb once in my life. I find very few hotels, including the big chains--and even leaving aside serviced apartments--do daily room service these days.

2 months ago

Well, since "laws" are outside the current Overton window, we could always do a hotel startup that becomes worse than the hotels we're trying to replace within ten years or so.

sebastiennight

2 months ago

Next up: "Bring bathroom doors back to AirBnBs"

meowface

2 months ago

I've stayed at a lot of hotels. I have almost never been in one that didn't have a proper bathroom door.

lotsofpulp

2 months ago

> Marriot,Hilton,IGT,Hyatt own almost all hotels in any area you want to go to.

Technically, they own almost none of the hotels. The hotel owners buy the franchises, and hence follow the brand standards.

SoftTalker

2 months ago

I stay at Hilton properties whenever I can and they always seem to allow filters for number of beds. Not sure about bathroom doors though.

noduerme

2 months ago

Eh, at 2am you ask a taxi driver for a local non-chain hotel and see where the night takes you. Honestly the endless ability of people to complain about corporate control when they're unwilling to try anything potentially sketchy is annoying. Don't like staying at the four companies? Ask a local or wander into somewhere and ask the front desk. Don't blame corporations for your lack of adventurism.

amiga386

2 months ago

This doesn't make any sense.

In what way would it discourage you and your friend(s) from booking a standard twin room, if they don't tell you there's no bathroom door?

    Dr. Strangelove: Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you *keep* it a *secret*! Why didn't you tell the world, eh?

Here are the options:

1. You offer double, twin and single rooms. Friends book twin rooms.

2. You offer only double and single rooms, in the hope that non-romantically engaged pairs of people will book two single rooms. Friends book some other hotel's twin rooms.

3. You offer double, twin and single rooms and you tell people before booking there's no toilet door. Friends book some other hotel's twin rooms.

4. You offer double, twin and single rooms but surprise! there are no toilet doors. Friends who've booked a twin room either demand a cancellation immediately upon seeing the room, demand a room with a toilet door, or they demand you offer some kind of ersatz privacy screen, and no matter what you do they're going to rain fury on every review site they can think of, tanking your reputation.

In which of these situations does the hotel get extra money?

Fnoord

2 months ago

> In what way would it discourage you and your friend(s) from booking a standard twin room, if they don't tell you there's no bathroom door?

(They regard it as cheapskating/cheating.)

Very simple: by making it the status quo that bathroom doors aren't there they discourage you to rent a single room. So instead, you rent two single rooms with full privacy for each of you. Because a double room is only for couples, in their (I concur: twisted) world.

You mean you want to go to the competition? What if the competition does it as well? What if it is the norm?

As for your #4. People don't have time to put effort into such. Outliers do, they're the ones who make noisy drama at the reception. But they're the exception, not the rule.

amiga386

2 months ago

This continues to not make any sense.

In most hotel pricings I've seen, twin rooms and double rooms cost the same. In fact, in the cheaper hotels, double rooms are just twin rooms with the beds bolted together (very annoying if you're a couple seeking romance). The hotel can reconfigure the rooms to match demand, as the only difference is whether the beds are joined.

As a random example (I don't endorse it, I just picked a random London hotel) https://www.booking.com/hotel/gb/crowne-plaza-london-ealing.... has "Standard Room" (choice of twin or double bed), "Standard Twin Room", "Standard Queen Room with Bathtub" and "Standard Queen Room with Walk-In Shower" options all at exactly the same price. Each option makes abundantly clear what type of bed(s) you get, and how many people can use the room.

Hotels that want to rent rooms to couples simply remove twin rooms from the list of rooms available. Only offer the double-bed option. People looking for a twin room go to the next hotel in the list. They don't need some secret plan to disappoint twin-room guests by not having a bathroom door so their next booking is two single rooms.

You and the OP both said "single" rooms. Is this key to unlocking the mystery? In my experience, single rooms literally have one single bed. Why are multiple people hoping to stay in one? Also from what I've seen, "single" rooms are more expensive than twin/double rooms, not just because you can't share the costs but because they literally cost more, because there are so few such rooms in the hotel. The hotel couldn't accomodate people if it compelled twin room guests to get two single rooms, it'd run out of single rooms in a jiffy and be left with a lot of twin/double room capacity. Most of the rooms are double/twin.

