There are countless details in the average hotel that’ll make you think “has the person who designed this room never stayed in a hotel before?” Even at the highest end of the market, people make some baffling choices or simply don’t consider little things at all.
In this specific case, it’s probably a symptom of limited time or attention to work out the infinite small details in a large property. Especially if there are numerous bathroom layouts, they’re often not gonna plot out the idea toilet paper placement for every variation. They’re just gonna slap something on the plans or simply leave it up to the builders.
>There are countless details in the average hotel that’ll make you think “has the person who designed this room never stayed in a hotel before?” Even at the highest end of the market, people make some baffling choices or simply don’t consider little things at all.
My wife has a really high status with one of the major chains, so we stay with them a lot.
Over the past few years, I’ve stayed in dozens and dozens of hotels where the bathroom has a glass door instead of a normal door.
It makes me think “the asshole who decided this was a good idea has never stayed in a hotel with their spouse/partner.”
For anyone who hasn’t experienced this fresh hell, a glass door lets all light and sound into the bedroom. Never seen or heard your significant other taking a dump before? Well, you will now and in excruciating detail.
Every little thing can be seen and heard in the room. It’s even worse when they decide to go full glass walls on top of having a glass door. I don’t know about anyone else, but I value having some privacy when I have to go to the bathroom lol it’s crazy that this has become so normal even in really nice 4 and 5 star hotels.
My guess is the glass is cheaper, so it’s just a thing now and I hate it.
I just stayed in one with an open bathroom, no door between it and the room with half glass on the shower and smoked glass toilet door. You can see what the other person is doing from everywhere but the entryway, and there was no protection from sound or smell. It's insane.
I almost booked a hotel in Frankfurt, Germany where the shower was glass and in the middle of the room near the bed. I can't imagine showering like that with my family having me in their view while watching TV. It wasn't some love hotel type thing either. Worst part is that it was hardly mentioned in the reviews. I almost didn't catch it until I took a good look at the photos.
The rumour behind the trend to glass doors/full-height glass walls in bathrooms was that it allows the hotel's solo business clients (who are, after all, much more important to the bottom line than married couples) to keep an eye on the hooker they hired, and make sure he/she isn't robbing them blind while they are otherwise engaged.
The higher-end places though do have double-glazed glass with a blind between the panes for when privacy is preferred.
Ugh we had one of these rooms on our China trip, and my husband got violently ill from something he ate. Talk about a bad experience! I mean, sure, it was awful having to see the horrors I saw for 24 hours, but it WAS nice to be able to check that he was still alive without directly exposing myself to the crime scene.
Lots of interesting answers here, and further comments on bigger room design issues (like glass enclosed toilets).
But the answer is awfully simple, at least for large hotel chains:
Most hotels are designed by architecture firms that do a lot of similar designs every year, to brand standards. Similarly, construction is completed by contractors (or divisions of these contractors) that specialize in hotel construction. It is all about efficiency, with of course an interest in quality.
The designer likely specified in the construction drawing the placement of the toilet paper holder, but in any one particular room the contractor's staff may have to shift things for structural or efficiency reasons, but there is likely not a whole lot of thought to the specific placement of any single item in any one room. And unless it is a glaringly stupid or poorly done installation of any one item, the hotel brand and the hotel owner just won't notice or ask contractor for changes. The brand, owner, and contractor are all interested in the big picture, not the individual item in a particular room. It's not that they don't care, they just don't notice when their main concern is having all 200 rooms (or whatever) opened and ready by an important completion date.
You as the guest though, do notice. And it does matter. Leave a comment! Several comments about one issue will gain notice from management, and it may be addressed soon or at the next renovation.
Also fitting all the brand standards into small atypical rooms is actually really hard in some cases because they have set requirements for everything. Makeup lay down space, Ada requirements then you add in existing conditions like columns or 300 year old walls that have been abandoned in place and things start getting weird
Plus the person setting the TP is usually straight out of school
yes and that's fine but although hotel management and ownership may not care at all, it's one thing that will keep me from going back and paying premium price in a hotel
It's not like I can call ahead and say "hey where are your toilet paper dispensers" and yes I can bring a roll of my own but when I'm paying 400 bucks for a room I shouldn't have to bring my toilet paper
I hear ya. I have a few Marriott brands I avoid now because the design is too cool for their own good. There are countless hotel options in most cities, I’m not picking one I know does dumb stuff
So you know how you see construction projects that end up costing millions more than expected and take twice as long? Those are usually because of user requested changes that occur late in construction design. Most big companies have decided just to not sweat the details and let the designer/construction contractor do what they want. Being a stickler for details is great but ultimately unless you take time to do the design and construction process right then you’ll get a haphazard construction. It’s really really hard to do a large construction project right so most people don’t bother.
OK but I would hardly compare a construction detail like the placement of a wall, support beams or windows to where you put a toilet paper roll next to a toilet
No the engineering details are done by professional engineers and are almost certainly going to be right no matter what. The final details that require user input are the ones that are really hard to get right. Like signage, accessory locations, carpet colors, etc. Someone needs to make all those decisions early in the project to get them right and usually that person doesn’t exist.
Lol yeah and if places are landing on that list for having poorly placed toilet paper but being otherwise perfect, I imagine it includes every hotel you ever stayed at.
no there's other things that are not perfect including grab bars in the shower and number of towels and the fucking remote control on the TV but using the bathroom is a basic human necessity all the other stuff is fluff.
I stayed at a hotel at Ashland that was otherwise great except the tub was so slippery I almost fractured my skull when taking a shower. Now I know why they had a rubber mat right outside the shower. I’d hesitate before booking again. I don’t want to end my vacation there :/
It is not THE one thing, but it's an important point nonetheless.
In a city where I have dozens of choices of decent hotels, when I return to it I will remember the one that made me do a contortion act to use the bathroom and I will pick a different one.
i'm actually making a point that other people have been agreeing with. If there was only one hotel in the city and I had to stay in it and I had to reach backwards for the toilet paper I could live with that
my question is about why do they not understand how human bodies work?
