4 ms·

I don't think that adds up. "Staying in a hotel with a romantic partner and/or family" is at least as primary a use case for hotels as "staying in a hotel with

I don't think that adds up. "Staying in a hotel with a romantic partner and/or family" is at least as primary a use case for hotels as "staying in a hotel with a platonic friend" and is still a scenario where you want a door but is NOT a scenario where "just get separate rooms" is a logical conclusion. "Get the hell out of that hotel and complain about it to everyone you know," on the other hand, is. The much more specific way to target platonic buddies/coworkers from sharing a room would be eliminating rooms with two beds since the "couple" scenario would generally be perfectly happy with that still.

citizenpaul 11mo ago
How do you complain and go to another hotel if every single hotel is owned by four companies that are colluding together to do the same thing. This ignores the very obvious fact that you may not want to search for a hotel at 2AM in a strange city when you are exhausted. Keep making excuses for your masters though, this is the world you live in. Marriot,Hilton,IGT,Hyatt own almost all hotels in any area you want to go to. Enshittification is not just for apps anymore.
- WheatMillington 11mo ago
  It's hard to understand what you want here... No one is making excuses for the hotels? Literally "don't stay there, go somewhere else, and tell everyone you know" is as much power as an individual can possibly muster in this situation. Why do you think this is "making excuses for your masters"? What is your solution?
  - aaomidi 11mo ago
    Regulation is when individual action isn’t enough. Regulation is a form of collective action.
    - kijin 11mo ago
      And it doesn't even need to be government regulation. The hospitality industry has self-imposed standards as to what kind of amenities a facility should have in order to rate as a two-star hotel, three-star hotel, etc. Things like TV, shampoo, and hair dryer are on that list. If customers make enough noise about bathroom doors, the rating organizations might actually add that as a requirement.
      - aaomidi 11mo ago
        Yep! Government regulation is basically when the industry puts their heads way too far into the sand.
    - kortilla 11mo ago
      Regulation isn’t a collective action, at least not in the US. People don’t regulate hotels will ballot measures so you’re left with whatever the whims are of some representative.
      - aaomidi 11mo ago
        The American system, for better or for worse, is a representational based political system. Unfortunately that means that our political power is not direct. That doesn't make it "not collective action", just collective action through an intermediary. Sometimes that's very clearly willed by people, sometimes (often) not. Doesn't mean we should throw out the baby with the bathwater though.
  - venturecruelty 11mo ago
    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.
  - inopinatus 11mo ago
    The mistake is assuming we have to act as individuals.
  - amadiver 11mo ago
    > 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.
- SoftTalker 11mo ago
  I stay at Hilton properties whenever I can and they always seem to allow filters for number of beds. Not sure about bathroom doors though.
- venturecruelty 11mo ago
  Well, since "laws" are outside the current Overton window, we could always do a hotel startup that becomes worse than the hotels we're trying to replace within ten years or so.
  - sebastiennight 11mo ago
    Next up: "Bring bathroom doors back to AirBnBs"
- toast0 11mo ago
  > Marriot,Hilton,IGT,Hyatt own almost all hotels in any area you want to go to. Best Western, Choice, Wyndham, IHG (typo?), Accor, Blackstone (Motel6), Radisson, Red Lion, Red Roof. Etc. There's lots of choices. Many (most?) hotels are franchises and the name on the hotel can change. I haven't run into a hotel with no bathroom door yet, but I only have 2-3 stays a year and one is usually in the same hotel every year. I have noticed housekeeping creeping back up to mostly every day though.
  - ghaff 11mo ago
    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.
    - verst 11mo ago
      Very common. Every Autograph Collection, Luxury Collection, JW Marriott, Marriott, Westin, W, St Regis, Le Meridien, etc has daily housekeeping - and many of those brands / collections have turn down service too.
    - themerone 11mo ago
      I'm very surprised that you find this surprising. Do you mostly stay at Airbnb? I expect this at any traditional hotel in the US.
      - kortilla 11mo ago