Why would any group of people book a single room? Is there some secret trick where multiple people turn up and bring their own beds with them, only to be foiled by a missing toilet door?

dragonwriter

2 months ago

> Why would any group of people book a single room?

To save money.

> Is there some secret trick where multiple people turn up and bring their own beds with them, only to be foiled by a missing toilet door?

Beds? Probably not. But, people (especially younger people, can sleep on the floor with climate appropriate (which, depending on the season and available heating, can be "none") coverings for warmth; I did this happily a fair amount in various groups aroun high school age, but I certainly wouldn't want to now in middle age.

2 months ago

> They want two adults [...] to rent separate single bedrooms

Then why do they even offer twin rooms?

Doorless bathrooms are not explained by saying hotels (that offer twin rooms) secretly want all twin room guests to pay double and use two single rooms. Most hotels don't even have very many single rooms!

It may be different in small places where there's only one or two hotels. But most cities have dozens to hundreds of hotels, not all owned by the same conglomerates. There is no way they'd miss out the entire twin-room market by pretending not to have them. And they certainly wouldn't take the reputational damage by pretending you'll get a normal twin room when you book, but hit you with a doorless bathroom twin room when you arrive. The booking website will have photos showing the typical room layout, in order to give prospective customers clarity about what they'd be booking, so they choose to book there.

I'm no hotel tycoon either, but the idea that it's a secret ruse to get people to pay double doesn't make any sense to me. The idea that they're blindly following some design trend, or that it lets them make the rooms physically smaller by giving the impression of a bigger room, are much more plausible ideas.

chihuahua

2 months ago

Mr. President, we cannot allow a bathroom door gap!

darreninthenet

2 months ago

But how would you know until it's too late and you've already checked in? Doesn't seem to be a very effective way of achieving this... Just means my mate and I wouldn't go back to that hotel again.

bluGill

2 months ago

Ask forithe manager and tell them you want a different room or a refund.

Barbing

2 months ago

2 months ago

If you’re going on so much travel that this is a burden then you’re truly privileged. Maybe your assistant or travel agent can handle this issue for you.

Jabs aside, you don’t need to be rich to use a travel agent or Rick Steves guidebook instead of blindly booking hotels on Internet sites. If there’s an issue like this you’ll easily find it on review sites and most of those are searchable.

The same thing applies to other experiences like restaurants and museums. For example, it’s always smart to jump on Google/Trip Advisor reviews and type in “kids” or “stroller” into various attractions to make sure you are prepared if you’re bringing kids along.

Travel is never perfect. I’ve been in weird rooms with actual glass walls with a perfect framed view of the shitter facing the bed. I have no idea why they did this, maybe this culture values natural light in bathrooms? I witnessed it more than once so it wasn’t just one creepy place. Individual privacy especially within the same family is something of a recent and western concept from my understanding.

Either way it was hilarious and a minor inconvenience considering it was a lot minute hotel. It’s just peeing and pooping, we all do it. My traveling friend and I took turns averting our eyes. We had warm clean beds and a story to tell.

TylerE

2 months ago

There will be photos of an example room, with zero guarantee the room you get will be the same.

dangus

2 months ago

2 months ago

Actively? Almost no one.

But I absolutely check out google maps reviews, and a single review saying that the hotel did not have a proper door on the bathroom would guarantee I would not stay there.

Even traveling alone it's a clear indication they have no respect for their guests, and it's a significant hygiene issue.

conductr

2 months ago

> Even traveling alone it's a clear indication they have no respect for their guests, and it's a significant hygiene issue.

I feel like if you consider lack of a door a significant hygiene issue, you probably just shouldn’t be staying in hotels. These rooms aren’t being sanitized between guests, they are pretty dirty.

autoexec

2 months ago

All the more reason not to add mold from the shower and excess feces from every toilet flush to the list of things I have to worry about being on the mattress.