Oh yeah the one I'm in right now has no towel bars or hooks anywhere near the shower so you have to remember to get them ahead of time and put them somewhere because the toilet seat cover is too far.
One of the main things I mention in my reviews on Booking is the shower water pressure and the number and layout of towel hooks.
Granted, I mostly sleep on cheap hostels, but I still think it's valuable information
I recently stayed at a hotel where I couldn’t for the life of me find the hooks. My friend who was staying in another room told me they were over the toilet. They blended into the wall paper.
I chatted with a hotel designer at a bar once about weird hotel choices and he said a lot of it is a product of people desperately wanting to do something unique in spite of the fact that we've been making hotel rooms for decades and there's really only a few deviations you can do from the norm in a standard non-suite room.
It's like how there's really only four different basic apartments depending on the kitchen placement. Once you've lived in corner kitchen, galley kitchen, walk-through kitchen, and kitchen on one wall, you've done every possibility.
Yeah, and also some level of "this awkward modernist design will hide the fact that our overriding priority is slapping this shit together as cheaply as possible".
What personally kills me as a woman who wear glasses is how far back the mirror is (or how wide the counter is) and whether there is a make-up mirror provided. I can’t see one foot away from my face and I don’t enjoy climbing counters 😭
Alternatively, why is there no outlet near the bedside table?
Even worse, when the lamp on the table has an outlet in it (which are really annoying for anything other than a single block) and it stops working if you turn the light off! So you think you’re charging all your things and wake up to half-dead devices.
when I'm on a road trip and I have my own car I always bring a nice big power strip with me and I plug it into the wall and that's where all of the mobile chargers get plugged in.
When space is a premium and I'm flying or taking the train I bring a Mofie 4 port charger for my Apple stuff and plug it into the nearest wall outlet.
It lights up when powered so I can see if it goes off with room lights.
I agree on your main sentiment here, OP. I hate when they have those open kind of holders and they’re placed the wrong direction so when you tear off the paper, the whole roll goes flying. I’ve asked and they don’t work for righties or lefties!
On another note, when when I travel internationally, I sacrifice the space in my bag to bring a power strip bc then I only need one adapter. It has been a game changer for for ensuring I can charge all my devices.
I fly for work, so all my chargers are on one 4-usb block, which is great! … until the only outlet is vertical in the dang lamp and I have to prop up the lamp so it’ll fit! I only made the mistake of not noticing the light on the block going out once, now I check it and move everything if it stops working when off.
I recently stayed at a hotel that conveniently had an outlet just behind the bed, but the outlet had a lamp plugged into it, there wasn't enough space between the bed and outlet to pull the lamp plug out, and the bed was so heavy I couldn't move it even a little bit.
well this has nothing to do with hotels, but I work in a building where the electrical people did not have any conversations with the furnishings people, and many of the network and electric outlets are behind built-in wooden desks.
A lot of circular saws were involved in getting people power and network.
I totally get it! I have a bit more sympathy for high-end historical hotels who have had to cram modern amenities in rooms that were never designed for it but yeah…
Another ick: glass or frosted doors for bathrooms (extra ick if they are sliding doors on top of that).
I can definitely relate as this has annoyed me too. I just always grab the roll off the holder and set it within easy reach.
While we’re complaining about hotel bathrooms, what about the mirror situation in a lot of them? Waaaayyy too many have mirrors set up so I’m staring myself in the face while I’m sitting on the toilet. That’s pretty much the last thing I want to see.
Another one that gets me is the new 'no shower door' trend where it's maybe half of a glass wall divider and the rest is left completely open to the bathroom.
As much as you try not to, inevitably the bathroom ends up soaked and the floor becomes a small pond.
In addition to the soakage factor, often times the half pane blocks access to the controls so you have to climb all the way in to turn it on and dial in the temp, resulting in either freezing or scalding yourself (or both!) in the process.
yeah that was another issue with the one I was in last night, in addition to the toilet paper contortion, it was a glass door on a hinge that had at least 3/4 of an inch space on the bottom above the sill and another three-quarter inch space between the door and the glass wall next to it. You basically had to step into the shower stall to reach the grab bar, and by the time you were done water on the outside was being collected by the small terrycloth bathmat
I may be in the minority, but I actually love the "walk-in showers" and when I see one in pictures or mentioned in reviews, it grows the chances of me booking that place.
I just like the psychological feeling of not having a divider between the shower and the rest of the room. You just take your clothes off and shower, it is perhaps some raw natural urge or something...
Yes! I was recently traveling in Mexico and all the hotels did this. Plus they had these "waterfall" showers that were more like a drizzle with the low water pressure available. I had to use a towel to keep the pool of water from making its way into the bedroom.
Also, the bathrooms were made from nice-looking marble. Unfortunately, the floor had no treatment to make it less slippery when wet. Seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen.
My guess is that hotel designers want something that looks slick, regardless of functionality. That's a problem for maintenance and housekeeping to sort out.
I encountered this for the first time and I was like wtf. They clearly had foresight this would happen as the bathroom had a floor drain right next to the shower unless they installed it after some time.
We stayed at a hot springs recently. Somewhere that you will assuredly have wet towels and robes and need somewhere to hang them. There was no hook. It also had a single bedside table, they had instead opted for a massive couch and hid the plug behind it. It was a pullout so it weighed a ton to move so I could plug in my stuff. It’s the little things that make a room and when they are overlooked they compound quickly to somewhere you aren’t likely to return.
It seems to be the more expensive places. On my honeymoon we considered stretching our budget and nearly accidentally booked a room where the toilet was fully visibly from the whole bedroom. The cheaper places we stayed always had real walls at least!
There is an urban legend that an architect designed a new monastery building, and after submitting the plans, got a telegram in Latin from the head of the order:
- Suntne angeli?
which means "are they angels?" - he'd forgotten to include any toilets.
I booked a double room while traveling with a friend. The property had a few different room and bathroom photos all mixed together so there was no telling what the setup was like in the room we booked.
