[VintageKrug]

I would hope you’re well on your way, Cedric.

The problem with enormous suites is that it takes an age to find the off switch for the lights, or worse, someone clever has put in an automated or remote control system which is unfathomable, so you end up bathed in light all night.

Then there’s the issue of people walking in on you from a hotelroom door which is so far away you didn’t hear it open…..ouch, now that *was* embarrassing!

[RCinBelper]

Right down in the basics:

(1) No shower curtain, a glass divider instead. Getting a wet shower curtain wrapped around you that only yesterday was wrapped around the previous guest is right up there with stepping in dog s**te.
(2) A hook that isn’t on the back of the door for my toiletries bag

Anything else is a bonus. RC

[Cloud-9]

As long as it has a bath and comfortable bed, I’m happy.

[judynagy]

I’m happy with generous horizontal l surfaces for my grooming supplies, lights that allow you to see your face (trend seems to be spots shining down on the top of your head) and the WC in a separate room ala France.

[IanFromHKG]

Funny thing, Cloud-9, but a bed has never been high on the list of things I look for in a hotel bathroom. Don’t the sheets get damp after a steamy shower? Hehehe

When I renovated (read “utterly gutted to the extent of only one internal wall remaining”) an apartment some years ago I adopted an idea which I saw in a Marriott hotel in the US, which would solve RCinBelper’s problem. The curtain rail was curved (in the horizontal plane) to pull the shower curtain away from the user. I had to have them specially made, but I have subsequently seen them on sale in the UK. Great idea – so simple, but really effective

[Cloud-9]

🙂 Point taken Ian, but!
Try going to Vietnam : some hotels have the bath in the same room as the bed, with just a folding screen to separate – if you are lucky! Indeed, one of the best hotels I stayed in there had this arrangment (and that was in a mini suite)

[capetonianm]

Surprised only one person has mentioned inadequate shelf space as an annoyance. Two of my favourite hotels have a pathetic little shelf above the washbasin, which is not deep enough for my toiletries bag. There is nowhere else to put the stuff – and as a man I don’t even have much beyond shaver, hairbrush, aftershave, smelly stuff, toothbrush and toothpaste.

More shelf space.

[beth993]

Funny – first thing I thought of was CLEAN. I worry about all those YouTube videos that show housekeeping using our toothbrushes to clean the toilets, using dirty rags to wipe out glasses then setting them back on the counter, using the same rag they used on the toilet to wipe the remote control…

I want a conscious and caring housekeeping staff who cleans my bathroom the way they clean their own at home… or better.

After that? Good towels. Good lighting. Intelligent shelving inside the bath or shower. Nonslip surface in bath and shower. Decent shower heads. A hotel phone inside the bathroom. Make it easy to hang up my wet towels, I’ll reuse them. I bring all my own sundries, so I don’t care what they put in the bathroom for shampoos and the like.

Personally as a female, I would NEVER use the bathtub in a hotel for a soak. Especially if this same tub is also the shower. I have watched how these things are cleaned and I wouldn’t soak my body in a tub of unknown chemicals, dirt, or other people’s dirty footprints. If I really really really need a hot soak, then i would take great pains to clean the tub myself before soaking in it. My continuing success in business depends on me being healthy. I don’t take unnecessary risks!

[VintageKrug]

Interesting that you’re so concerned about tub cleanliness; not something I had given much thought to!

I’ll think twice next time, as I don’t take showers if possible.

One thing I abhor it push button flushes. Grim.

[Melanieuk]

I love a nice, big bath
Powerful shower
fluffy bath robes

[DavidGordon10]

Well, a bit of nostalgia here – look who started the thread….

I have just been in a Lisbon hotel, not booked by me but by my local hosts. The hotel was generally all right, but the room showed the problem of being designed by a “designer” – one of those people who think how something looks without thinking how it works.

For example (as this is a bathroom thread), there was nowehere to park the soap or the shampoo in the shower. No doubt a little tray for the purpose would have destroyed the perfect lines of the designer’s “concept”. The need for an electric socket for a razor (not a problem for me, I am bearded like the pard) clearly grieved the designer, as the rest of the bedroom had no electric sockets anywhere where they might be needed. Whever designs a hotel room these days where a computer or a phone cannot practically be plugged in?

In short, for the ideal bathroom, sod the fluffy robes or the three shower heads that have no instructions (a real experience for me in a “designed” Liverpool hotel), just cleanliness and practicality.

[Cloud-9]

On the subject of power sockets: why do some hotels have the socket IMMEDIATELY above the work top or bedside tables? No chance of plugging the adaptor in – most frustrating when you have more than a couple of electronic gadgets.

[judynagy]

DavidGordon, you are SO RIGHT! It’s just amazing how “management” lets this kind of stupid stuff go on. Is there nobody with a practical brain to oversee the building projects? A hotel basically sells a place to sleep, to relax and to get clean, this is not brain surgery. I’ve had some showers that are practically unusable … my fave is the one at Hotel Riviera in Trieste, Italy. It was gorgeous, and so small you could not raise your arms to wash your hair … I reviewed it on TripAdvisor.

[IanFromHKG]

I second Cloud-9’s comments about power sockets being placed so close to other surfaces that larger plugs cannot be fitted in. I have some handy power adapters which are in fact slightly smaller in width/depth than a standard UK plug (but slightly deeper since of course it has to accommodate the full length of the pins) which usually solve that problem. Also, why don’t more hotels include multi-sockets capable of taking a variety of plugs? A bit like the ones that BA has finally fitted onboard (albeit predated by many other airlines, I mention theirs only because more readers will be familiar with them than others). And how hard would it be to put in a couple of USB sockets?

The Peninsula Bangkok have done a grand job here – connectors for your media, a good and fully integrated remote control, multisockets wherever you need them, phones with integrated controls for lights and curtains that will glow softly if you wave your arm over the phone, an exterior temperature display inside the room – I could go on and on, but suffice it to say I think they are some of the most cleverly thought out rooms I have ever seen
Ah well….

[DavidGordon10]

Taking this back to the bathroom theme, I am now in a fancy hotel in Quito, again not booked by me but by my local hosts. If a bathroom has a fixed head shower, but no hand-held attachment, it can be very difficult to wash what one of my medical colleagues calls “your bits”. Also, how do you obey the injunction to put towels you want to reuse on the towel rail when there is no towel rail?

(The electric sockets are OK, incidentally!)

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