laundry facilities in european hotels
 

I'm doing a 20 day Best of Europe coach tour(cosmos) in October and was wondering if anyone knew about laundry facilities in the hotels? thanks!

It will depend on which hotels. You might have more luck asking the tour company.

Most of the hotels will do laundry but they're very expensive. There probably won't have any do-it-yourself laundry facilities, since the hotel makes money of the laundry.

Another option is the delay. Some fast hotels can "turn it the morning and the laundry comes home as supper time". This is super fast and super expensive.

Probably most hotels will take clothes you turn in one morning and you'll have it back the next day. This doesn't mean you'll have your clothes back enough to leave with the bus.

The tour company has "Laundry Stops", I would think. Otherwise the bus will get very smelly.

Have a good tour.

Blackduff

I've taken 2 tours (Trafalgar) in the past, and there was no "laundry stop". There was 'free time' which I suppose could become a laundry stop.

Best thing to do is take lighter-weight clothes that you can hand-wash and hang over the shower on the nights you are in the same hotel 2 nights (hopefully you have some of those!).

Hotels generally gouge you for laundering clothes.

Depending on where you are, you may be lucky enough to find wash and fold places, which do the laundry for you by weight.

Or at worst, you can find a laundromat but then it will take up a lot of your travel time.

Wash and fold places are great but you may also need at least a day in one place, drop it off one day, pick it up the next. Or maybe drop it off in the morning and pick it up in the afternoon or early eve.

Found such places in Florence and Paris but not in Venice at all.

Checking that particular tour itinerary, you will have little to no time for a laundromat until you get to Paris, which is at the very end of the trip, so there'd be no point in hunting for one then.
Also, in most of the destinations on that itinerary, you won't find laundromats easily and it seems like it would be a bad use of precious free time.

You could have the hotel wash your clothes, but they will charge by the piece and it will cost you dearly.

As others have noted, adjust your wardrobe to bring things you can wash yourself and dry overnight in your room. Bring as much as you can reasonably fit in your suitcase in the way of underwear and socks to minimize having to wash those. And remember, jeans take FOREVER to dry unless you can hang them out in full sun somewhere. Bring a few extra large ziploc bags to hold any handwashed clothes that aren't dry the next morning. Also, some Fodorites have perfected a nifty way of using a large ziploc bag as a traveling washing machine.

You can bring along a small bottle of multi-purpose detergent, but I've always made do with the shower gel found in most European hotels. It's worked fine for a trip (and FWIW, a top lingerie shop in Paris counsels its clients to wash their delicates in shampoo, not detergent, including "hand wash" detergents).

By the way, just as an aside, it never hurts to pack a cardboard poster tube in your suitcase. Will protect any posters you buy along the route. Even if you don't buy posters, you can always stuff socks or underwear in the tube so you're not wasting space.

even using the hotels' very expensive laundry services will be next to impossible on that tour. You stay only one night in most places. You will arrive at the hotel in the afternoon or evening and leave again right after breakfast the next morning.

Venice, Rome and Paris are about the only places where you could use the hotel laundry. W/ your luggage having to be in the hall by 0700 or 0800 each morning I would not count on the hotels even in those 4 cities.

So you really are going to have to do your own - and you need to take clothes that easily dry overnight.

oops - those 3 cities . . . .

There are also ways to make you clothing last longer between laundering. Unless you have experienced particularly hot weather or have been the victim of a messy spill, most clothing can be worn more than once before laundering in necessary. At the end of the day, place the clothes you've worn on hangers to let them air and to relax wrinkles. Treat any minor stains or spills with a spot wash. Refold and pack them carefully when you move on to the next destination.

I live in Italy and European Washer and Dryers are nothing like the US models. They hold very little and whites takes close to two hours to wash and another 1 and half to dry. One of my happiest days since we moved here was when I got an American Style Washer and Dryer. With two children its worth it.

If you do need to make a laundry pitstop, use it just to dry clothes you've already handwashed. Will save you time. Also, in case you use them, dryer sheets are not usually available from the vending machines in European laundromats. Detergents, yes, liquid fabric softener, usually. But dryer sheets, seldom. So bring a couple along if you like them.

Hotels in europe typically do not have self-service laundry facilities - only rental condos or other long-term places. And if the hotel does your laundry it usually takes 2 days - and will often cost as much as the items did originally - esp sox, panties/boxer/briefs.

And even if your tour has free time - who wants to spend it doing laundry. Even if you find a place nearby that's open the hours you have avaiable.

I always take enough undergarmetns to last the trip and some lightweight tops that can be rinsed if you have to. But - since it's a tour and you don;t have to deal with your own luggage there's no reason not to take a larger bag and just bring enough clothes for the trip without washing.

Cosmos has a list of hotels on the website, if you have difficulties Googling, try www.globusandcosmos.com and go to the Cosmos part

Google each hotel and check out their amenities.

If you can't find, maybe you can e-mail Cosmos, there should be "contact us" section on their website.

And if everything else fails, bring your own shampoo and use the hotel-provided bottles for a quick laundry in the sink (get the universal sink stopper).