Hotel bathroom gripes—-glass walls, barn doors, etc.

I consider myself a pretty unfussy traveller but the partial piece of glass attached to the tub to prevent shower water getting on the floor is often insufficient (not to mention ultimately creating maintenance issues for the hotel with the risk of mould and floor deterioration if the water isn’t quickly mopped up and I wouldn’t assume all guests do that). And I will agree with a commenter on the article, the stinginess of hooks in the bathroom, particularly when there are signs suggesting reusing towels which I would do anyway.

Nice to have third world problems.

I've encountered many of these examples, both here in the US and in Europe/UK. A few drive me nuts, but I usually just consider them a challenge of traveling. You need to not be upset when the plumbing equipment is not as standard as you usually find in the U.S. I remember one bathroom in Ireland I really loved. It had very complex plumbing fixtures with multiple shower heads. Clear directions, step-by-step were etched on the glass shower enclosure. I really appreciated it.

My recent trip description of Hotel Navona immediately came to mind! Besides camping trips, the most primitive shower/bathroom we’ve had was in a tiny village in Cambodia. We were staying there as volunteers helping prepare a school. We weren’t expecting anything & very much appreciated that the toilet had a bowl (refill with a bucket) and the shower was a hose.

”My room at Hotel Navona was my least favorite room during the whole trip. And the fact that it was the same price as my gorgeous one with the amazing terrace in Polignano a Mare was very sad! The teeny old room had a square cut out of a third of the room with plexiglass. That was the sink/shower/toilet/bidet/ closet/refrigerator combo. Seriously, I think there were larger bathrooms in some of my trains! I was definitely glad I didn’t have my husband or daughter with me, so we didn’t have to watch each other using the toilet. : (. But, what it lacked in looks, it made up for in location. Just a few turns, and I was at the Pantheon or Piazza Navona”.

Hers a photo of our shower at our hotel in Barcelona in October. The frosted glass on the right is the bathroom door (no lock), but in the middle of the photo and right beside the bed is the shower. No hiding yourself from view of your travel partner. The hotel advertises itself as adults only, but perhaps that should be changed to couples only.

https://imgur.com/a/hMqGO5X

The hotel advertises itself as adults only, but perhaps that should be changed to couples only.

If a room has 0ne bed for Two people, is having a view of them showering really revealing anything?

@Allan... we had a shower like that once at the citizen M hotel at the Amsterdam airport. Right next to it was a similar a little glassed in pod that held the toilet. It is hard to imagine what designers might think people would appreciate in these kinds of things. But thanks for the laugh with your picture:)

I almost booked a hotel room in Basel, Switzerland, with clear glass wall between the bedroom and the shower room ( toilet was in a compartment). That was in 2018. I have been on the lookout for ones like that ever since ( to avoid them).

I see those and wonder if they save money by not having lighting in those areas and rely on what gets through the transparent doors/barriers. And/or if it's more money to make lighting safe enough (Ground Fault plugs,etc) with all the water in those rooms.

Some weird bathrooms to be sure.
My only gripe is not having secure grab bars ,or indeed any grab bars at all, in hotel bathrooms.
A large portion of travelers are at, or getting to, the age where we need added safety.
In all my years of travel, the first time I ever saw grab bars in a hotel bathroom was this year on my one night stay in Rome.
I was so shocked I had to grab the grab bar. ;))

Hotel Nord Nuova Roma, near Termini, in a single room.
Can’t swear that every room had them.

Let us hope it is a “phase” that will pass quickly. I am super careful about seeing photos of bathrooms after encountering a couple of these nightmares.

I firmly believe that people who design hotels never actually stay in them.

I had a bathroom in one hotel in Paris where there was a window between the bedroom area and the tub. There was also a set of blinds that could be raised and lowered as well as closed.

Springhill Suites by Marriott has opaque glass doors between the bedroom and the bathroom.

”If a room has 0ne bed for Two people, is having a view of them showering really revealing anything?”

My adult daughter & I shared a couple of beds during our Italy trip where two twins weren’t an option. I don’t think anyone wants to see their mom showering & using the toilet! ; )

One of my favorite hotels of all time.
The shower https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/02/46/d0/43/outside-shower.jpg The view from the shower https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/0e/14/5b/1e/photo0jpg.jpg or if you are shy you can use the bath https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/0e/2b/7e/5e/hitgeheim-country-lodge.jpg

Hitgeheim Country Lodge

https://www.hitgeheim.com/

We have had some very small hotel/B&B rooms. One was an oversized closet and the bathroom was so small that you could do the three S's all at one time.

