Kinda novice question here, but in the Paris guide Rick says "A room with a bathtub costs 10-15E more than a room with a shower and is generally larger. Hotels often have more rooms with tubs than showers and are inclined to give you a room with a tub (which the French prefer)" My question is whether the rooms that have the tub also have a shower head up on the wall? Traveling in Italy it was common to have a tub and then a flexible metal hose that ran to a detachable shower head; if you were careful you could take a shower and not spray water all over the place. Looking at the websites for some of the hotels RS recommends in his book it often says some rooms have tubs, some have showers. I'm thinking (and my be wrong here) that the shower would be an area enclosed by some sort of curtain, and a tub is the obvious. I'm not a big bath person, so if the tubs typically come with at least a shower head up on the wall the way they did when I was traveling in Italy I'd prefer it. I don't mind paying more for a room with the tub if its the only way to get the reservation; what I'm trying to avoid is sending a reservation request specifying a shower, having the hotelier assume I want the enclosed shower, and if they don't have one of those rooms available declining the reservation if it turns out they DO have rooms with tubs and a shower head.
Posted by
San Francisco/Marin County
9436 posts
I've stayed in many hotels in Paris and most of the time with a bathtub. I have never seen a shower head mounted on the wall (like in the US) in a French tub. We have always had the hand held hose with shower head with no way to mount it. Sometimes with the tub there's glass covering only half the space, and other times there is nothing. It makes it almost impossible to not get water outside the tub area. Stand alone showers usually have doors that close, I've never seen a shower curtain in a French hotel. Doesn't mean they don't exist, I've just never seen it.
Posted by
L'Occitanie, France
10634 posts
Yes, most tubs have a shower head, too, though a hand-held shower. To be safe, you should ask. In France, even in homes, most people have hand-held shower heads. They almost always do fit into a holder. I'm not sure where Rick is getting his information that people prefer baths because most people we know (friends and family) take showers.
Posted by
Des Moines, IA
2193 posts
I've experienced both in Paris: One was just a shower with a shower hose that could be taken off the wall mount. The shower was small but had a plastic curtain. Another room had a full tub also with a shower hose that could be taken off the wall mount but no shower curtain at all. I used the tub as a shower, but the bathroom was soaked. There's no real way to keep the rest of the bathroom dry, but I'm also not interested in using a tub for a bath when it isn't my own tub.
Posted by
Seattle, WA, USA
1068 posts
Some do, some don't. We've been staying at l'Hotel Hameay for years now.... when we first found the place, it was all rooms with small tubs and a shower hose/head thingie that did not have a wall hanger. Our one trial run of another hotel (which had us fleeing to l'Hotel Hameau, bags and hat in hand, after the first night) actually did have an American-style shower, and that was a couple of years ago. Then lo and behold, this past December, we checked into the Hameau and discovered that the baths were being upgraded - now they have a glass-walled shower cubicle and a shower head! Huzzah! So.... maybe this old truism about bath tubs is changing? And yes, I know my sample is of TWO. ;D