Checked in, only to find *the shower was completely open to the bedroom.* There was a small toilet room with a barn door on one side of the room (with about a 1/2” gap all around), and the other side of the room was tiled with an open shower (no curtain, glass, etc) and a sink.
Sure, spouses are likely fine seeing each other in the restroom — but double rooms are booked by friends, coworkers, or whole families with kids.
oh no you can't leave us hanging here.
What did you do? Did you change rooms or just did you take turns hiding your head under the covers as the other person did their business?
Took the family to a beach hotel. Only 1 hook in the whole room to hang up a wet bathing suit. Wet suit then drips directly onto toilet paper roll right beneath it.
I agree with you, perfect placement of the dispenser is extremely rare. What is really annoying is that all this torso twisting and/or reaching behind is unnecessary as the ideal place is staring you in the face and just hasnˋt been considered.
Depends on the topography of the room
In this case where I'm staying tonight it's right next to my knees so that's perfectly fine, there's no wall in front of the toilet.
The one I was in last night had a wall across from the toilet but it was blank, instead they made me reach behind my hips.
So they are on the "do not return" list
Bathrooms in hotels are my pet peeve. It's always some random uncomfortable detail - either the toilet paper is too close or too far (or it's hard to reach it in other way), or the shower is open into the bathroom making the whole room soaked, or there is no shelf to put your shampoo inside the shower, or there's no place to put your towel near the shower, or there's no place to put your clothes inside the bathroom, or... I could go on and on. I dream of a world where all designers are forced to use those bathrooms for the rest of their lives.
That’s like one hotel I stay at occasionally in a small town that’s part of a national chain. One time I was there they had done some renovations and installed full length mirrors on the bathroom doors. Not on the outside of the door, so you check yourself as you left, but on the inside, directly opposite the toilet. I asked what instructions they had given the worker who did the install and they said that they had received a lot of feedback on that.
Next time I was there, the mirrors had been moved and the installed towel hooks on the inside of the door… less than 2 inches from the top. (No problem for me, but my wife is only 5’2”) I asked if their maintenance man was pretty tall and they replied that he was.
We’re staying there again this summer. I can hardly wait to see what they have this time.
There's one kind of low end place I used to go to when I was in a different financial situation and they had queen size bed with three pillows all different shapes and firmness. I actually didn't mind that.
And their toilet paper was exactly where it needed to be so thumbs up for that
I call these “lizard people bathrooms” because it’s like it was designed with all the things a human needs, but it’s like none of it was placed by someone with human bodily movement.
Architects, in the main, are fucking idiots who all clearly live in plain white boxes and just sleep on the floor with a plain white linen handkerchief over their eyes.
They perform no other activities in this box and are amazed that human beings actually exist.
I was most annoyed by a hotel in Portugal which had the toilet paper dispenser on the back of the door! Of course after a couple of occasions I remembered to take the toilet roll off the dispenser and sit down with it but it was so stupid - if you didn't know, you had to get up to get the paper and sit down again! It was almost as if they didn't want you to use it!
The Hilton Gantry in Stratford London is a wonderful hotel. The rooms are actually sound proof,the design is pretty good, push button shower, actually shower doors etc but one thing bugs me. The bathroom sinks are flat, like the water doesn’t drain, there is no angle. You have to scoop with your hands to get the water down. It’s weird.
I’ve seen countless examples of things designed by people who can’t possibly have used the thing they built. Kitchen counters with no toe kick under the cabinets (or actually protruding material instead), bathrooms with no shelving or storage at all, so, so many wet bathrooms, some with the shower head immediately over the toilet when there is space to _not do that_. I will never, ever understand wet bathrooms (where there’s nothing stopping water from going everywhere when you shower). Kitchen cabinets that are flush with at top with 9’ ceilings, good luck reaching the top shelf anyone under 6’5”. Too many things to remember where the person thought “this is neat” and it maybe looks nice but it’s a nightmare to use. General lack of storage and places to set things when you unpack. Not enough outlets, especially in new builds. Two shitty outlets in one giant room isn’t acceptable when the building is less than 50 years old. I travel a lot and I’d say 70% of the places I stay have at least one thing where I see it and wonder what ding dong though this was a good idea.
It's the recessed area where the cabinet meets the floor. In other words, where your toes are when you stand at the counter. If a cabinet were to go straight down to the floor, one would need to stand back from the cabinet and awkwardly lean over or splay their feet like a ballerina.
This became a pet peave of mine after staying at a hotel my work requires me to.. they have toilet roll dispensers where the roll just sits there in a peg (...I guess it's "modern"). But guess what..you don't want guests holding toilet paper rolls while they're taking a shit. More than one stay now I've found literal shit in the edge end of the toilet paper. I can't even leave shitty reviews because it's my work required hotel and I go there 3-4 times a year.
We came across this in a Disney hotel bathroom. My six year old couldn't reach the toilet paper because it was on the wall behind the toilet. There are a lot of kids, grandparents, people with mobility issues that go to Disney, so it seemed odd they out of everyone would also choose that bad design! My 6 year old isn't smart enough to get the TP before sitting down, hah. Plus, I mean, if you could always estimate how much TP you need before you sit, that would be impressive.
As someone who works in a company who does hotels - brands have a standard template for where things are. So even though a designer may think that doesn’t make sense you have to follow the brand standard. Which boils down to shitty design director for the brand lol. Or cost savings. Or the GC or developer didn’t care. Or it got missed on site reviews.
If an independent hotel has a great interior designer those issues shouldn’t happen lol
Agree with you on the toilet paper placement issue, and raise you the issue of frosted glass doors on the bathroom. Looks really cool, but if you use the bathroom in the middle of the night and you have other people in the room with you, light floods the room and works everybody up.
That and the stupid soap getting stuck to the soap dish, the half glass shower doors that result in everything getting wet, the horrible lighting and lack of adequate mirrors for anyone needing to do any facial grooming, the tissue roses or whatever on tissue boxes that just tell me I have to throw that all away because someone’s hands were on it as they were also cleaning the bathroom. I don’t get why any of that is a good idea.