There are good reasons to keep bathrooms physically separated from where you sleep and hygiene is one of them, along with not wanting the bed to be a front row seat to the sights, smells, and sounds of whatever is going on in there and not wanting an expensive hotel room I'm paying for to be like a prison cell.

gpm

2 months ago

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good and all that, just because things aren't perfect isn't a good reason for the hotel to make things worse and doesn't mean I shouldn't avoid worse hotels on the basis that they are worse.

eru

2 months ago

2 months ago

  > it's distinct from hygiene.

Mold

Not to mention that any bacteria thrives in more humid environments. They aren't so good at keeping moist. This is true for a lot of things, especially the smaller the thing is, including bugs. Higher humidity definitely makes good hygiene more difficult.

Why do you think bathrooms have fans? That'd be a lot of effort to deal with farts.

eru

2 months ago

Open the window or run the aircon.

gpm

2 months ago

This is a hotel room, you would need the last hundred guests to have done that, not yourself

godelski

2 months ago

Considering this and your other comments I really think you need to think a bit deeper about your answers. I believe in you, just ask "and then what happens" and I'm positive you'll figure it out.

eru

2 months ago

I've both opened windows and ran aircons. (Though I try to avoid doing both at the same time.)

Nothing bad happened.

godelski

2 months ago

  > Nothing bad happened.

Keep at it, you're almost there. You just forgot about one important variable: time

eru

2 months ago

If done both for a long time over many years.

kijin

2 months ago

If the increased humidity promotes mold growth, then yes, it's a hygiene issue.

eru

2 months ago

Yes. Though trapping humidity in the bathroom doesn't make it go away, and you have to open the door to get in and out of the bathroom, and that lets the humidity escape.

mitthrowaway2

2 months ago

The hotel will typically have an extractor running in the bathroom, wired to the light switch.

cwillu

2 months ago

Shit particles are literally blown into the surrounding air when flushing; closing the door and running the fan contains the mess.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_plume

rendaw

This is why it falls on us to not simply put up with what little they expect us to settle for. Ask about their privacy and bathroom doors when booking and if caught by surprise by a lack of an actual door or inadequate privacy demand a new room, or go elsewhere taking a refund if necessary.

I have to admit that I'm getting very tired of the unsustainable push for endless growth driving companies everywhere to jack up prices as high as people will tolerate and then also delivering the least and worst product/service they can possibly get away with on top of it. It means that everything is getting shittier unless you're willing to spend insane amounts of money to get what used to be standard and more affordable.

It's becoming exhausting maintaining a list of businesses I no longer want to give money to and products/services I won't pay for. This is especially true as companies change names, redesign products, and buy up one another. the list just grows and grows all the time.

eru

2 months ago

> Some statistical analysis ppt made by some mid level MBA must have proposed this and got a promotion.

Not necessarily. Just like natural evolution doesn't requite its participants to understand themselves, neither does the market require anyone at a business to understand why they are successful.

thaumasiotes

2 months ago

> Until recently, you never had to think about it. But as it becomes more common it will become something you might want to consider.

This is closely related to a phenomenon I don't understand.

Pretty much every proposed regulatory change (for example: letting drivers pump their own gas at gas stations) meets a fierce counterargument that says "currently, no one considers this situation at all because only one state of affairs is legal. If that thoughtlessness continues after we legalize other possibilities, TERRIBLE THINGS COULD HAPPEN!".

But obviously this protasis† can never occur and so it doesn't matter what's in the apodosis.

† https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/protasis#English (2)

sbarre

2 months ago

I definitely do not return to a hotel where the bathroom was sub-par...

And likewise I absolutely return to a hotel where the bathroom was good when going back to a city.

I'm mostly talking about the water pressure for the shower here, but you get the idea.

ajsnigrutin

2 months ago

You don't, because you expect there to be a toilet, a sink, a shower, towels, a mirror etc. there. There's nothing to consider, it's just expected to be there. Same for the bathroom door.

But if i got burned once or twice by a room without a bathroom door, i'd start checking that too and avoiding places that don't have them.