        Have you been… not traveling since COVID? Marriott and Hilton cut daily housekeeping during that period and then kept that by default at many properties (at least in the western US). You have to request it special and some properties still won’t make the bed daily even with a request. They’ll just bring extra towels.
      - astura 11mo ago
        Hotels (at least the major ones) will always clean your room daily if you ask them to. The "new" part is that sometimes you have to ask because some hotels (especially since COVID) have moved to a more on-demand/personalized cleaning schedule rather than cleaning everyday by default. I personally prefer on-demand.
- meowface 11mo ago
  I've stayed at a lot of hotels. I have almost never been in one that didn't have a proper bathroom door.
- noduerme 11mo ago
  Eh, at 2am you ask a taxi driver for a local non-chain hotel and see where the night takes you. Honestly the endless ability of people to complain about corporate control when they're unwilling to try anything potentially sketchy is annoying. Don't like staying at the four companies? Ask a local or wander into somewhere and ask the front desk. Don't blame corporations for your lack of adventurism.
- lotsofpulp 11mo ago
  > Marriot,Hilton,IGT,Hyatt own almost all hotels in any area you want to go to. Technically, they own almost none of the hotels. The hotel owners buy the franchises, and hence follow the brand standards.
mrandish 11mo ago
> eliminating rooms with two beds Quick tip I discovered when traveling with my teenage daughter: a lot of hotel sites are now unclear on whether a booking is for a room with one or two beds. I found that listing "occupants" as 3 would usually force such sites to sort for rooms with two beds (even though there would only be two of us). Assuming there's no breakfast included, the price is usually the same for 2 or 3.
- AniseAbyss 11mo ago
  [dead]
- ehnto 11mo ago
  Heeey clever. I really struggled with this while travelling with my brother in Japan. None of the aggregation sites filtered on number of beds even though they had that data in the listing.
  - decimalenough 11mo ago
    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.
- caminante 11mo ago
  Not a good tip. You now play games with per person occupancy fees/taxes upon arrival, instead of screening available information.
- noduerme 11mo ago
  What country is this? I've never seen a hotel site that didn't sell rooms as either 2 Queen or 1 King. If I didn't know it was a king bed I wouldn't book it. Does that now make me a spoiled first world rich person?
  - xp84 11mo ago
    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.
godelski 11mo ago
Also even in the single person case I want to have the bathroom door closed when I take a shower because it keeps the heat in. Which is why I also dislike (most of) the barn door style doors. I can't be the only one that likes to step out of the shower and into a nice and steamy room. Like what, you want to step out and be cold? That's masochistic. Not to mention no door doesn't bother me with another person because I can easily avoid "seeing them do their business" by being in the main room. I've never been in a hotel room where the bathroom door faces the beds. It's always in the hall just after entering the room. I'm sure there's exceptions but that's the standard setup.
- noduerme 11mo ago
  For the same reason, I hate the showers without a door in a bathroom with a door. I've never understood the reason for that.
- jmye 11mo ago
  I don’t know how to ask this without it seeming like snark, but as genuinely as I can ask (and with the assumption that we otherwise agree there should just be a door): Why don’t you just turn on the heat in the room?
  - godelski 11mo ago
    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 Tell me the results. Which is the most comfortable? Also tell me your power bill for each day... You can figure this out in 4 days with essentially no cost of time or effort?
lokar 11mo ago
I think it’s at least partly right (few things are simple enough to have one cause). A lot of businesses ask co-workers to share a room on trips. Business travel is a large share of reservations.
- rand846633 11mo ago
  It’s wild to me that anyone would agree to go on a work trip where they are expected to share the room where they are sleeping. What an insane thing from a company to want. So they want to save a few bucks for which I am expected to trade not just my privacy but also my good night rest (who knows if one of us snores) against a few dollars of profit margin for my employer? If they cannot afford sending me on a business trip they probably shouldn’t do so. What kind of company are doing so?
  - lokar 11mo ago
    I recall Sun doing this in the late 90s I think part of it is the idea that getting to travel for work (site visit, conference, convention, etc) is a perk. It’s madness.