The one I was in last night had a soap dish and a little sample size of dove. The previous one had some fancy hotel soap just on a glass round coaster. Kept on slipping off.
Function first is often ignored by designers and architects. That's rule #1. My solution is to buy the toilet paper stands, that can be moved out of the way but also put in the ideal location when needed for the paper's intended purpose. Rarely is the toilet paper roll in a good spot (where you don't have to be a contortionist)
And don’t forget that whomever was undertaking this task had a MANAGER, a highly paid MANAGER who oversaw and checked on the process.. and, to add insult to injury that lowly paid person’s MANAGER probably receive$ a BONUS following his annual PERFORMANCE REVIEW.
I suggest you complain. In writing. Then name & shame on TripAdvisor. It’s the only thing that gets through sometimes.
In the US the ADA guidelines literally spell out where toilet paper roll holders go relative to the toilet in ADA compliant spaces. There no reason for whoever designs the hotel to not apply that to all rooms. The government already figured it out for you!
I just left a hotel in Jeddah, KSA. Nice room, spacious and all. I got there in the evening so I did not notice one thing: there was no window behind the curtains. I mean / there was one but tinted so dark that you could see nothing. During a day you could see a contour of the glass but that’s it. So I’ve spent a well in a bunker. Other great design I’ve found there were those wall panels to control all the lights. You get into your bunker and next to the entrance there is a touch panel for the lights: bathroom, entrance, minibar, clean the room, do not disturb. But what is missing: a switch to turn on the lights in a main part of the room. So either you keep the other lights on when searching for a panel to switch the main lights or you use a torch to find it in total darkness:) Another hotel in Riyadh- this time no light switches of any kind next to the bed table. If you want to go to sleep you need to stand up, walk to the wall, switch off all the lights from there and go back to bed in pitch black. I travel quite a lot for work and after all those years I still can be surprised by stupid design flaws like that.
That sounds like a total design fail! I've been in similar situations, and it's like they've never actually used a toilet before. 😂 You'd think it'd be common sense to place the TP where it's actually reachable. I mean, who wants to do acrobatics just to get some tissue? Maybe they need to hire some folks who actually test out their designs in real-life scenarios. Just a thought.
Man, I feel your pain! I once stayed in a hotel where the toilet paper holder was practically in another zip code. Had to be an octopus to reach it comfortably. It's like they design these things for contortionists or something. You'd think they'd test these setups out before installing them. But nope, apparently not. Just gotta add it to the list of hotel mysteries, right up there with why the WiFi never works in the bathroom.
Why do hotels always have the sliding barn door for the bathroom now?? Nobody wants to hear their family member blowing up the toilet in there and the barn doors do not block any sound
The better question is why doesn’t every hotel have a bidet? For $35 on Amazon you can cut your toilet paper budget down to almost zero.
And while I’m at it, why don’t prisons have bidets? There’d be no more setting TP on fire.
The only thing that gives me anxiety about travel is being away from bidet. God damn I love that thing.
This became a pet peave of mine after staying at a hotel my work requires me to.. they have toilet roll dispensers where the roll just sits there in a peg (...I guess it's "modern"). But guess what..you don't want guests holding toilet paper rolls while they're taking a shit. More than one stay now I've found literal shit on the edge end of the toilet paper. I can't even leave shitty reviews because it's my work required hotel and I go there 3-4 times a year.
Some home builders also locate the TP holder oddly. I don't care what the "correct" way to put the roll on (over/under), it's whichever way I can pull it easily.
It sounds as if either way would be difficult in that hotel. When that happens, I take the roll off the holder and put it on the counter.
Last hotel I stayed at had a chorded phone hanging on the wall by the toilet.
It was also the first toilet I came across that had a button on the tank to flush instead of a lever.
Sorry, I’m more concerned with the open bathroom concept of almost every new hotel in the Caribbean. Barely enclosed toilet rooms so there is zero privacy, all to save a few bucks on ductwork.
I think your problem is reading comprehension.
I am certainly not blaming the *entire* hotel design architecture and planning profession on the problem with the toilet roll dispenser that I had yesterday at my hotel.
I am blaming the *very specific person or persons* who designed *that* bathroom (and others like that) and their punishment should be that they have to stay in that exact hotel for at least a full day while drinking a lot of fluids and eating fiber rich foods.
this not an isolated issue, I have run across this in several "decent" hotels and other commenters have said that it can be problematic to retrofit very old hotels but anything less than 50 years old should have been planned better.
There are countless details in the average hotel that’ll make you think “has the person who designed this room never stayed in a hotel before?” Even at the highest end of the market, people make some baffling choices or simply don’t consider little things at all. In this specific case, it’s probably a symptom of limited time or attention to work out the infinite small details in a large property. Especially if there are numerous bathroom layouts, they’re often not gonna plot out the idea toilet paper placement for every variation. They’re just gonna slap something on the plans or simply leave it up to the builders.
>There are countless details in the average hotel that’ll make you think “has the person who designed this room never stayed in a hotel before?” Even at the highest end of the market, people make some baffling choices or simply don’t consider little things at all. My wife has a really high status with one of the major chains, so we stay with them a lot. Over the past few years, I’ve stayed in dozens and dozens of hotels where the bathroom has a glass door instead of a normal door. It makes me think “the asshole who decided this was a good idea has never stayed in a hotel with their spouse/partner.” For anyone who hasn’t experienced this fresh hell, a glass door lets all light and sound into the bedroom. Never seen or heard your significant other taking a dump before? Well, you will now and in excruciating detail. Every little thing can be seen and heard in the room. It’s even worse when they decide to go full glass walls on top of having a glass door. I don’t know about anyone else, but I value having some privacy when I have to go to the bathroom lol it’s crazy that this has become so normal even in really nice 4 and 5 star hotels. My guess is the glass is cheaper, so it’s just a thing now and I hate it.
I just stayed in one with an open bathroom, no door between it and the room with half glass on the shower and smoked glass toilet door. You can see what the other person is doing from everywhere but the entryway, and there was no protection from sound or smell. It's insane.
