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Home » Hotels » The Worst Hotel Design Feature Is Everywhere
Hotels

The Worst Hotel Design Feature Is Everywhere

Kyle Stewart Posted onJune 8, 2025June 8, 2025 17 Comments

Modern hotel design, especially in refurbished business hotels, have a common problem – a sliding barn door in the worst possible place. 

Obvious Design Flaw

Most hotel design features are intentional, use space and resources efficiently and make the overall guest experience better.

This one makes it worse, far worse.

At a recent stay at a Hyatt Regency the closet and bathroom share a hanging-slide barn door. When the door is slid in front of the bathroom, the wardrobe and safe are exposed. And when it’s in front of the closet, the bathroom door is open. The problems it creates are many.

For homes, this design feature has come (and appears to be fading) but it’s usually to close off a child’s playroom, or a study. No one, in their right mind, would put this design feature in front of a guest bathroom off the living room. Hotel rooms are similar to a bedroom in many ways, and while this style of door might occupy a private bedroom as well, a hotel room also acts as the equivalent to the entire house for a family.

Bathroom Door Is Never Really Closed

There’s a gap that this sliding door leaves between the hallway and the bathroom. Still worse, the toilet doesn’t have its own door so anyone entering the room can get a view (or anything else) of a guest doing their business. There’s no lock either. It might look closed but it really isn’t.

hotel bathroom barn door with closet open

hotel bathroom barn door gap from door

That “fully closed” sliding door doesn’t appear to have a huge gap, but consider the above photo is taken from the entry door to the room. Here’s another angle close up to the gap.

hotel bathroom barn door gap

There’s insufficient buffering between those not doing their business and those who are. The view from the toilet itself doesn’t inspire confidence either.

hotel bathroom barn door gap from toilet

And it’s not just the sliding barn door that seems to fall prey to creative closures at hotels. At a Hilton property in Fort Lauderdale, this gem below are French doors that don’t fully close and have gaps to the sides. It’s essentially the same problem in a different form.

hotel bathroom barn door with french doors hilton fort luaderdale

Closet Door Is Never Really Closed

While the wardrobe probably doesn’t hold anything that hotel guests might want hidden from guests to their room, it leaves your clothes and safe on full display. And if one happens to be getting something out of the closet, while another person is exiting the bathroom, the door will slide across and hit anyone accessing the closet.

Qui Bono?

Who benefits from this design? Maybe the hotel decorators feel it gives a modern update to the room. Maybe guests do too, at first.

Does the hotel save money by not having two separate doors on hinges? Maybe. But what kind of savings does that generate? And how many guests that stayed at the hotel simply won’t book it again? If it was marketed as a hotel room with a bathroom door that never closes – is that a selling point? Unfortunately, that’s exactly what it is.

I’m looking forward to the end of this design trend, and I doubt I am alone.

What do you think? Have you encountered this? Do you find it to be a nuisance, uncomfortable, or welcome?

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About Author

Kyle Stewart

Kyle is a freelance travel writer with contributions to Time, the Washington Post, MSNBC, Yahoo!, Reuters, Huffington Post, MapHappy, Live And Lets Fly and many other media outlets. He is also co-founder of Scottandthomas.com, a travel agency that delivers "Travel Personalized." He focuses on using miles and points to provide a premium experience for his wife and daughter. Email: sherpa@thetripsherpa.com

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17 Comments

  1. Alert Reply
    June 8, 2025 at 7:34 am

    If the sliding door goes off it’s rail , and we lean it against a solid wall to get it out of the way , then both closet and bathroom will be open at the same time .

    While ridiculous , it is a glitch which can be lived with for a brief stay .

  2. Maryland Reply
    June 8, 2025 at 8:10 am

    Designers can gain up to six additional inches of usable room space on a remodel, ( or that’s what she said anyway) and they will be the only people to praise it. This feature should be the deal breaker for those that value privacy. Also note, if you travel with your dog, they quickly learn to nose open the. doors at the most embarrassing moments

  3. Ryan Reply
    June 8, 2025 at 8:49 am

    This is bad but the worst design feature IMO is the half plate glass wall in a shower.