TitaRusell

2 months ago

Depends on how long I stay. For a two week vacation I definitely check out the layout.

For a city trip I basically accept anything with a bed and running water.

2 months ago

My wife is keenly interested in whether or not there is a bathtub. Keenly.

devilbunny

2 months ago

2 months ago

> there is generally a baseline consistent

Not having a bathroom with a door is an incredibly low baseline. I can only think of a single Airbnb that I’ve stayed in that’s been worse than that

(The key to the Airbnb was missing and the host was inaccessible)

potato3732842

2 months ago

>whaddaya gonna do? Regulate us!? We've already tricked you into thinking that's socialism!"

More like "I dare you, regulation will only further increase our moat"

2 months ago

Maybe, and also 100% guarantees I’ll never stay there with my family.

akudha

2 months ago

But do you check if the hotel has bathroom doors? If yes, where? You call up and ask? And trust the person on the phone is honest?

Most people would assume bathrooms have doors. It is just exhausting to have to check for every small, commonsensical, super basic detail

throwaway173738

2 months ago

The more I travel with my family the more things I add to my list of things to ask about.

2 months ago

Of course, you could just upgrade to a suite, at three times the price. Hey where are you going? btw the minibar water is only $7 but if you prepay, you can get it discounted to $6! for a bottle of water!

I really don't get this.

I don't want to feel claustrophobic.

Edit: Like these -

https://34stjohn.com/blogs/inspiration/how-to-pull-off-an-op...

robrain

2 months ago

You have the choice to open the door if you wish. This choice has been removed from those who prefer privacy if the door doesn't exist.

frereubu

2 months ago

From your link:

Making Privacy Work

Make sure to address the elephant in the room - privacy. Consider installing electrochromic glass panels that switch from clear to opaque. Or take inspiration from Japanese architecture with sliding wooden screens that double as art pieces.

rkomorn

2 months ago

Your sample link's examples seem conspicuously toilet-free to me.

But even without talking about toilets, I don't like airy/drafty feelings when I'm wet, so I'd hate most of those designs, myself.

op00to

2 months ago

I love pooping and having my dog visit. A little someone to talk to rather than scroll.

m463

2 months ago

apparently not having doors prevents hemorrhoids.

nehal3m

2 months ago

So you can take a dump with some privacy, obviously.

echelon

2 months ago

There must be two types of people/couples.

Those that prefer privacy and those that don't care.

Sohcahtoa82

2 months ago

> I'd imagine that most couples would still want to be able to close a door when they're on the toilet.

Right?

My wife and I don't use the toilet in front of each other. Even when we lived in an apartment with only 1 bathroom. You gotta use the toilet while one is showering? You can hold it.

Even when I'm home alone and don't expect her to come home any time soon, I close the door. I just feel so exposed with the door open. Even when I lived alone, I'm pretty sure I would close the door.

stephen_g

2 months ago

Whether the room has a door on the bathroom or not, business travellers should be getting separate rooms... Over dozens of trips, the only time I've ever shared was a two-bedroom apartment when I went with a colleague for a conference (one had an ensuite so we had separate bathrooms as well as separate bedrooms with doors).

I wouldn't be OK with going on trips (or sending people I manage on trips) where two people had to sleep in the same room, I wouldn't consider that acceptable...

pnw

2 months ago

I agree, it's a huge HR risk. It used to be common with British companies sending people abroad. I can't imagine they still do it today.

lvspiff

2 months ago

20 years ago a shared room was kinda the go-to for conferences and business meetings seemed like at companies I worked at. It was normal to share a 2 bed room with another guy, but all the hotels we ever stayed at had a bathroom with door that closed and didn't open straight to the bedroom. It also had a curtain or at least a frosted door if someone happened to open the door.

tristanj

2 months ago

No, it is because doors take up a lot of space. A typical door is 3 feet wide, and requires 7-14 feet of empty space to operate [0]. You can't place any furniture, toiletries, or luggage racks in this space. For a typical hotel room of 300sq feet, this "dead space" represents 3-5% of the room. Removing the door allows hotels to decrease the size of each room, and fit more rooms on each floor, increasing profit.