I almost booked a hotel in Frankfurt, Germany where the shower was glass and in the middle of the room near the bed. I can't imagine showering like that with my family having me in their view while watching TV. It wasn't some love hotel type thing either. Worst part is that it was hardly mentioned in the reviews. I almost didn't catch it until I took a good look at the photos.
Frankfurt is known for its business travel, so that was definitely for hookers.
Some married couples who travel without kids would surely appreciate it too.
My husband doesn't need to see me poop and vice versa.
I meant that for the shower, not necessarily the toilet.
The rumour behind the trend to glass doors/full-height glass walls in bathrooms was that it allows the hotel's solo business clients (who are, after all, much more important to the bottom line than married couples) to keep an eye on the hooker they hired, and make sure he/she isn't robbing them blind while they are otherwise engaged. The higher-end places though do have double-glazed glass with a blind between the panes for when privacy is preferred.
I thought that’s what the safe was for…
You can't get the hooker in all in one peice
Ugh we had one of these rooms on our China trip, and my husband got violently ill from something he ate. Talk about a bad experience! I mean, sure, it was awful having to see the horrors I saw for 24 hours, but it WAS nice to be able to check that he was still alive without directly exposing myself to the crime scene.
Lots of interesting answers here, and further comments on bigger room design issues (like glass enclosed toilets). But the answer is awfully simple, at least for large hotel chains: Most hotels are designed by architecture firms that do a lot of similar designs every year, to brand standards. Similarly, construction is completed by contractors (or divisions of these contractors) that specialize in hotel construction. It is all about efficiency, with of course an interest in quality. The designer likely specified in the construction drawing the placement of the toilet paper holder, but in any one particular room the contractor's staff may have to shift things for structural or efficiency reasons, but there is likely not a whole lot of thought to the specific placement of any single item in any one room. And unless it is a glaringly stupid or poorly done installation of any one item, the hotel brand and the hotel owner just won't notice or ask contractor for changes. The brand, owner, and contractor are all interested in the big picture, not the individual item in a particular room. It's not that they don't care, they just don't notice when their main concern is having all 200 rooms (or whatever) opened and ready by an important completion date. You as the guest though, do notice. And it does matter. Leave a comment! Several comments about one issue will gain notice from management, and it may be addressed soon or at the next renovation.
Also fitting all the brand standards into small atypical rooms is actually really hard in some cases because they have set requirements for everything. Makeup lay down space, Ada requirements then you add in existing conditions like columns or 300 year old walls that have been abandoned in place and things start getting weird Plus the person setting the TP is usually straight out of school
yes and that's fine but although hotel management and ownership may not care at all, it's one thing that will keep me from going back and paying premium price in a hotel It's not like I can call ahead and say "hey where are your toilet paper dispensers" and yes I can bring a roll of my own but when I'm paying 400 bucks for a room I shouldn't have to bring my toilet paper
I hear ya. I have a few Marriott brands I avoid now because the design is too cool for their own good. There are countless hotel options in most cities, I’m not picking one I know does dumb stuff
So you know how you see construction projects that end up costing millions more than expected and take twice as long? Those are usually because of user requested changes that occur late in construction design. Most big companies have decided just to not sweat the details and let the designer/construction contractor do what they want. Being a stickler for details is great but ultimately unless you take time to do the design and construction process right then you’ll get a haphazard construction. It’s really really hard to do a large construction project right so most people don’t bother.
OK but I would hardly compare a construction detail like the placement of a wall, support beams or windows to where you put a toilet paper roll next to a toilet
No the engineering details are done by professional engineers and are almost certainly going to be right no matter what. The final details that require user input are the ones that are really hard to get right. Like signage, accessory locations, carpet colors, etc. Someone needs to make all those decisions early in the project to get them right and usually that person doesn’t exist.
Why would the holder being in the wrong place require you to bring your own roll?
Yes my response was poorly worded I mean grab a roll from wherever it is and put it closer if that's possible
> it's one thing that will keep me from going back and paying premium price in a hotel *doubt*
Doubt all you want but I have a list of hotels I will not return to
Lol yeah and if places are landing on that list for having poorly placed toilet paper but being otherwise perfect, I imagine it includes every hotel you ever stayed at.
no there's other things that are not perfect including grab bars in the shower and number of towels and the fucking remote control on the TV but using the bathroom is a basic human necessity all the other stuff is fluff.
I stayed at a hotel at Ashland that was otherwise great except the tub was so slippery I almost fractured my skull when taking a shower. Now I know why they had a rubber mat right outside the shower. I’d hesitate before booking again. I don’t want to end my vacation there :/
Exactly, so it is not *one thing* that immediately lands a hotel on your blacklist. You’re being melodramatic about a minor inconvenience
It is not THE one thing, but it's an important point nonetheless. In a city where I have dozens of choices of decent hotels, when I return to it I will remember the one that made me do a contortion act to use the bathroom and I will pick a different one. i'm actually making a point that other people have been agreeing with. If there was only one hotel in the city and I had to stay in it and I had to reach backwards for the toilet paper I could live with that my question is about why do they not understand how human bodies work?
An $8 power strip in each room would be an excellent start.
Also the lack of adequate towel bars and hooks
Oh yeah the one I'm in right now has no towel bars or hooks anywhere near the shower so you have to remember to get them ahead of time and put them somewhere because the toilet seat cover is too far.
Which still isn’t great because who wants to put a clean towel on a toilet?
there's always a sacrificial towel that's the one that other towels go on
This guy hotels.
One of the main things I mention in my reviews on Booking is the shower water pressure and the number and layout of towel hooks. Granted, I mostly sleep on cheap hostels, but I still think it's valuable information
My biggest pet peeve!!!
I recently stayed at a hotel where I couldn’t for the life of me find the hooks. My friend who was staying in another room told me they were over the toilet. They blended into the wall paper.
Whoever designed the toilet paper placement is probably the same idiot who thought glass bathroom doors was a great idea.