I travel solo and much of the bathroom weirdness, especially the glass walls and doors, just leaves me scratching my head and shrugging. Maybe the designers have seen too many movies, and by using glass walls and doors they're taking away the ability of spies, deadly assassins, and monsters to hide in bathrooms and jump out and get their victims.

But, that article is a list of first world problems and reads as whining. An exploration of some of these design choices might have been a more useful article, but that would have been actual work rather than pulling quotes from Reddit. "Too Many Shower Heads"? The rainfall shower heads and wall jets are pretty awesome, but there are those that have difficulty with standard shower heads for which handsets are an accessibility God send (they were rather beneficial after my accident when I could only sit and couldn’t pull a shower curtain of course I wasn’t traveling then).

Mr E – Cool pictures!

I'm pretty low maintenance as a (usually solo) traveler so I don't have many hotel bathroom gripes (as long as it's clean, I'm good) but the lack of enclosure/shower curtain/"wet room" concept has always flummoxed me, as well as being a pain to clean up. Also, what if you need to go back in there after you shower? You get your socks wet, or you have to dry your feet again, or you track water into your room.

The first time I encountered the lack of shower curtain was in an old Air BnB in Berlin, my first time to Europe in over a decade. The bathroom had a giant old tub, a handheld sprayer, and no shower curtain. Everything in the bathroom got soaked everytime one of us bathed.

One Air BnB in Iceland had a big wet room bathroom, but also provided a squeegee and the floors were heated, so once I squeegeed up the excess, the heated floor took care of the rest in just a few minutes.

Oh, and the lack of hooks - totally agree about that one. It's not just hotels, Air BnBs are bad about it too.

We had a bathroom in Copenhagen that had glads cubes for the wall between the shower and the rest of the room, but then the rest of the bathroom was clear glass. Even the cubes were not really frosted, so you could see everything. We had a triple room, so my husband and I and our college age son. Needless to say, we rotated who went and had breakfast and who stayed in the room to get ready in the mornings.

The first time we had a glassed off bathroom was in a Yotel in an airport. DH made me wait in the hall while he did his business. Then again in China, on a tour, so we had no choice. We will never knowingly book one.

A bathroom feature I hate even more is the toilet with the "platform". We had this is Austria. Your poo collects on the platform and when you flush, the water whooshes it into the bowl and away. It was disgusting, and it stinks more than traditional toilet bowls. Someone told me it's specifically designed so one could inspect the speciman for health purposes, but I call bull --- on that. At a hotel? Maybe in a hospital but not a hotel!

I don’t really get the glass showers and think they’re just weird, period. Couple or not (like the not uncommon mother/daughter arrangement or variant mentioned above ) privacy for bathroom activity isn’t a bad thing. Fifty years ago I went to the desk of our Athens hotel asking why we had no shower. The owner came up to our room to explain…the tiny, green tiled bathroom was the shower. The drain was in the middle of the floor and the shower head in the ceiling. You could brush your teeth at the sink, comb your hair in front of the mirror and shower at the same time. An advantage I guess. Then dried the soaked toilet. Who knew.?

This article was written by someone who is way too sensitive, picky and demanding to live in this world. What a ridiculous whine fest.

barn doors

These are common in California because of the state building code which dictates hotel bathroom doors cannot swing into the bathroom. There they either swing out into the bedroom or hallway, or they are barn door style. I used to win bets from coworkers on California road trips where I’d bet that in none of the hotels we were going to stay in would the bathroom doors swing into the bathrooms. I can recall a Hyatt in Santa Barbara where a barn door on the bathroom was the only practical way to meet building code. A swinging door would have hit the bed.

My hubby loves the glass showers :). We encountered one at Citizen M at CDG and I think in a hotel in Evora. I moaned and groaned about it but he didn’t.

We’re currently in Japan and our shower situation here in Kyoto might take the cake. We’re traveling with our family and have two identical apartments one for our son and his family and the other for us and our unmarried son. In both Tokyo and Kyoto there are shower/tub rooms where you shower before entering the tub. In our current apartment the glass walled shower room is in the kitchen! It’s a great shower room, just in the wrong place, probably due to retrofitting the space into an apartment. I had read the reviews prior to booking the apartments but thought there must be some way to make it private and the location of the apartment outweighed the inconvenience. Luckily there’s a wood door into the kitchen so the view can be controlled. So far there have been no mishaps.

Our stay at the Ruby Louise Hotel in Frankfurt had the glass shower. The bed was not on a frame (futon style), but the bed set was a step or two above the remainder of the room. Their website advertises it as "blend of 19th century elegance with edgy urban accents". One of their amenities was a "Glass rain shower". It definitely caters to a younger set.

