Perhaps the one thing that drives hotel guests to frustration more than anything else is bathrooms that offer no privacy. That’s no big deal when you’re staying on your own. But if you’re with someone, it’s awkward enough if you’re in a relationship with them (toilets should stay private unless non-private is your thing). If you’re just sharing a room with a friend to save money? Brutally awkward.
Someone even created a searchable database of hotels whose rooms don’t have doors on the bathroom to name and shame, and to help you avoid getting stuck in this situation yourself.
That raises the obvious question, then: why do hotels do this? Do they just not understand the grief they’re causing? The answer actually is simple.
My hotel made the walls of the bathroom fully transparent…
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u/_fatherfucker69 in
mildlyinfuriating
Hotels do this for several reasons, one of them is that rooms like this photograph better and therefore are more bookable online.
The glass bathroom is the most A/B tested feature in modern hotel design.
It exists for one reason: it converts on https://t.co/wn2qd450oS and Expedia. When the major chains compared listing photos with opaque walls vs glass, the glass version booked at materially higher rates.… https://t.co/EYNwrByCGC
— Aakash Gupta (@aakashgupta) April 26, 2026
Hotels have been designing rooms around marketing, and star ratings, for decades. AAA used to include telephones in the bathroom as part of achieving Four Diamond status. That made a bathroom phone a checklist item for hotels chasing four and five Diamond status.
Since the criteria also had “separate or semi-separate enclosed commode area” as a Five Diamond bathroom feature, and the phone would connect into the wall, it often wound up by the toilet. This wasn’t a hard go/no-go item for Diamond status, but if you were aiming for AAA Four or Five Diamond, you’d check this box. It is no longer a criteria in AAA guidelines, however.
Open plan bathrooms have a similar story. It isn’t quite the claim that this “exists for one reason: it converts on Booking.com and Expedia.” But it’s close.
- Expedia’s guidance emphasizes that search and booking data shows that photos drive conversion, and they expect a bathroom photo for each room type. Bathroom images are ranked “very important” by 60% of travelers.
- Booking.com also says that bathroom photos are important to drive bookings.
- Open bathrooms also do make the room look bigger. Glass and barn-style doors are space-efficient. They make a windowless bathroom feel brighter and larger. So small bathrooms especially edge decisions toward glass.
Hotel I’m staying in with my mum has the shower open to the entire room
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u/Makewayfornoddynoddy in
mildlyinfuriating
Bathtubs are also part of the story. They’re rarely used but do signal luxury. People actually take showers. Oberoi saying bathtub use in city hotels is less than 10%. A lot of hotels have moved away from them, but many luxury properties still offer them.
That’s not about misleading customers in online photos, but it’s about how design choices often aren’t about functionality. Meanwhile, maintenance and cost matters too. Drywall in bathrooms needs more work than glass and tile, and mold becomes a risk. So what’s going on here boils down to:
- Marketing. Bathroom photos matter online for converting bookings. Open and glass bathrooms allow photos to showcase more space and design.
- Perceived space and light. Glass borrows light from the bedroom and avoids chopping the room into small dark spaces.
- Cost and standardization. Sliding barn and glass doors can be better in compact rooms. Walling the bathroom in can mean greater maintenance cost.
- Perceived luxury: Showing a tub can make the room feel more premium, especially in lifestyle and luxury hotels, since it’s a status object.
Hotel bathroom has no separation from bedroom
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u/autobot12349876 in
mildlyinfuriating
Ultimately, hotels view the cost savings and marketing power as more important than the complaints from friends sharing rooms.
Another reason to go solo.
“Open concept”… works great for kitchen-living room; not-so-much for hotel bedroom-to-bathroom, unless you’re a couple, but even then, if any member of the ‘party’ has ‘the shits’ you’ll want a door for the toilet ‘room’ at least.
The trade off is unhappy guests, which translates into negative reviews. In turn that means lower rates as well as fewer returning guests.
@1990 I thought you didn’t like to yuck other’s yum…
No room privacy = Groups booking more individual rooms.
