If you’ve stayed at a hotel in the past few years, you’ve probably had the experience. You go to take your first shower in the room and the shower setup is just…weird.
There’s no shower curtain.
There are no sliding doors.
If it’s a standalone shower, there may not even be an actual hinged shower door, period.
Instead, you have a shower stall with just a plexiglass wall to fill in part of the space where a traditional curtain or sliding door would be. If you’re lucky, it will take up half of the shower space, but I’ve been in a shower or two where this clear “wall” was less than half the width of the shower space.
The design admittedly looks nicer and aesthetically cleaner than the traditional ones, but it pretty much guarantees a chilly shower stall and a wet bathroom floor, possibly both. Oh, and if you wanted to turn the shower water on and let the water warm up before you step into the shower? Depending on where the wall is in comparison to the shower nozzle, you may be out of luck. I hate that aspect of them.
When it started
People aren’t sure exactly about the roots of the half-wall trend. Some say it started in Japan, where minimalist, spa-inspired design is a big thing. Others, including Condé Nast Traveler, suggest it started in Europe in the 1980s.
“A lot of it comes down to people trying to design hotel rooms with limited space,” boutique hotel designer Tom Parker told the magazine. “It’s about the swing of the shower door, because it has to open outward for safety reasons, like [if] someone falls in the shower. You have to figure out where the door swing’s going to go, make sure it’s not [hitting] the main door. It’s just about clearances.”
During my searching, I saw people complaining about them, at least in Europe, as far back as the early 2000s. And they seemed to start getting a toehold here in the U.S. about 10 or 15 years ago.
OK, but WHY?????
There are several reasons why hotels choose this half-door design:
Lower costs
If you’re a hotelier and have to choose between a full 2-panel sliding door (that will require the tracks to be cleaned, and might need occasional maintenance because it has a moving component), and a half a wall, the latter is going to be less expensive, both in the initial cost and maintenance time/costs. And lower costs are always preferable to hoteliers.
Aesthetics
As we said earlier, the design has a “cleaner” look. It has a “sleek” design and makes the hotel bathroom appear less “cluttered.” Some say it makes the bathroom appear larger. And let’s face it – anything is nicer looking that a shower curtain, LOL!
Easier & faster to clean
A single pane of plexiglass is going to be far faster and easier to clean than 2 panes of glass and the tracks they’re in. Shaving a minute or two off cleaning a room will mean housekeeping has more time to attend to other responsibilities.
Shower curtains are nasty
A hotelier is never going to say this part out loud, but let’s face it – shower curtains are nasty. They’re bacteria traps, you know they’re not washed very often and I don’t even want to know what’s lingering on them from other people doing who knows what. And then they blow on you and stick to your wet body. Ew.
Will they take over?
Hopefully (and, for those of us who aren’t fans, happily) not. The one thing that “all in one” tub/showers have going for them is that they’re cheap. So we’re probably still going to see them in lower-end chains for a long, long time.
But higher end and potentially even some mid-range hotels? Yeah, we’ll probably still see them in more hotels over time. Yuck.
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