This is why many newer hotels choose to sliding doors, which barely take up any space, or just remove doors entirely.

[0] For a door of r=3 feet, A door swings a minimum of 90 degrees, which takes 3.14 * 3*2 / 4 = 7.065 sq feet at a minimum to 14.1 sq feet to operate.

jedberg

2 months ago

Unlikely, given that you don't know it has no door until after you get there.

And also, when I travel with my kids, I still want to close the door.

p1necone

2 months ago

I'm in a committed long term relationship. I absolutely do not want to shit in front of my partner (nor do they have any desire to watch).

leo_e

2 months ago

This trend is the absolute bane of early-stage startups.

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.

sharts

2 months ago

just book separate and cheaper motel rooms.

autoexec

2 months ago

Only once have I seen anything like this. The room had a bathroom door, but also a giant hole cut out in the wall so that everyone in the room could peer into the bathroom for some reason. We demanded a different room with a complete wall separating the bathroom and got one (a nicer one at their expense too).

kotaKat

2 months ago

The Brookstreet Hotel in Kanata (just outside Ottawa), Ontario has bathrooms with windows in them.

2 months ago

On insta I'm seeing more stories about people reviewing/mocking OPS (Open plan shi.tters) on rental websites like rightmove.

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

There are some very strange people out there...

hdgvhicv

2 months ago

A lot of rightmove ones are old people who need access to a toilet and don’t have room to install a whole new bathroom

Havoc

2 months ago

Yeah, the joys of London real estate market :(

hdgvhicv

2 months ago

DaSHacka

2 months ago

I assume you must be a solo traveler?

ghaff

2 months ago

Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. Not something that's ever come up as an issue.

krona

2 months ago

I first encountered it at a Hotel du Vin (UK) about 10 years ago.

dexzod

2 months ago

Basically, just like the airlines, the hotels are saying if you are such a broke destitute to be able to upgrade to our premium tier, then go suffer in the smell of your own shit.

2 months ago

It would be a good idea to put some eye-catching example of a hotel room in the article headline, like an image of a shower without a door, just for visual impact. As for me, I’ve come across hotels where the shower is visible from the bedroom, separated only by a glass wall. Lol, that’s probably the next level.

another_twist

2 months ago

The one I stayed at in France had this shit. Annoyed me to no end and plus I got sick on the trip.

junon

2 months ago

Have had some where the shower is just glass panels for the room to see (and no, it wasn't that kind of hotel).

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.

happyrock

2 months ago

I stayed at one in Iceland where the entire bathroom wall facing the living room was unfrosted glass, including the door. The living room was open concept so it was hard to avoid seeing into the bathroom. Great place for couples to bring their entire selves to the relationship.

bwfan123

2 months ago

On the topic of hotel baths & showers, Dave Barry has this hilarious piece. Innovation in hotel shower controls has lead to UI/UX getting messed up.

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

truelson

2 months ago

Dave Barry having a substack was such a bonus find here

jillesvangurp

2 months ago

I've never seen this. But I'm kind of the opposite. When it comes to hotel rooms, I prefer function over form. A lot of hotels cover up their lack of quality with a lot of crap that serves no purpose whatsoever. Generic art reproductions on the wall. A lot of shiny chrome or bronze. A fancy looking shower that produces a luke warm mediocre flow of water that than splatters all over the bath room, etc. Or, worse, a dingy looking bath that you have to awkwardly step into and a shower head that will point anywhere except at you unless you hold it. I've seen it all. US hotels tend to be the worst on this front. It's all form over function and the amount of nonsense goes up with the number of stars.

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.

rsynnott

2 months ago

> a simple but functional shower with hot water

Sorry, no, not allowed. Hotel showers always have _something_ wrong with them; it's a law of nature.

Potential problems:

- No thermostatic valve (particularly common in the US and Spain, neither of which seems to believe that thermostatic valves exist at all)

- Leaks and/or insufficient drainage

- Overly complex control scheme

- Fixed showerhead, with no handheld shower at all (mostly a US thing)

- Arbitrarily loses pressure.

