The room with a view takes on new meaning
Aslightly delicate subject this week, prompted by looking at online photos of a hotel where I will be staying in a couple of months’ time. Now, it’s a lovely hotel, not too massive, with beautiful views out over the city in question, and with a small swimming pool and a very swish spa area – if that’s your thing. It isn’t mine, as it happens. Nor is one of this hotel’s other attributes – the bathroom located in the same room as the bedroom.
No, I’m not talking about an ensuite bathroom with a solid door. Instead, this looks like a glass box in the middle of the room, complete with toilet, bath, shower and wash basin within – for all to see. There appear to be curtains that can be pulled around the ‘box’ (I was squinting at the screen with my reading glasses on) so hopefully, when myself and my friend pitch up there in November to share our twin-bedded room, we will not be forced to watch each other performing our daily ablutions.
It’s a dreadful set-up, and one that you find in far more hotels than you’d imagine.
They seem to think it’s ‘romantic’ for couples. Romantic? They’ve got to be joking. Nor is it a completely new phenomenon, although it’s definitely more common than was once the case. I remember many years ago (probably more than 15) having the bath and wash basin in such an arrangement in the room in a hotel in Mallorca. (At least the actual toilet was separate there). My husband and I thought that it was bonkers.
But the worst we ever experienced was in a hotel in Istanbul. It was our second visit to the city, and because we had stayed in a hotel on Taksim Square the first time (in the ‘new’ city) this time round and we opted for a small ‘boutique’ hotel that was just around the corner from the beautiful Blue Mosque in the old Sultanahmet district.
The staff were lovely and the location was brilliant but the hotel itself was, well, a bit strange. For starters the whole lobby area, and the stairs, were black – as in black walls and black carpet. And with the stairwell lit with what they presumably thought was ‘moody’ lighting, I nearly fell and broke my neck more than once during our three-day stay.
Our actual room, though, was the pièce de résistance. Beautifully furnished, and decorated in a striking colour scheme of reds, blacks and whites, it also had a lovely terrace where you could eavesdrop on the life on the street down below. Well, if you understood Turkish you could do that. We just watched all the comings and goings on what was a normal backstreet in Istanbul, and it was mesmerising.
But – and it was a big but – in the room itself there it was, the glass box in the corner with shower, toilet and wash basin all inside. And not a curtain in sight.
Do hoteliers really think this is what people want? If the straw poll I have conducted among friends and colleagues this last week is anything to go by, they don’t. I mean, what are you supposed to do if you are sharing a twin-bedded room with your father? Or a young niece or nephew who you are treating to a couple of nights somewhere for a birthday celebration? It baffles me that anyone would actually opt for this arrangement.
And while we’re on the subject of ‘things that are annoying about hotels’, when did ‘twin beds’ mean two beds that are actually joined together, just made up with separate sheets etc? This has happened to me on a few occasions – once in Madrid with my sister when we’d requested twin beds because she is all over the place in her sleep and I didn’t fancy being thumped in the face during the night. Then, more recently it was with my grown-up son and we had to ask the housekeeping people to physically wrestle the beds apart.
Then there’s the ongoing Wi-Fi charges, an old bête noire of mine. Things are improving in this area but still, why can you use Wi-Fi for free in some hotel lobbies or bar areas but not in your bedroom? This is such an inconvenience and a problem that, frankly, is simply ridiculous in this day and age.
And then, finally, for now, there’s the check-in time. 4pm? What is going on with this latest craze? Are they serious? You’ve booked a nice hotel for a special night away, you’re paying serious money for it, and you can’t even get into your room until 4pm. And then you have to be out of it again by 11 the next morning. That’s not just annoying. That’s daylight robbery.