Ahhhh... nothing like sleeping in a wet bed... full of mold...

It could have been worse. They could have put the toilet there and you could be smelling the sewer all night...

Locality and humidity.

I also don't mean to be snarky here, because I'm not sure how to say this in a way that can't be interpreted that way and feel like I'm just explaining being human...

The answer is really just physics. The feeling of comfort is generally about differential in temperature, not absolute. (That's also a logarithmic relationship too) So to have that nice feeling of stepping out of a hot shower then the room needs to be a decently high temperature. Mind you, you're also wet. This makes the temperature differential more influential. So two things happen when you dry off. You no longer have that water to transfer and maintain heat and you've also cooled down a bit. Now when you walk into the normal room temperature the differential isn't so bad.

If I turn the temperature up in the whole hotel room I will then have to turn it down. Now that introduced AC and we have the opposite problem... Plus both get rid of humidity.

To be snarky and try to be a bit humorous:

Haven't you ever noticed that 100F/38C is "hotter" and more uncomfortable in a humid environment than in a dry environment? Haven't you ever noticed that 15F/-10C is "colder" in a humid environment? Haven't you noticed that being in a hot tub or sauna is comfortable but if it was that temperature outside you'd be cursing the gods? Haven't you noticed that in the summer 50F/10C is cold and most people won't wear a short sleeve shirt yet if it was the winter that's a nice day to go out and wear shorts? Haven't you... lived in a body?

It's winter man, here's a trivial experiment for you:

  - Heat up your house:
    - Shower with door open
    - Shower with door closed
  - Don't heat up your house:
    - Shower with door open
    - Shower with door closed

This particular trip was in Europe but I also encountered it on a different trip to Las Vegas. It occurred on some hotel sites but quite a few hotel aggregator sites.

>Does that now make me a spoiled first world rich person?

Sort of. I'll take a King by choice but if a Queen is the only option I don't really have an issue with that. And I'm not a short person.

Generally, what I’ve seen is on travel sites like Priceline, sometimes they list a room as like “standard room” and they don’t specify and (in the fine print) explicitly do not guarantee how many beds - with some cheaper rates. Basically trying to discourage people from booking them. The thinking being if you don’t wanna end up in 1 King bed with your bro, you’ll pay the extra $13 for the explicitly 2-bed room, which is always listed as well.

So like, in the United States, if you book directly via Marriott, the number of beds isn't guaranteed unless you have some reasonable status at the hotel.

This is not going to work well in Japan, since very few city hotel rooms have room for three guests.

Fortunately Japanese bedding naming is quite standardized: search for twin/ツイン and you'll get rooms with two beds.

> don't stay there, go somewhere else, and tell everyone you know

You might be very comfortable sharing the story about the situation, but I hope you can appreciate that not everyone else would be.

Regulation is when individual action isn’t enough.

Regulation is a form of collective action.

The mistake is assuming we have to act as individuals.

Turns out, society can actually do things collectively when a bunch of people work together instead of just pulling the libertarian "move your family into the woods and suffer" lever that's so popular online.

I was a bit surprised that a Marriott property I was staying in in NYC a couple weeks ago actually had daily housekeeping service. I didn't really care but hadn't seen that in a while.

What's the explanation for housekeeping? I actually prefer very little to no housekeeping, especially for short stays.

Next up: "Bring bathroom doors back to AirBnBs"

> Why would any group of people book a single room?

To save money.

> Is there some secret trick where multiple people turn up and bring their own beds with them, only to be foiled by a missing toilet door?

Beds? Probably not. But, people (especially younger people, can sleep on the floor with climate appropriate (which, depending on the season and available heating, can be "none") coverings for warmth; I did this happily a fair amount in various groups aroun high school age, but I certainly wouldn't want to now in middle age.

They want two adults (for example dad and daughter, or grandma and dad) to rent separate single bedrooms, yes with their own private space, own TV, etc. The price of two of such single rooms is higher than one double. The room for two people (bed together) is meant for couples, not F&F. Why, I think because they sell better. Maybe also to discourage teens, who'd rather go to a hostel with bunk bed, besides those are way more affordable. You'd think they wouldn't be able to afford a proper hotel, but what I've seen is spoiled brats and what not.

