Why the Bathroom (almost) Always Tells the Truth About a Hotel
You can learn a great deal about a hotel from its bathroom. I notice it immediately and always have. After feeling pillows, the next thing I do is check the bathroom. Flannels, flannels, flannels!
A good bathroom tells you someone has thought carefully about comfort and the overall experience. About how you move through a space in the morning and at night. About where you put your things. About light, sound and privacy. Is there enough room for two? Is there enough lighting for makeup? Is there enough space for all of our girlie stuff, lotions and potions?
Is there enough space around the basin? Is the mirror well-lit? Does the shower work properly without complicated instructions? Are there flannels? These details may seem small, yet they reveal everything about the hotel's design process. Has the owner or manager stayed in the rooms? It’s quite obvious when they haven’t. Not only that both a man and a woman need to stay as their feedback will be very different!
In great hotels, bathrooms feel calm, well-lit and generous. They invite you in to enjoy your bathroom rituals. They feel like places designed for use rather than display. In forgettable hotels, bathrooms often feel rushed, cramped or generic, even when the rest of the room looks impressive.
Bathrooms also reveal priorities. When corners are cut here, they’re usually cut elsewhere too. When care is taken here, it tends to run throughout the property. Bathrooms should never be an afterthought when it comes to hotel design, so why are they so often a disappointment? Brown’s Hotel in London has some of the loveliest bathrooms I know, the Rocco Forte group know a thing or two about luxury hotels!
This is why I always mention bathrooms in my reviews. They are an essential part of a hotel stay, whether you’re in the city (where they tend to be smaller) or in the country.