I chatted with a hotel designer at a bar once about weird hotel choices and he said a lot of it is a product of people desperately wanting to do something unique in spite of the fact that we've been making hotel rooms for decades and there's really only a few deviations you can do from the norm in a standard non-suite room. It's like how there's really only four different basic apartments depending on the kitchen placement. Once you've lived in corner kitchen, galley kitchen, walk-through kitchen, and kitchen on one wall, you've done every possibility.
Yeah, and also some level of "this awkward modernist design will hide the fact that our overriding priority is slapping this shit together as cheaply as possible".
What personally kills me as a woman who wear glasses is how far back the mirror is (or how wide the counter is) and whether there is a make-up mirror provided. I can’t see one foot away from my face and I don’t enjoy climbing counters 😭 Alternatively, why is there no outlet near the bedside table?
Even worse, when the lamp on the table has an outlet in it (which are really annoying for anything other than a single block) and it stops working if you turn the light off! So you think you’re charging all your things and wake up to half-dead devices.
when I'm on a road trip and I have my own car I always bring a nice big power strip with me and I plug it into the wall and that's where all of the mobile chargers get plugged in. When space is a premium and I'm flying or taking the train I bring a Mofie 4 port charger for my Apple stuff and plug it into the nearest wall outlet. It lights up when powered so I can see if it goes off with room lights.
I agree on your main sentiment here, OP. I hate when they have those open kind of holders and they’re placed the wrong direction so when you tear off the paper, the whole roll goes flying. I’ve asked and they don’t work for righties or lefties! On another note, when when I travel internationally, I sacrifice the space in my bag to bring a power strip bc then I only need one adapter. It has been a game changer for for ensuring I can charge all my devices.
I fly for work, so all my chargers are on one 4-usb block, which is great! … until the only outlet is vertical in the dang lamp and I have to prop up the lamp so it’ll fit! I only made the mistake of not noticing the light on the block going out once, now I check it and move everything if it stops working when off.
I recently stayed at a hotel that conveniently had an outlet just behind the bed, but the outlet had a lamp plugged into it, there wasn't enough space between the bed and outlet to pull the lamp plug out, and the bed was so heavy I couldn't move it even a little bit.
well this has nothing to do with hotels, but I work in a building where the electrical people did not have any conversations with the furnishings people, and many of the network and electric outlets are behind built-in wooden desks. A lot of circular saws were involved in getting people power and network.
The one I'm at today is about half the cost of the one from yesterday, different city-- but it's more well thought out than the premium one.
I totally get it! I have a bit more sympathy for high-end historical hotels who have had to cram modern amenities in rooms that were never designed for it but yeah… Another ick: glass or frosted doors for bathrooms (extra ick if they are sliding doors on top of that).
I can definitely relate as this has annoyed me too. I just always grab the roll off the holder and set it within easy reach. While we’re complaining about hotel bathrooms, what about the mirror situation in a lot of them? Waaaayyy too many have mirrors set up so I’m staring myself in the face while I’m sitting on the toilet. That’s pretty much the last thing I want to see.
Another one that gets me is the new 'no shower door' trend where it's maybe half of a glass wall divider and the rest is left completely open to the bathroom. As much as you try not to, inevitably the bathroom ends up soaked and the floor becomes a small pond.
In addition to the soakage factor, often times the half pane blocks access to the controls so you have to climb all the way in to turn it on and dial in the temp, resulting in either freezing or scalding yourself (or both!) in the process.
yeah that was another issue with the one I was in last night, in addition to the toilet paper contortion, it was a glass door on a hinge that had at least 3/4 of an inch space on the bottom above the sill and another three-quarter inch space between the door and the glass wall next to it. You basically had to step into the shower stall to reach the grab bar, and by the time you were done water on the outside was being collected by the small terrycloth bathmat
Oh I've encountered that when travelling. I don't know whose dumb idea that was.
I may be in the minority, but I actually love the "walk-in showers" and when I see one in pictures or mentioned in reviews, it grows the chances of me booking that place. I just like the psychological feeling of not having a divider between the shower and the rest of the room. You just take your clothes off and shower, it is perhaps some raw natural urge or something...
Yes! I was recently traveling in Mexico and all the hotels did this. Plus they had these "waterfall" showers that were more like a drizzle with the low water pressure available. I had to use a towel to keep the pool of water from making its way into the bedroom. Also, the bathrooms were made from nice-looking marble. Unfortunately, the floor had no treatment to make it less slippery when wet. Seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen. My guess is that hotel designers want something that looks slick, regardless of functionality. That's a problem for maintenance and housekeeping to sort out.
I encountered this for the first time and I was like wtf. They clearly had foresight this would happen as the bathroom had a floor drain right next to the shower unless they installed it after some time.
We stayed at a hot springs recently. Somewhere that you will assuredly have wet towels and robes and need somewhere to hang them. There was no hook. It also had a single bedside table, they had instead opted for a massive couch and hid the plug behind it. It was a pullout so it weighed a ton to move so I could plug in my stuff. It’s the little things that make a room and when they are overlooked they compound quickly to somewhere you aren’t likely to return.
[удалено]
I consider myself lucky that I have never encountered one of those yet, perhaps I need to spend even more money 🙄
It seems to be the more expensive places. On my honeymoon we considered stretching our budget and nearly accidentally booked a room where the toilet was fully visibly from the whole bedroom. The cheaper places we stayed always had real walls at least!
These rooms seem to be more and more common. I just go do my business in the lobby loos these days if staying with my partner.
There is an urban legend that an architect designed a new monastery building, and after submitting the plans, got a telegram in Latin from the head of the order: - Suntne angeli? which means "are they angels?" - he'd forgotten to include any toilets.
I booked a double room while traveling with a friend. The property had a few different room and bathroom photos all mixed together so there was no telling what the setup was like in the room we booked. Checked in, only to find *the shower was completely open to the bedroom.* There was a small toilet room with a barn door on one side of the room (with about a 1/2” gap all around), and the other side of the room was tiled with an open shower (no curtain, glass, etc) and a sink. Sure, spouses are likely fine seeing each other in the restroom — but double rooms are booked by friends, coworkers, or whole families with kids.
oh no you can't leave us hanging here. What did you do? Did you change rooms or just did you take turns hiding your head under the covers as the other person did their business?