The hotel advertises itself as adults only, but perhaps that should be
changed to couples only. https://imgur.com/a/hMqGO5X

Love that shower. Why would anyone but a couple stay there anyway?

The reason for having glas partitions between room and bathroom is so that natural light can get all the way to the bathroom. When we renovated we moved the bathroom to next to an outside wall, so we could have a window. If that would not have been possible we would have installed a glass wall between that and the bedroom as well.

I could not live with a bathroom were there is no natural light.
In Europe the toilet is often in a separate cubicle, an I find that a good solution. I grew up in a house were the bathroom was for taking baths (or showers). And yes, we would share. Nobody gave a second thought that someone might be brushing their teeth while someone else was showering.

And maybe that is also a difference between Europe and the US. We mostly do not believe that bodies are something the sight of which needs to be avoided at all costs...

What I missed in the US is shower mixing taps where you could just dial in the temperature. These are very common in Germany and Switzerland, but unheard of in the UK, and I never encountered them in the US either.

Love the outdoor tub the article starts with though. In Australia I one stayed at a place where the toilet was set in a tree, open to the landscape. Kept the place smelling fresh, and the view while sitting on the porcelain throne was priceless.

Don't understand the issue about bathroom door locks. We don't have them at home. You just knock before entering the toilet cubicle...

"The reason for having glas partitions between room and bathroom is so that natural light can get all the way to the bathroom."

Knew it!

"We mostly do not believe that bodies are something the sight of which needs to be avoided at all costs..."

"Don't understand the issue about bathroom door locks. "

As most Europeans know, the US is a little(?) messed up in our collective heads.

I don't know what is meant by Barn Doors. Is it an oversized door? Or is it a Dutch Door, two doors one above another? Can somebody explain please?

Rather than a door that swings on a lever & fulcrum/hinge into a space, they're doors that ride on a track sliding left or right.

Look at this photo from the article https://www.fodors.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2_Interior-sliding-barn-doors-into-bathroom_Dreamstime_84837418_Danny-Raustadt.jpg
And look at the track at the lintel and the door riding on the track.

I honestly can't remember much detail about any of the bathrooms from our trips. The majority of places we stay have shared bathrooms but we did stay in a few in France with private bathrooms but I don't recall much detail I guess I had other things clogging my memories.

Rather than a door that swings on a lever & fulcrum/hinge into a
space, they're doors that ride on a track sliding left or right.

Look at this photo from the article
https://www.fodors.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2_Interior-sliding-barn-doors-into-bathroom_Dreamstime_84837418_Danny-Raustadt.jpg
And look at the track at the lintel and the door riding on the track.

I have one of those in our house. But not on the bathroom. I think for an ensuite (ie. private) bathroom they are just fine.

Honestly I do not get the fuss. Hotels try to do something nice with the bathroom, make a design statement, and people complain. I used to live in a house in The Netherlands that had the shower in the kitchen...

oh a pocket door!!

had one of those the Dorint in Düren, between Köln and Aachen. A creative use of available space, putting the sink and other sliding units behind the bed. No issues, just interesting. Creative lights too.

But without the pocket.

The door is hanging on the top rail outside the door opening.

cool

I was confused because I go to a lot of barns, and they don't have doors like that. Just really big doors, usually in pairs.

Nigel, We have a ;pocket door in our house. It slides into a "slot" in the walls between rooms, and is then out of sight. The barn doors are outside the walls. Think of a curtain or drape that slides left or right to open. And yes, I have never seen or heard of a barn with doors like that. I wonder who gave them that name.

VAP, those pictures were from
Hitgeheim Country Lodge
https://www.hitgeheim.com/

An absolutely wonderful place. And I found the shower to be .............. "Liberating"

I was confused because I go to a lot of barns, and they don't have
doors like that. Just really big doors, usually in pairs.

Maybe it's a North American thing. My grandparent's farm had large doors like that, two doors suspended on the outside with one sliding left and one to the right. It's also a common concept in office design to maximize space that would otherwise be used up by a swing door.

"Maybe it's a North American thing."

Those were on Barns in Washington/Oregon when I was growing up. It seems like a cheap way to get very large doors (weight suspended and distributed by the overhead track) without putting all that weight on metal hinges of conventional doors.

"And I found the shower to be .............. "Liberating" "

There was a brief period (decade or so) when I was young when things like that were much more casual. Not a big thing. That was one of the things that got rolled back.

RobertH, I am 60-somehting and still wating to grow up.