In your first message you wrote at #2: "[...] Friends book some other hotel's twin rooms." I wrote: what if all hotels follow this same manual? You could only end up in a hostel, or perhaps a cheap hotel.

Honestly, it doesn't bother me at all seeing my mother naked (my father is passé), or my daughter or son naked (but they're still children). It only ever did till my mid teenager years. After that, I overcame it. So while it doesn't bother me, it may bother my children, and important to note: I'll respect that. It already started with my daughter (nearly eight y.o.) when going to the swimming pool. Kind of normal. But these hotels wouldn't accommodate for that.

FWIW, just my theories. I'm not saying I know all about this market.

Think based on bathroom rather than bed count here.

Before: sell two business travelers one room with two separate beds and one dignified bathroom.

Now: sell two business travelers two separate rooms just so they can each use the bathroom with dignity.

Profit Now ($x2) > Profit Before ($x1)

This is where you can practice human interaction and call or email the hotel.

Typically chain hotels are very careful about making sure everything in a picture is representative of the room to avoid this exact conflict.

Often this does mean that the pictures are lacking.

> Even traveling alone it's a clear indication they have no respect for their guests, and it's a significant hygiene issue.

I feel like if you consider lack of a door a significant hygiene issue, you probably just shouldn’t be staying in hotels. These rooms aren’t being sanitized between guests, they are pretty dirty.

> [...] it's a significant hygiene issue.

How so?

And until then they will milk as much money as possible. If there is outrage or they see sales dropping, a few thousand dollars per hotel will replace those rooms with doors leaving with net profit and steady shareholder growth. Some statistical analysis ppt made by some mid level MBA must have proposed this and got a promotion.

> Until recently, you never had to think about it. But as it becomes more common it will become something you might want to consider.

This is closely related to a phenomenon I don't understand.

Pretty much every proposed regulatory change (for example: letting drivers pump their own gas at gas stations) meets a fierce counterargument that says "currently, no one considers this situation at all because only one state of affairs is legal. If that thoughtlessness continues after we legalize other possibilities, TERRIBLE THINGS COULD HAPPEN!".

But obviously this protasis† can never occur and so it doesn't matter what's in the apodosis.

† https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/protasis#English (2)

Mine is as well. So far the only way I have found to locate such increasingly-rare rooms is booking.com followed by calling the hotel. For all their sins, Booking at least lets you search for hotels that have bathtubs in any rooms at all.

Aside from rinsing off after a pool or ocean swim, or when she is actually dirty (e.g., after yard work), I think I have known her to voluntarily take three or four showers in 25 years together.

With hotels you're playing the lottery but there is generally a baseline consistent with the brand of the hotel.

With those two you're also playing the lottery but there is no baseline.

With a hotel, you're also generally paying when you check-in and can thus refuse a subpar room and argue with a real, mostly-reasonable person.

With those two, you get charged before you even enter the place and any arguments will be with a bot or a call center drone in a third-world country pretending to be one.

I'm gonna go ahead and suggest that the "bathrooms must have doors" public health regulation is unlikely to increase any moats.

"Buyer beware! You are responsible for checking for X!" is a lame excuse, and just enables the worst possible behavior from vendors and service providers. I shouldn't have to check 500 things every time I choose to do business with someone! This is madness.

Imagine some future hotel service trend where, right after the customer checks in, the checkin agent punches the customer in the face, by policy. I shouldn't have to check beforehand whether this is a "face punch" hotel or a "non face punch" hotel.

We shouldn't all have to live our lives with Caveat Emptor as some sort of horrible default societal moral framework.

And a lot of people just don't care about many of those details (and others may deeply care about things that don't matter to you). Bathroom doors are mostly something that wouldn't appear on my radar screen in general. While I might notice things that wouldn't be on yours.