citizenpaul 11mo ago

How do you complain and go to another hotel if every single hotel is owned by four companies that are colluding together to do the same thing. This ignores the very obvious fact that you may not want to search for a hotel at 2AM in a strange city when you are exhausted. Keep making excuses for your masters though, this is the world you live in. Marriot,Hilton,IGT,Hyatt own almost all hotels in any area you want to go to. Enshittification is not just for apps anymore.

WheatMillington 11mo ago
It's hard to understand what you want here... No one is making excuses for the hotels? Literally "don't stay there, go somewhere else, and tell everyone you know" is as much power as an individual can possibly muster in this situation. Why do you think this is "making excuses for your masters"? What is your solution?
- aaomidi 11mo ago
  Regulation is when individual action isn’t enough. Regulation is a form of collective action.
  - kijin 11mo ago
    And it doesn't even need to be government regulation. The hospitality industry has self-imposed standards as to what kind of amenities a facility should have in order to rate as a two-star hotel, three-star hotel, etc. Things like TV, shampoo, and hair dryer are on that list. If customers make enough noise about bathroom doors, the rating organizations might actually add that as a requirement.
    - aaomidi 11mo ago
      Yep! Government regulation is basically when the industry puts their heads way too far into the sand.
  - kortilla 11mo ago
    Regulation isn’t a collective action, at least not in the US. People don’t regulate hotels will ballot measures so you’re left with whatever the whims are of some representative.
    - aaomidi 11mo ago
      The American system, for better or for worse, is a representational based political system. Unfortunately that means that our political power is not direct. That doesn't make it "not collective action", just collective action through an intermediary. Sometimes that's very clearly willed by people, sometimes (often) not. Doesn't mean we should throw out the baby with the bathwater though.
- venturecruelty 11mo ago
  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.
- inopinatus 11mo ago
  The mistake is assuming we have to act as individuals.
- amadiver 11mo ago
  > 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.
SoftTalker 11mo ago
I stay at Hilton properties whenever I can and they always seem to allow filters for number of beds. Not sure about bathroom doors though.
venturecruelty 11mo ago
Well, since "laws" are outside the current Overton window, we could always do a hotel startup that becomes worse than the hotels we're trying to replace within ten years or so.
- sebastiennight 11mo ago
  Next up: "Bring bathroom doors back to AirBnBs"
toast0 11mo ago
> Marriot,Hilton,IGT,Hyatt own almost all hotels in any area you want to go to. Best Western, Choice, Wyndham, IHG (typo?), Accor, Blackstone (Motel6), Radisson, Red Lion, Red Roof. Etc. There's lots of choices. Many (most?) hotels are franchises and the name on the hotel can change. I haven't run into a hotel with no bathroom door yet, but I only have 2-3 stays a year and one is usually in the same hotel every year. I have noticed housekeeping creeping back up to mostly every day though.
- ghaff 11mo ago
  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.
  - verst 11mo ago
    Very common. Every Autograph Collection, Luxury Collection, JW Marriott, Marriott, Westin, W, St Regis, Le Meridien, etc has daily housekeeping - and many of those brands / collections have turn down service too.
  - themerone 11mo ago
    I'm very surprised that you find this surprising. Do you mostly stay at Airbnb? I expect this at any traditional hotel in the US.
    - kortilla 11mo ago
      Have you been… not traveling since COVID? Marriott and Hilton cut daily housekeeping during that period and then kept that by default at many properties (at least in the western US). You have to request it special and some properties still won’t make the bed daily even with a request. They’ll just bring extra towels.
    - astura 11mo ago
      Hotels (at least the major ones) will always clean your room daily if you ask them to. The "new" part is that sometimes you have to ask because some hotels (especially since COVID) have moved to a more on-demand/personalized cleaning schedule rather than cleaning everyday by default. I personally prefer on-demand.
meowface 11mo ago
I've stayed at a lot of hotels. I have almost never been in one that didn't have a proper bathroom door.
noduerme 11mo ago
Eh, at 2am you ask a taxi driver for a local non-chain hotel and see where the night takes you. Honestly the endless ability of people to complain about corporate control when they're unwilling to try anything potentially sketchy is annoying. Don't like staying at the four companies? Ask a local or wander into somewhere and ask the front desk. Don't blame corporations for your lack of adventurism.
lotsofpulp 11mo ago
> Marriot,Hilton,IGT,Hyatt own almost all hotels in any area you want to go to. Technically, they own almost none of the hotels. The hotel owners buy the franchises, and hence follow the brand standards.

mrandish 11mo ago

> eliminating rooms with two beds Quick tip I discovered when traveling with my teenage daughter: a lot of hotel sites are now unclear on whether a booking is for a room with one or two beds. I found that listing "occupants" as 3 would usually force such sites to sort for rooms with two beds (even though there would only be two of us). Assuming there's no breakfast included, the price is usually the same for 2 or 3.

AniseAbyss 11mo ago
[dead]
ehnto 11mo ago
Heeey clever. I really struggled with this while travelling with my brother in Japan. None of the aggregation sites filtered on number of beds even though they had that data in the listing.
- decimalenough 11mo ago
  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.
caminante 11mo ago
Not a good tip. You now play games with per person occupancy fees/taxes upon arrival, instead of screening available information.
noduerme 11mo ago
What country is this? I've never seen a hotel site that didn't sell rooms as either 2 Queen or 1 King. If I didn't know it was a king bed I wouldn't book it. Does that now make me a spoiled first world rich person?
- xp84 11mo ago
  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.

godelski 11mo ago

Also even in the single person case I want to have the bathroom door closed when I take a shower because it keeps the heat in. Which is why I also dislike (most of) the barn door style doors. I can't be the only one that likes to step out of the shower and into a nice and steamy room. Like what, you want to step out and be cold? That's masochistic. Not to mention no door doesn't bother me with another person because I can easily avoid "seeing them do their business" by being in the main room. I've never been in a hotel room where the bathroom door faces the beds. It's always in the hall just after entering the room. I'm sure there's exceptions but that's the standard setup.

noduerme 11mo ago
For the same reason, I hate the showers without a door in a bathroom with a door. I've never understood the reason for that.
jmye 11mo ago
I don’t know how to ask this without it seeming like snark, but as genuinely as I can ask (and with the assumption that we otherwise agree there should just be a door): Why don’t you just turn on the heat in the room?
- godelski 11mo ago
  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 Tell me the results. Which is the most comfortable? Also tell me your power bill for each day... You can figure this out in 4 days with essentially no cost of time or effort?

lokar 11mo ago

I think it’s at least partly right (few things are simple enough to have one cause). A lot of businesses ask co-workers to share a room on trips. Business travel is a large share of reservations.

rand846633 11mo ago
It’s wild to me that anyone would agree to go on a work trip where they are expected to share the room where they are sleeping. What an insane thing from a company to want. So they want to save a few bucks for which I am expected to trade not just my privacy but also my good night rest (who knows if one of us snores) against a few dollars of profit margin for my employer? If they cannot afford sending me on a business trip they probably shouldn’t do so. What kind of company are doing so?
- lokar 11mo ago
  I recall Sun doing this in the late 90s I think part of it is the idea that getting to travel for work (site visit, conference, convention, etc) is a perk. It’s madness.