bath vs. shower in R.S. hotel suggestions

I'm a bath person myself, but that's beside the point. Have you considered contacting the hotels directly and asking them? Most hotels will respond relatively quickly to emailed questions.

Well, the Website for the Hotel L’Arve https://hotelarve-chamonix.com/en/gallery.php has interesting photos, including their climbing wall (!) and an adorable St. Bernard puppy, but no bathroom pics. Maybe the bathrooms aren’t all uniform, and some might feature stand-up showerheads, while some might face tubs with hoses. Finding out from the hotel would help confirm the possibilities.

I found the hotel on Booking.com.

I hope this link to it will work for you. It looks like at least the 2 double rooms shown have a nice bath with a shower head on the wall and a short splash screen. Just scroll down, select a double room and scroll to the right to see the pictures. The bath seems to be the same for both.

You can also scroll to the right from the opening picture. The bath is picture 25 of 44.

I totally get your annoyance with hand held shower wands. For us, no shower head on the wall is a definite deal-breaker. We've rejected many an otherwise charming room as a result. ✅️🚿😉

We stayed at Hotel de l'Arve on the RS Best of Eastern France tour last May. I took a shower every day of the tour. I don't remember this bathroom explicitly but generally the shower was attached to the wall in a deeper / narrower bathtub than we have in the US. This was one of my favorite hotels on the tour. A very typical RS hotel. Lovely staff, nice small garden to sit outside along the river, good breakfast, and just a tad bit worn around a few of the edges.

Often you can get more specific information and maybe photos by looking at the hotel listing on booking.com.

When a Swiss hotel says “bath or shower” that generally means a combo/ bath tub with shower above. This may be a shower head that can be handheld or set in a holder that can be raised or lowered as you prefer.

We dislike climbing in and out of a bathtub to take showers, and I make a point of booking hotels with modern walk-in showers, preferably a rain shower. Often these will have a handheld option as well; you select the path of the water when you turn on the shower.

Is Hotel Bären in Bern a RS book recommendation? I have not looked at those. We really liked Hotel Bern in Bern—-a nice modern hotel in a great location in the old town. Our standard room had a walk-in shower; no bathtub in sight. Do not be put off by the Best Western designation; in Europe these are not standard American chain hotels but locally-owned hotels that are affiliated with Best Western for booking purposes.

I've never seen a bathtub without a showerhead attachment and some sort of splash-preventing partition, unless there is a separate shower in the bathroom (happens in fancy hotels).
So, if you are able to step in an out of a bathtub, no problem. You won't be forced to crouch to shower, or to take baths.

Thanks for all your input. I think we'll take our chances that most of the bathtubs will also have a shower attachment. We've traveleled in the UK, France, Italy, Croatia, Austria, and parts of Germany and never had issues with our R.S choices. Hopefully, Switzerland will provide us a similar experience.

Happy Travels!

The last time I stayed in a hotel room with just a hose for the shower without anyplace to hang it was in Paris over 30 years ago.

I've stayed in many hotels in Switzerland and they all hand a hand held shower with a holder if you wanted both hands free.

Lisa,
I can't speak to your specific hotels, but I did run across bathtubs in both Beaune, France and Granada, Spain with awkward shower heads in bathtubs. In France, it was a hose with shower head that you could not use hands free and mounted low on the tub sidewall. It also had no partition or even a shower curtain to contain the spray of water from getting all over the bathroom floor. It seemed to me one was expected to take a bath, which I did not care for. In Spain, the shower head was mounted on the bathtub wall, but not at the end of the tub, but on the sidewall. This was doable, but awkward. These were on guided tours, so I did not book the rooms myself.

To be fair to Europe, I had a similar problem at a Hyatt Hotel in Dallas, Tx. Although I did not book a handicap room, I was placed in one where the hand held shower wand was wheelchair height on the side wall. I requested a room change, which they did.

I would not make assumptions about a shower, but maybe email the hotels and ask about their set up. I understand wanting a nice shower at the end of a strenuous day especially when it comes to washing one's hair.

Interesting discussion about showers in bathtubs without a curtain or partition. I've lived in homes with this kind of situation and a way to contain the water to the bath area is to stand with your back facing the wall so that the water sprays onto the wall and not the open floor. It's doable.

How about the innkeeper put up a simple rod and shower curtain instead.

How about the innkeeper put up a simple rod and shower curtain instead.

Seems simple, but there's cleaning maintenance to do for shower curtains (or any shower partition) :)