- Impossible to turn on without getting drenched in cold water

I don't _really_ care about the bathroom door thing that the website is so excited about, but I am constantly irritated by hotel showers.

KineticLensman

2 months ago

My pet peeve is noisy fridges that clatter and whirr at night, and whose plug is inaccessible behind fixed furniture.

ChrisArchitect

system2

2 months ago

I had 4yr+ relationships. I am a shy pooper; I can't poop when someone watches me, while I fart or potentially destroy the toilet bowl. And also, there is the smell. Is "giving them full self" going full ape? Not judging, I am just curious, I don't talk about this with my other friends usually. Most guys don't share these weird details; it does not come up.

dangus

2 months ago

There was meant to be a layer of humor in my comments…

Maybe not everyone literally poops with the door open with their significant other but I’d personally have a hard time marrying someone who couldn’t exchange farts for a laugh.

seszett

2 months ago

I don't have a rigorous study to back my feelings, but I am pretty sure most people actually prefer to avoid their partner's farts and toilet smells.

51Cards

2 months ago

Perhaps I say at all the wrong (right?) hotels but... I stay in close to two dozen North American hotels a year and I haven't noticed this trend? Many have pocket doors but I can't think of a hotel in recent memory that was missing it completely. I usually partially close them so it's not as cold getting out of a shower so I hope I would have taken note if it wasn't there.

ghaff

2 months ago

It's been a while since I've stayed in one but separation in Yotels seemed to be pretty much missing. Can't think of other chains in particular.

globular-toast

2 months ago

My personal "travel hack" for a while now is to poo in communal facilities that hardly ever seem to be in use in any hotel I've stayed in. I don't understand why anyone wants to poo a metre from their bed, regardless of a door.

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.

d--b

2 months ago

For the rest of the world: it seems way more common in the US/americas to share rooms than it is elsewhere.

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.

donatj

2 months ago

We went on a driving trip a couple months ago. Every single hotel we stayed in had those stupid barn door style doors on the bathroom.

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!

chickenegg

2 months ago

My first no-bathroom door hotel experience was 2017 in a hotel in Vientiane. We were so baffled we asked, and they proudly explained that this was a "European bathroom". It was literally set up so that you had full view of the room (and vice versa) when taking a shit.

tasuki

2 months ago

If someone cares about this so much to make a website, why not include an explanation? There's mention of dignity. I don't feel my dignity lessened when my bathroom has no door. Perhaps the door is useful to keep the heat and the steam inside the bathroom?

jp57

2 months ago

If you only stay in hotels alone, it probables doesn’t matter that much to you. Quite apart from questions of dignity, when sharing a hotel room, there are practical conveniences: it’s nice to keep odors contained, and to be able to turn on the bathroom light at night without waking anyone up.

nirava

2 months ago

What is there to explain? Bathroom needs to be isolated.

Do they also have to explain why there are walls around your bathroom and it's not just a commode next to a bed?

yakshaving_jgt

2 months ago

Only slightly relevant, but at the Porsche dealership in Odesa, Ukraine, their bathroom has two toilets together in the one open space, with a chessboard on a plinth between them. The Ukrainians are very funny. I can share a photo if anyone's interested.

natty

2 months ago

Recently I stayed in the Korean hotel where the toilet and the bathroom had the door but made out of semi transparent glass. And the worst, the toilet was next to the glass and walls while on the opposite side was bed. Perfect view and the smell my friend

amarant

2 months ago

Worst I've ever seen was a bathroom that didn't have walls!

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!

dreamcompiler

2 months ago

I wonder if this is because hotels are in a race to seem "cool" and "edgy." Will this trend get to the point where they cut a hole on the middle of the mattress and tell you to just lie down and shit right there?

nwellinghoff

2 months ago

Not to mention these modern showers that have a slab of glass on the 1st 3rd but then open door for the rest such that water leaks all over the place. Looks great on insta but sucks at being a shower.

forthwall

2 months ago

I noticed in East Asia, they also have some tendency to have floor to ceiling windows through the whole bathroom to the bedroom, sometimes with no curtain either. I am not sure who this is for

netsharc

2 months ago

> 4625.1200 TOILET REQUIREMENTS.

