I travel for work and stay in a lot of hotels. In 4.5 years of traveling, I have stayed 743 nights in hotel rooms. For my first client, I stayed at a Marriott property, which is where I have accumulated all my stays ever since. 

For the most part, hotel rooms are consistent. The sink, toilet, TV, and furniture are standard. There are some variations with mattresses and pillows. But one area that has been wildly inconsistent for me is the hotel shower.

The shower is an important amenity for obvious reasons. The worst-case scenario is when the water goes out and there is no shower. Yes, that happened to me and it was no fun.

The next consideration for the shower is water pressure. Sometimes the showerhead is the governor of the pressure; other times different rooms with the same shower heads in the same hotel will have different pressures. This appears to be a function of how far the room is from the boiler. I’ve had every variation from a low-flow slow drizzle to a fire hose.

This brings me to perhaps the most important aspect of the shower: water temperature. There is nothing like a nice hot shower when you wake up in the morning, and anything less sets a bad tone for the rest of the day. Water temperature makes or breaks the shower experience. 

This morning I discovered that the maximum hot setting in the shower is about 75% of full hot. It could be worse but is not ideal. I’ve had showers where the hot water was completely gone. Those are awful. I have also experienced an odd phenomenon I refer to as the “shower temperature roller coaster.” This has only happened at one particular hotel. I would set the temperature to my liking. The water would gradually get cooler, so I would turn the lever hotter. The water would warm up but then get cool again, so I would turn the lever even hotter. This went on for a few minutes until, suddenly and unexpectedly, the water would instantly reach the “true” setting of the lever, which was practically scalding. I explained this to hotel staff members, each one giving me a more puzzled look than the last one.

There are other issues not as critical but still annoying. Virtually all the rooms I stay in have a combined shower/tub. A tub with a slow drain combined with a high-pressure showerhead leads to an experience I call a “shath,” which is a combined shower/bath. There is the occasional stray curly hair that is definitely NOT yours, which makes one question the overall cleanliness of the room in general.

I am reminded of a Seinfeld episode in which Jerry and Elaine take a flight together, and only one person is upgraded to first class. Elaine wants to take the seat, but Jerry asks her if she has ever flown first class before, and she replies, “No.” Jerry said that he has flown first class, so he would know what he is missing whereas she would not know what she is missing. The rest of the episode is a comical contrast between Jerry’s luxurious experience in first-class and Elaine’s miserable experience in coach.

I have stayed in spectacular resorts, so I know what I am missing. But I am not paying for these stays, and I know my days in this field are numbered.  

2-12-20

My hotel room this week has one of the “amenities” I described above. The bathroom has the feature (bug?) known as the combination shower/bath that I call a “shath.” It starts when I turn the water on, which pours out of the faucet before I pull the lever to activate the showerhead. Even though the drain is open, the pressure of the water on the drain causes it to slowly close. 

Several minutes into my shower, I realize that the water level is rising and not draining properly. My feet are taking a bath while the rest of me is taking a shower. This morning I had already started shampooing what’s left of my hair, and I executed the daring maneuver to lean down through the shower spray to pull the drain open. I say daring because I’ve had shampoo get into my eyes and it is NOT a pleasant experience. 

Some consultants on this project insist on staying in the same room each week and I understand why. I play hotel room roulette and sometimes I bust out. It could be worse. One consultant whose flight from Florida to California was delayed on Monday arrived in California after 9 PM only to discover his luggage was never put on his first flight. He called up a quick Uber to Target for a set of clothes and toiletries. The classic powder blue shirt/khaki pants combo never goes out of style.

3-5-20

It’s time for another Tales from the Road: Shower Edition. This week my hotel room bathroom had a faucet with a hair-trigger. One slight nudge in either direction produced either ice cold or scalding hot water.

What is actually a hair-trigger? I remember a Tom and Jerry cartoon in which a gun was depicted with an actual hair as the trigger. Does it mean the trigger is as sensitive as a hair? Or that it can be tripped with a hair? In the case of the bathroom faucet, it would be a pubic hair-trigger if one was conveniently left behind by the previous occupant. The first thing I check in a hotel room is the bathroom. If it’s not cleaned to my satisfaction, I change rooms. 

I’m not kidding about how sensitive the faucet was. I could have blown on it and been instantly transformed into Wim Hof. Or a sneeze in the other direction would have initiated a Corona Virus protection protocol at the expense of the top layer of my skin.

This is an area where the “smart home” movement is way behind. By now, shouldn’t we have dials on faucets to specify the exact temperature of the water? You can brew your coffee at exactly 200 degrees F, but you have to take your chances with your daily ablutions.