Stayed at Sofitel Beverly Hills last week, and was surprised about the glass to the bathroom. I have also noticed the trend, but this was the first time the glass was looking right from the bedroom to the toilet itself, as opposed to the toilet being in another corner or behind a door. I was not happy, even though it was my wife with me since I brought her along on a work trip. But then a work colleague who was staying in another room decided to try the gray light switch that didn’t seem to do anything when I tried it, and he was observant enough to notice that it frosted the glass 🙂
I recommended that the hotel label the switch. But it’s actually a good solution to mitigate the privacy concerns/uncomfortability vs marketing. I guess it wouldn’t be practical for the full-length glass from the pictures above…
@Larry — Ohhh…you got me. You do you. Or, in this case, you do… poo.
Its a cost saving exercise.
Also the same reason why closets with doors are disappearing. Its mostly open closets in most new or newly renovated rooms.
Glass walls for light, ease of cleaning, less potential for mold build up, fine….but FFS, FROST THE DAMN GLASS!
Lower priced hotel chains like Best Western, Hampton Inns and Comfort Inns do not have glass open-view bathroom doors. Perhaps the best way to assure that you will have bathroom privacy is to avoid the luxury chains and stay elsewhere.
I’m in Munich now, and I would’ve preferred to stay at the Andaz. However, it has those nasty glass box bathrooms.
There are just some limits with privacy, you know?
I travel fairly often and have for 25+ years. I have NEVER seen this in the wild at any chain or independent hotel (I usually stay at 4+ stars or better). Weird.
Nice article, this is something I always check when traveling with others as I’m usually in charge of logistics. Usually scout out guest photos but most of the time it’s a big enough deal that people complain about it in the reviews. Not a situation you want to enter with your pants caught down!
Keeping a little mystery in any relationship is a good reason to avoid these cheapening remodels
It really cheapened up the Bellagio rooms when they took out the soaking tubs and made one big open shower wall.
If I see that the bathroom in booking.com doesn’t have a fully enclosed bathroom with a door, I don’t book it. Not sure who this appeals to but definitely not what I would want when traveling with friends.
If you are traveling alone, ok but I would still prefer walls and doors.
I was on a group tour in Vienna in a hotel with a friend and we got alot of laughs regarding the bathroom with no privacy. That was the first time we had seen this type of bathroom. It was memorable but I would never stay there again.
@BBT
I’m not sure it saves any money. When I shower with the half-door, invariably I get water all over the floor which housekeeping has to clean up. Half-doors are a stupid idea.
Interesting that it’s somewhat marketing-related. When I see room pics showing a glass-walled bathroom (or anything where the bathroom isn’t completely separate) the hotel is instantly off my list of choices.
Years ago, while visiting Barcelona, our room at the W had opaque bathroom walls. I had to ask our children to leave and go back to their room, so I could have some privacy. I have never booked a W since and never will. This is the most ridiculous trend ever. I married my wife for “til death do us part,” but I know we both believed that did not mean sacrificing certain amounts of personal privacy.
Something wrong with everybody hates it but more people book it. Sory of like voting against your own interest.
“Something wrong with everybody hates it but more people book it.” The problem might be people don’t much like it, but hotels think they do. It’s rather hard to trace something like that to occupancy levels, since you rarely have a true experiment.
Frosting helps but it’s a sound issue too.
@WileyDog – I am so glad you mentioned the half glass doors. My heart sinks whenever I get to a hotel room that has one of those. They are just awful.
Maybe this is for the dating crowd.
I actually think @Denver Refugee may be the most correct here… it’s all about money. Though, I doubt many corporate travel policies are forcing co-workers to share rooms anyway. But, if it’s like a school trip, or something, that gets awkward fast, especially if it’s an open-concept bathroom.
Wow a lot of grumpy old men on here.
This wouldn’t be happening if it wasnt making hotels money. Its that simple.
Seems like they could take pictures of a few model rooms and go with that. The transparent walls aren’t usually a huge problem for me (so far I just have P2 with me, so no biggie), it’s the stupid half shower walls that drive me nuts. There’s often water all over the place.
