I've complained about this before and I'll complain about it again and nothing will change but — well, just let me rant. That, after all, is why God and Al Gore invented the Internet…
I have a lot of trouble with hotel showers. I've stayed in fancy, expensive hotels and cheap, crummy ones. I'm usually not happy with the showers in either but generally have less problems with those in the cheap, crummy ones. In the upscale kind, design seems to be way more important than practicality. I can imagine the chief planner for a new hotel talking with the fellow who was brought in to design the bathrooms. They're looking at the prototype and the following words are spoken…
"I don't know, Leon. This shower you've built looks like it would be real easy for someone to fall in it and injure themselves…and there's no place to put your shampoo and conditioner when you're in there…and water's going to spritz all over the bathroom…"
"True. But look how nice the lines are…how beautiful the walls are…"
"You're right. Okay, let's order the parts to install 1,200 of them in the new building."
I probably should have started this by saying that I don't like these shower/tub combinations and I wonder how many people use the tub function at all.
The tubs all seem pretty small unless you specifically upgrade to some sort of "spa suite" with whirlpool jets, and such accommodations are usually costly and often unavailable. I don't like tubs anyway, partly because I don't fit in most of them and partly because even when I was younger, they always seemed tough to get into and tougher to get out of. When I travel alone to some hotels, I often book the cheapest room not so much to save money but because they usually have a shower that isn't also a tub.
Often at the desk, the check-in clerk asks if I'd like a free courtesy upgrade to the next level room. I always ask, "Does the next level room have a shower/tub combination?" They always say it does and I always decline the upgrade and they always look surprised. Above and beyond not trying to impersonate a bathtub, I would like my shower to meet four requirements…
- I would like it to be designed so I can take a shower without spraying water all over the bathroom and having to step out into Lake Mead.
- I would like it to have some sort of rack or shower caddy so I can have a place to put my little bottle of shampoo, my little bottle of conditioner, my large bar of soap and anything else I might need in there like a razor or my tube of facial scrub. I'm really amazed how many showers have no place whatsoever to put your necessities when you're in there and naked and wet.
- I would like it to have a place to hang a small towel or washcloth.
- And I would like it to have a couple of smartly-placed grab bars. Even those of us who don't qualify for what we used to call a "handicapped" room and now call an "accessible" room have the capacity to slip 'n' fall on wet, unfamiliar flooring.
That's all I want: Just four things. Not too much to ask, I think. Now with those in mind, let's evaluate the room I had on my most recent Vegas stay, and keep in mind that this is a new room in a recently-refurbished hotel. I'll embed a photo of the shower and fix things so you can make it larger by clicking on it…
So what do we see there? Taking them in reverse order, there are no grab bars…nothing to hold into if you feel you're going to fall. I don't get why those are not standard equipment in every shower. We all understand the upside of having them. What's the downside? The price? They're twenty bucks.
So we don't have #4. We also don't have #3. No bar on which to hang a face cloth or anything. We kinda have #2. See those little corner shelves? My shampoo. conditioner and soap are on the top one and they fit, just barely, mostly because the bottles are tiny. I'll give them half-credit for the shelves. I guess they thought they didn't need bigger ones because they installed that little dispenser that's filled with shampoo, conditioner and body wash, all of unknown brand or formulation.
If you've been looking at the photo I took, maybe you've noticed by now that something else is missing. Can you see it? Or maybe I should ask, "Can you not see it?" What's missing in this shower? There is a showerhead but I didn't get it in the shot. Something else is missing.
Give up? A door. There's no shower door to close and keep the water inside.
Instead — and I think this was deliberate — they installed shower heads that don't have much force so you have to stand right up close to them, putting you as far from the entrance as you could be. Maybe with a small showerer, that would work but the water was bouncing off me and going right out the opening where a door would have been. Even a plastic curtain would have stopped a lot of it. When I stepped out, it was like stepping into a wading pool. I threw down all the towels I wasn't using to dry myself and they soaked up some of the H2O but it was still messy, a bit unsafe for me and a lot of extra work for the maid.
I don't get why they make a problem out of something as basic as taking a shower. Yeah, I could ask for one of those "accessible" rooms but I feel like I might be taking one away from someone who'll check in later and really needs it. Also, there are drawbacks to them, like the last time I stayed in one, the bed was so low that it made getting into bed and out of it more difficult. And in that one, while I had grab bars, the shower also had no door on it.
I will probably complain about this again and then, as now, nothing will change so I'll complain about it again. And again. And again. And though while nothing will change, complaining about it will make me feel like I'm doing something about this. As we all know, feeling like you're solving a problem is almost as good as actually solving it. That's kinda what I'm doing here.
Coming Tomorrow: This trip's hooker story.