'Awkward' hotel room trend that everyone hates is here to stay
On a recent trip with a friend, we shared a hotel room to save money. All we needed was two beds, a bathroom, and a good WiFi connection.
It seemed like a great idea, until we settled into our room and quickly realised that the only thing between the beds and the toilet was a sliding glass door, with about a foot of open space at the top.
Thankfully, we're close enough that we could laugh off the awkwardness, and vowed to play loud music through our phones if we needed to use the facilities.
But that doesn't work for everyone.
Sliding glass doors take up less room. Getty
If you've noticed changes to the bathroom layout of hotel rooms lately, you're not alone.
Typical hotel bathroom doors - ones with a hinge, a handle, and a latch - are on the way out.
Instead, hotel designers are using frosted glass walls, sliding barn doors and even curtains to separate the bathroom from the living and sleeping areas.
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While this is fine if you're travelling solo, it's far from ideal when you're sharing a hotel room with others. Not everyone is comfortable listening to (and smelling) their travel partner's bathroom habits.
So why the change?
According to the Wall Street Journal, there are a number of reasons why 'regular' doors are becoming rare in hotel rooms.
Some hotel rooms throw privacy out the window. 1Hotel Central Park
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Of course, the number one reason is money. Post-pandemic, business and group travel is still down, and the cost of materials and labour is growing.
"In the eyes of a chief financial officer, the humble door can look like a money pit," the WSJ reporter writes.
It's a lot easier to put in a pocket sliding door, or to hang a curtain in the door frame.
These also require a lot less ongoing maintenance: hinges get squeaky, handles loosen, and wood doors get dinged by luggage and warped by shower steam.
Another consideration is disability accessibility laws, which in many countries require doors to be a particular width. In small hotel rooms, there just isn't enough floor space for a large door to open and close - which is where sliding doors come in handy.
However, they rarely seal shut, leading to the noise and smell issues guests often complain about.
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Some hotels call it modern or spa-like. Old Clare Hotel
Some high-end resorts and hotels have embraced the no door trend, labelling it as "modern" or "European-chic".
They market the open plan bathroom as lending a spa-like ambience to hotel rooms. The bathroom isn't a utility room you hide in, but a design feature of the suite.
Frequent traveller Sadie Lowell started an online campaign, "Bring Back Doors", after she shared a hotel room in London with her dad, which had nothing but a glass door separating the shower and toilet.
She has emailed hundreds of hotels with two questions: "Do your doors close all the way, and are they made of glass?"
It's fine if you're travelling alone - not so much if you're with friends. Mariott
With this info, she has two running lists: Hotels with bathroom doors and hotels without. The second category is subdivided into "80 per cent privacy: sliding/slatted doors," "50 per cent privacy: glass doors with walls," and "zero privacy: no door, no wall, or wall with window."
"Maybe the hotel industry will finally start paying attention and realise they can't commodify privacy," Sadie told WSJ, "because people will just take their money and their travel budget to hotels that still have bathroom doors."