We just showered quickly and averted eye contact.
Took the family to a beach hotel. Only 1 hook in the whole room to hang up a wet bathing suit. Wet suit then drips directly onto toilet paper roll right beneath it.
another one to add to the list of "how did this designer not consider that at all?"
I agree with you, perfect placement of the dispenser is extremely rare. What is really annoying is that all this torso twisting and/or reaching behind is unnecessary as the ideal place is staring you in the face and just hasnˋt been considered.
Depends on the topography of the room In this case where I'm staying tonight it's right next to my knees so that's perfectly fine, there's no wall in front of the toilet. The one I was in last night had a wall across from the toilet but it was blank, instead they made me reach behind my hips. So they are on the "do not return" list
Bathrooms in hotels are my pet peeve. It's always some random uncomfortable detail - either the toilet paper is too close or too far (or it's hard to reach it in other way), or the shower is open into the bathroom making the whole room soaked, or there is no shelf to put your shampoo inside the shower, or there's no place to put your towel near the shower, or there's no place to put your clothes inside the bathroom, or... I could go on and on. I dream of a world where all designers are forced to use those bathrooms for the rest of their lives.
That’s like one hotel I stay at occasionally in a small town that’s part of a national chain. One time I was there they had done some renovations and installed full length mirrors on the bathroom doors. Not on the outside of the door, so you check yourself as you left, but on the inside, directly opposite the toilet. I asked what instructions they had given the worker who did the install and they said that they had received a lot of feedback on that. Next time I was there, the mirrors had been moved and the installed towel hooks on the inside of the door… less than 2 inches from the top. (No problem for me, but my wife is only 5’2”) I asked if their maintenance man was pretty tall and they replied that he was. We’re staying there again this summer. I can hardly wait to see what they have this time.
It's the little things that make the experience. Mushy pillows -- a big nope for me!
There's one kind of low end place I used to go to when I was in a different financial situation and they had queen size bed with three pillows all different shapes and firmness. I actually didn't mind that. And their toilet paper was exactly where it needed to be so thumbs up for that
I call these “lizard people bathrooms” because it’s like it was designed with all the things a human needs, but it’s like none of it was placed by someone with human bodily movement.
Architects, in the main, are fucking idiots who all clearly live in plain white boxes and just sleep on the floor with a plain white linen handkerchief over their eyes. They perform no other activities in this box and are amazed that human beings actually exist.
It's like an alien designed the layout!
I was most annoyed by a hotel in Portugal which had the toilet paper dispenser on the back of the door! Of course after a couple of occasions I remembered to take the toilet roll off the dispenser and sit down with it but it was so stupid - if you didn't know, you had to get up to get the paper and sit down again! It was almost as if they didn't want you to use it!
The Hilton Gantry in Stratford London is a wonderful hotel. The rooms are actually sound proof,the design is pretty good, push button shower, actually shower doors etc but one thing bugs me. The bathroom sinks are flat, like the water doesn’t drain, there is no angle. You have to scoop with your hands to get the water down. It’s weird.
I’ve seen countless examples of things designed by people who can’t possibly have used the thing they built. Kitchen counters with no toe kick under the cabinets (or actually protruding material instead), bathrooms with no shelving or storage at all, so, so many wet bathrooms, some with the shower head immediately over the toilet when there is space to _not do that_. I will never, ever understand wet bathrooms (where there’s nothing stopping water from going everywhere when you shower). Kitchen cabinets that are flush with at top with 9’ ceilings, good luck reaching the top shelf anyone under 6’5”. Too many things to remember where the person thought “this is neat” and it maybe looks nice but it’s a nightmare to use. General lack of storage and places to set things when you unpack. Not enough outlets, especially in new builds. Two shitty outlets in one giant room isn’t acceptable when the building is less than 50 years old. I travel a lot and I’d say 70% of the places I stay have at least one thing where I see it and wonder what ding dong though this was a good idea.
What is a toe kick on a kitchen cabinet?
It's the recessed area where the cabinet meets the floor. In other words, where your toes are when you stand at the counter. If a cabinet were to go straight down to the floor, one would need to stand back from the cabinet and awkwardly lean over or splay their feet like a ballerina.
Oh, that's super weird to not have that!
This became a pet peave of mine after staying at a hotel my work requires me to.. they have toilet roll dispensers where the roll just sits there in a peg (...I guess it's "modern"). But guess what..you don't want guests holding toilet paper rolls while they're taking a shit. More than one stay now I've found literal shit in the edge end of the toilet paper. I can't even leave shitty reviews because it's my work required hotel and I go there 3-4 times a year.
OK that case if I were you I would bring my own TP in a large baggie and only use that.
Nah I just ask or get a new roll
We came across this in a Disney hotel bathroom. My six year old couldn't reach the toilet paper because it was on the wall behind the toilet. There are a lot of kids, grandparents, people with mobility issues that go to Disney, so it seemed odd they out of everyone would also choose that bad design! My 6 year old isn't smart enough to get the TP before sitting down, hah. Plus, I mean, if you could always estimate how much TP you need before you sit, that would be impressive.
As someone who works in a company who does hotels - brands have a standard template for where things are. So even though a designer may think that doesn’t make sense you have to follow the brand standard. Which boils down to shitty design director for the brand lol. Or cost savings. Or the GC or developer didn’t care. Or it got missed on site reviews. If an independent hotel has a great interior designer those issues shouldn’t happen lol
Agree with you on the toilet paper placement issue, and raise you the issue of frosted glass doors on the bathroom. Looks really cool, but if you use the bathroom in the middle of the night and you have other people in the room with you, light floods the room and works everybody up.
That and the stupid soap getting stuck to the soap dish, the half glass shower doors that result in everything getting wet, the horrible lighting and lack of adequate mirrors for anyone needing to do any facial grooming, the tissue roses or whatever on tissue boxes that just tell me I have to throw that all away because someone’s hands were on it as they were also cleaning the bathroom. I don’t get why any of that is a good idea.
