We HATE These 11 Hotel Bathroom Design Choices

What’s worse than a frosted glass bathroom? An unfrosted glass bathroom. There are few people in the world who want to see their friends, children, or parents use the toilet, yet it’s surprisingly common for hotels to go down the ”sexy” route of glass walling. Traveler and Reddit user Hazma7 is just one of the many who realized booking separate beds was the least of their worries: “Me and my business partner decided to share a hotel room in order to save some money. We weren’t expecting this.”

When traveling you have a higher chance of many things, but two of them we want to shed light on are food poisoning and bathroom barn doors. Combined, they’re a recipe for disaster. “[I] resent hotels that use barn doors for their bathrooms. Sounds and smells cannot be contained by a sheet of plywood hung precariously on wheels.” says vodka7tall on Reddit. Leave the barn doors on the farm, hoteliers!

More and more travelers are noticing a lack of ventilation in their hotel bathrooms, particularly at large chain hotels. User Historical_boat_4642 comments, “Has anyone noticed that most of the newer Marriotts and JW Marriotts have stopped installing fans in their bathrooms?…Being able to hear each other drop the #2s and have extra steamy/stanky showers has genuinely caused us to take our business elsewhere.” When you’re paying in excess of $200 for a stay, you really shouldn’t be bringing your own Poo-Pourri.

The jungle is fabulous to trek in when you’re covered in DEET, but less so when you’re naked and covered in insect-enticing mango lime soap. Swarms of mosquitoes will come to join the ritual, as users on Mumsnet detail. “I’ve had them feast on me while [I was in an] outdoor shower,” said ArcticLadyBird. Let’s not forget the heat and humidity you’ll have to endure each time you use the toilet, and you’ll need the shower a lot more than usual.

There’s on and there’s off in most hotels, but then you have creative properties where you basically need to be an electrician to figure out the lighting system. Travel writer Amy Tara Koch told the New York Times, “I pressed all of the buttons on the wall panel and then tried the switches on a control box next to the bed. Nothing.” Jet-lagged, tipsy, and tired, she resorted to crashing out wearing an eye mask instead. For nocturnal toilet visitors, the problem also leads to a play of buttons whilst half-asleep and waking up companions during their REM cycle.

One faucet that takes forever to warm up is one thing, but when you have multiple there is nowhere to run to escape the initial burn of hot or cold. Some hotels have a triple whammy of nozzles, including a handset, a rainfall shower head, and body jets, forgetting that the average Joe isn’t technologically advanced enough to operate such machinery. “It’s not uncommon to stay at a hotel, go into the bathroom, and struggle for several minutes to figure out the shower,” says one Reddit user. Rather, guests end up violently sprayed at the wrong temperature for their pleasure.

Hotel bathrooms are a pipe of stranger juices and trust us, you never want that flow to stop. Sinks, bathtubs, and shower drains, however, are prone to clogging thanks to the build-up of hair and debris, resulting in puddles of both your and the previous guest(s) gross gray water for your body parts to swim in. That’s if the shower is encased. “The shower in my hotel room flood[ed] the entire bathroom unless I put towels right next to it,” moaned Mountaintop123.

Luxury hotels don’t want you to lift a finger, but sometimes a little bit of finger-lifting goes a long way to save yourself from embarrassment. Super suites so big you’re likely to be sharing with friends often have bathrooms without a toilet brush or jet spray to wash anything that the flush could miss. Instead, you’re expected to wait until the housekeeper comes and puts their elbow grease in. That might not be until turndown service and your guests will be using the toilet after you. Do you keep flushing, grab a tissue and put your arm in, or shrug it off and ignore the skid marks?

Don’t jump for joy just yet because you have a real door. Sometimes, the said real door might not have a lock. Apparently, it’s for safety reasons in case you, say, pass out whilst toileting. Whilst you can remind your travel companions and get some level of privacy, you’re never quite relaxed for the duration of the trip. There’s always the chance a clumsy friend will forget after one too many Aperol Spritzes or their toddlers will run in before the coach leaves for Disneyland. At least then they can call you Winne the Pooh.

First of all, it’s 2024, and we’re trying to be more eco-conscious, so miniatures are an obscene waste of plastic. And second, if they’re from a supermarket line, what’s the point? Who’s going to steal a half-used bottle of Neutrogena (and does any hotel really care if they do?) There isn’t enough shampoo in them either—especially if you’re somewhere hot and plan on multiple showers a day—and it’s hard to get the liquid out at all. Let’s just ban these already…everywhere.

They sure look sleek, but anyone who has taken a bath in one knows that the moment you move is the moment you start letting water slip down the drain. Bathtime is meant to be relaxing, and you should be able to soak without worrying about refilling, re-adding bath salts, and losing valuable foamy bubbles. The best drains are controlled via rod by the faucet, which looks just as nice but doesn’t pop out each time you reposition yourself.