    • bossa Reply
      June 8, 2025 at 12:59 pm

      Depends on which ‘half’ !! ,,, lol

  4. SENflyer Reply
    June 8, 2025 at 9:54 am

    Kyle, that talks my language – I wrote my MBA thesis about Hotel room interior design based on the hypothesis that business hotels are NOT made for business travellers….. and there is no doubt about it, that this was proven – from chairs, to lights over power plugs to so called working desks…. besides from this, there are many more design flaws in most hotel rooms: showers designed that the water is in the bathroom floor, A/Cs making noise and a lot of air flow (not that a kind of problem for Americans, but for Europeans:-)), etc….. a funny topic. A spoke to hotel managers and design agencies, the guest usability and the maintenance cost (e.g. easy cleaning, lesser usage of towels) are not on their list of priorities…

    • Alert Reply
      June 8, 2025 at 1:25 pm

      I don’t mind having a light over a power plug … but I do mind being unable to open the windows .

  5. Billy Bob Reply
    June 8, 2025 at 11:59 am

    A Crown Plaza at Madrid airport had a shower stall right in the middle of the room, built into the wall between the sleeping area and the bathroom. There was no way to fog the window and so anyone in the bathroom was on full display to anyone in the room, and if in the shower, you were center stage. It was just me and my wife but it definitely wouldn’t work for any other combination of people.

    • Alert Reply
      June 8, 2025 at 1:29 pm

      No problem if you are used to taking a shower from a water bag dangling from a tree branch , with no shower curtain, which is how it is done when on tour in a land rover in Tanganyika .

      • bossa Reply
        June 8, 2025 at 5:53 pm

        Kinda puts it all in perspective, these ‘1st world problems’ … Nuttin’ like that ‘native’ experience !

  6. bossa Reply
    June 8, 2025 at 1:03 pm

    Oh, those ‘prudish; Amerians !! .. Are you sure you weren’t assigned the ” Stripper Suite ” ? …lol

  7. bossa Reply
    June 8, 2025 at 1:17 pm

    Pardon, * “prudish’ Americans *

  8. MeanMeosh Reply
    June 8, 2025 at 4:25 pm

    I agree it’s irritating, but It’s not like this is a terribly new concept. The fully exposed bathtub in the middle of the room (or a shower separated from the sleeping area by a translucent wall so you can see inside it) was trendy 10 years ago. In fact, y’all at UPGRD used to rib me (good naturedly) because I hated the setup.

    • Maryland Reply
      June 8, 2025 at 5:32 pm

      The club room suites in the old Bally’s in Vegas had a ginormous sunken tub located next to the bed and in the path to the bathrooms. Truthfully it should have had a fence around it.

  9. Walter Barry Reply
    June 8, 2025 at 4:33 pm

    The worst design are these hotels that put the window A/C united next to the bed so cold moldy air blows right on your face all night. I know Americans are fat pigs and have high blood pressure but even they can’t like that?

    • bossa Reply
      June 8, 2025 at 5:50 pm

      LOL – I feel your pain ! ( Spoken as an American ‘fat pig’ ! )…. Correction: Imma ‘gringo’ but not fat, diabetic or hypertensive YET ! But what would I know as I haven’t been to a doctor in YEARS to utilize my ‘non-existant’ universal health care !!

  10. Arthur Reply
    June 8, 2025 at 9:56 pm

    I think the worst are the cheapo plastic shower stalls common in EU hotels that are slippery and leak water everywhere.

  11. Bhn Reply
    June 9, 2025 at 5:55 pm

    Only thing worse is the opaque glass bathroom wall. Stayed at a W and had to ask my teenage daughters to leave when it was time to shower and dress.

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