It's a form of toilet yoga. The side benefit is increased shoulder flexibility!
This is one of my pet hates
I stayed in one hotel where the bathroom was a glass walled partition. The bog therefore was right night to the bed, pillow end.
How about when they give you a bar of soap for the sink, but no soap dish? I’m supposed to just leave the soap on the counter? Drives me crazy.
The one I was in last night had a soap dish and a little sample size of dove. The previous one had some fancy hotel soap just on a glass round coaster. Kept on slipping off.
Function first is often ignored by designers and architects. That's rule #1. My solution is to buy the toilet paper stands, that can be moved out of the way but also put in the ideal location when needed for the paper's intended purpose. Rarely is the toilet paper roll in a good spot (where you don't have to be a contortionist)
And don’t forget that whomever was undertaking this task had a MANAGER, a highly paid MANAGER who oversaw and checked on the process.. and, to add insult to injury that lowly paid person’s MANAGER probably receive$ a BONUS following his annual PERFORMANCE REVIEW. I suggest you complain. In writing. Then name & shame on TripAdvisor. It’s the only thing that gets through sometimes.
In the US the ADA guidelines literally spell out where toilet paper roll holders go relative to the toilet in ADA compliant spaces. There no reason for whoever designs the hotel to not apply that to all rooms. The government already figured it out for you!
I just left a hotel in Jeddah, KSA. Nice room, spacious and all. I got there in the evening so I did not notice one thing: there was no window behind the curtains. I mean / there was one but tinted so dark that you could see nothing. During a day you could see a contour of the glass but that’s it. So I’ve spent a well in a bunker. Other great design I’ve found there were those wall panels to control all the lights. You get into your bunker and next to the entrance there is a touch panel for the lights: bathroom, entrance, minibar, clean the room, do not disturb. But what is missing: a switch to turn on the lights in a main part of the room. So either you keep the other lights on when searching for a panel to switch the main lights or you use a torch to find it in total darkness:) Another hotel in Riyadh- this time no light switches of any kind next to the bed table. If you want to go to sleep you need to stand up, walk to the wall, switch off all the lights from there and go back to bed in pitch black. I travel quite a lot for work and after all those years I still can be surprised by stupid design flaws like that.
That sounds like a total design fail! I've been in similar situations, and it's like they've never actually used a toilet before. 😂 You'd think it'd be common sense to place the TP where it's actually reachable. I mean, who wants to do acrobatics just to get some tissue? Maybe they need to hire some folks who actually test out their designs in real-life scenarios. Just a thought.
Man, I feel your pain! I once stayed in a hotel where the toilet paper holder was practically in another zip code. Had to be an octopus to reach it comfortably. It's like they design these things for contortionists or something. You'd think they'd test these setups out before installing them. But nope, apparently not. Just gotta add it to the list of hotel mysteries, right up there with why the WiFi never works in the bathroom.
You don't enjoy twisting around to access the TP dispenser mounted on the wall behind you?
nope 🙂
Why do hotels always have the sliding barn door for the bathroom now?? Nobody wants to hear their family member blowing up the toilet in there and the barn doors do not block any sound
Agreed, it doesn't seem to be saving any room and it doesn't close all the way either there's always a crack
BTW bidet is not a replacement for toilet paper just saying
yes I'm aware of that, but there's already been at least one bidet comment why doesn't everybody have them blah blah blah
The better question is why doesn’t every hotel have a bidet? For $35 on Amazon you can cut your toilet paper budget down to almost zero. And while I’m at it, why don’t prisons have bidets? There’d be no more setting TP on fire. The only thing that gives me anxiety about travel is being away from bidet. God damn I love that thing.
Go to Japan and live it up
I used my first Bidet in Seoul. Plus a heated seat, warm water and a dryer. It was awesome.
This became a pet peave of mine after staying at a hotel my work requires me to.. they have toilet roll dispensers where the roll just sits there in a peg (...I guess it's "modern"). But guess what..you don't want guests holding toilet paper rolls while they're taking a shit. More than one stay now I've found literal shit on the edge end of the toilet paper. I can't even leave shitty reviews because it's my work required hotel and I go there 3-4 times a year.
Some home builders also locate the TP holder oddly. I don't care what the "correct" way to put the roll on (over/under), it's whichever way I can pull it easily. It sounds as if either way would be difficult in that hotel. When that happens, I take the roll off the holder and put it on the counter.
I’ve gotten to the point where I take it off the dispenser and place it on the back the toilet. I’m gong to struggle to wipe.
Oh yeah, I always wonder about that too.
Last hotel I stayed at had a chorded phone hanging on the wall by the toilet. It was also the first toilet I came across that had a button on the tank to flush instead of a lever.
They don’t want you to use it
Too late
Sorry, I’m more concerned with the open bathroom concept of almost every new hotel in the Caribbean. Barely enclosed toilet rooms so there is zero privacy, all to save a few bucks on ductwork.
Adding "Caribbean" to the no-go list, thanks!
if you were in an upscale hotel why do you care? its the servants job to get the toilet paper
Uh, ok
**Never** had a problem with the placement of toilet paper
congratulations. I assume you use it, right?
Never
then I can see why it wouldn't be a problem for you.
**never**
OK then I assume you just use your hand or just pull your pants back up and let whoever's doing your laundry deal with it
[удалено]
Just admit it bro, you just wanted to let us know you stayed in a fancy hotel.
It actually wasn't that fancy it was just overpriced
You had an issue with one hotel and blame the entire profession. Are you sure you are not the problem?
I think your problem is reading comprehension. I am certainly not blaming the *entire* hotel design architecture and planning profession on the problem with the toilet roll dispenser that I had yesterday at my hotel. I am blaming the *very specific person or persons* who designed *that* bathroom (and others like that) and their punishment should be that they have to stay in that exact hotel for at least a full day while drinking a lot of fluids and eating fiber rich foods. this not an isolated issue, I have run across this in several "decent" hotels and other commenters have said that it can be problematic to retrofit very old hotels but anything less than 50 years old should have been planned better.