It’s more money for the hotels that do this because rather than share a room like this knowingly, most people will book extra rooms for privacy. I’ve been married to my hubby for 30+ years and we have traveled the globe. It’s not rare for one of us to get diarrhea either. The very LAST thing I want is to have either of us watch the other take a $hit or shower. I don’t even like sharing a regular bathroom at home LOL.
In 2019 I stayed at a Hilton in Norfolk, VA (I’m pretty sure it was The Main). The bathroom had a door, but it had about a 2-inch open strip along the top and bottom of the door. I was by myself, so it was (kind of) OK, but if there was another person with me, it would’ve been really weird.
@Anna — Gurl… as one of Kate McKinnon‘s characters likes to say: “we know dis…”
Gary, sounds like glass walls are your new soap-dispenser issue, you sure write a lot about them…
I for one like these bathrooms – they make the rooms feel bigger and brighter, which helps, especially with on average smaller rooms in Europe & Asia.
The best designed ones are the last-gen Novotel: They have a shower with a glass wall to the bedroom. A button will turn them from clear to frosted. The toilet has a separate, frosted glass door for full privacy.
So, you chose the level of privacy you want…and if you can’t handle the sight of the outline of the person in the shower – maybe pay up for separate rooms?
Granted, some room designs are terrible – no option of privacy for the toilet is were I draw the line…
Gary, don’t tell them about the half-glass swinging shower doors in Europe 🙂
I don’t ask for much, or maybe I do. A private space to crap and not to be on display in the shower like it’s a peep show booth. Oh, and throw in a bar of soap so I can kill the planet while they are at it.
@DaninMCI — LOL.
jns thinks that maybe it’s for the “dating crowd”, but people who are “dating” and visiting/sharing a room usually aren’t into wanting to provide a scene or concert when using the toilet.
Some hotels with clear glass windows and/or doors for the bathroom have blinds that can be used, but that is far from common and declining in “popularity” for hotel owners/builders.
I’ve not actually seen this in any of my travels on four continents and even for business in the US. And I definitely look for tubs because they’re great for back pain. But then I always look for local, fun places rather than corporate chains. I wouldn’t mind the glass bathroom in most cases, especially if frosted, but I’ve not encountered one.
@GUWonder — Bah! “a scene or concert”… sights and sounds. But, wait, there’s more!
@Manhattan West (EWR) — Would the smells interest/bother you?
I’ve stayed in several rooms like this, and I find it quite pleasing. But *every one of them* had a windowshade that you could pull down to make it private. I don’t see what the fuss is about.
To clarify the issue of lavatory occupancy on aircraft, I propose that premium airlines like Delta Air Lines offer completely transparent, zero-privacy lavatories—such as those with glass walls or none at all. The idea is to make it immediately clear whether the lavatory is available, possibly encouraging passengers to keep their visits brief. As a result, regular users may become identifiable to others, leading to humorous exchanges such as, “Are you Dunn?”
@Ken A — “Are you Dunn?” Bahahaha.
Also, “none at all”… reminds me of that Ned Flanders meme… “nothing at all.. nothing at all..”
I normally travel solo for business, and therefore, I love the open plan bath rooms. Although, I think the best ones are the way the Valk hotel chain does it in the Netherlands….open baths, but separate room for toilet. One thing I hate about travelling in the USA (which rarely exists in continental Europe)….Shower Curtains …solid soap dishes (that don’t drain), and solid shower heads without the removable hand shower. Why Americans don’t get this is beyond me.
These glass cube bathrooms are very popular in Asia. They’ve always had a look of faux luxury to me and I dislike them but if they at least have a curtain or some ability to frost the glass it’s tolerable. When you have to sit there taking a dump in front of someone, even if it’s your partner of 20 years, it can get uncomfortable. I agree the bathroom quality is a consideration when choosing a hotel but they could always take a picture inside the bathroom. I’ve never thought to myself: Wow I can see the toilet from the bed I think I’ll book that room