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

2 months ago

I've been talking about making a site like this for years! It is easily the number two criteria I have when looking for hotels after location.

user

2 months ago

[deleted]

sneak

2 months ago

More useful than this would be speed test results from the hotel wifi.

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

devmor

2 months ago

Anecdotal, but this reminded me of when I attended a conference in las vegas, booked two to a room, and unbeknownst to us or the booking agency, the hotel had a large window between the shower and the sleeping area that had no kind of shade or cover at all. It was extremely awkward - ultimately I and the other occupant agreed on being out of the room when the other showered.

ajanthanmani

2 months ago

Nice Collection! Glass box are good for couples and all. But if you're traveling with group friends, it could be awkward.

aga98mtl

2 months ago

The typical couple does not want a glass box.

apexalpha

2 months ago

>’m done. I’m done arriving at hotels and discovering that they have removed the bathroom door. Something that should be as standard as having a bed, has been sacrificed in the name of “aesthetic”.

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...)

notfirstpost

2 months ago

And hooks… Too many hotel rooms without enough hooks to hang things like worn clothes, jackets…

crazygringo

2 months ago

Isn't that what all the hangers are for? Hangers are generally a lot better for your clothes and jackets than hooks.

Vaslo

2 months ago

I’m in the states and haven’t seen this despite a lot of travel but I’ll be looking out for it now!

Klonoar

2 months ago

This is some new age Costanza shit.

2 months ago

Actual reason - users would lock the door before suicdice or during mental health events. Or even just refuse to leave.

No door, one less thing to worry about.

crossroadsguy

2 months ago

Just when you think you’ve seen all the corporate/business fuckery in this world. I already ask stuff like — is it a non-smoking room or not, do not use a strong room freshener when prepping the room (or better save money and skip freshener), etc. Now do I have to ask — whether your room has a bathroom door or not? Fucking hell! Hopefully, such fucked-up trends don’t reach this corner of the world at the speed and efficiency with which COVID did.

paulmooreparks

2 months ago

One of my favourite hotels in SE Asia has this problem. (I won't name and shame, since when we complained they said it's going to be fixed soon in a redesign.)

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?

aenis

2 months ago

I have long standardised the way I do hotel reviews:

- 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.

rchandna

2 months ago

The people's champ

havblue

2 months ago

It seems like the target hotel customer for fancy hotels is an Instagram model or a Kardashian. I get having a sliding door to the bathroom or translucent walls on the shower is annoying but the status symbols in hotels are not designed for your average hacker News poster. They're trying to make a small room in an older building look like a bigger room to justify the price.

ww520

2 months ago

London, Marriot, W. Sink in the bedroom. Just No.

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

_giorgio_

2 months ago

Bad, bad architects.

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.

shirro

2 months ago

That would be weird and uncomfortable traveling with a kid. Is it geographic or is this madness taking over the world? Seems like something that would get a place destroyed in reviews and lose them business.

m463

2 months ago

Also bring back brighter lighting?

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

It seems less cheerful.

tgsovlerkhgsel

2 months ago

Not sure if they have gotten dimmer. Possibly the opposite: I don't remember having noticed it recently (but I've also travelled a lot less), but I do remember being very annoyed by this many years ago.

No idea why hotels were doing it, neither LEDs nor the electricity for them are that expensive and I doubt anyone wants to be stuck in a dark cave.

xlbuttplug2

2 months ago

That's probably intentional to prevent you from realizing how unsanitary the room really is.

brunoborges

2 months ago

Can we have a website for these things too?

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

dboreham

2 months ago

Well now I feel like a pretty smug 1%-er since I've never been in a hotel room with no bathroom door.

paulmooreparks

2 months ago

It's not a function of price. One of the most expensive hotels in Southeast Asia has this problem. I've complained. They said they're fixing it in an upcoming design refresh.

user

2 months ago

[deleted]

user

2 months ago

[deleted]

This doesn't have anything to do with Americans.

Ylpertnodi

2 months ago

And europeans.