I don’t know about you, but one of the first things I do when I enter my hotel room is check out what the bathroom is like and just as important, what product line they use. For me the look and feel of the bathroom is just as essential as having soft bed linens and can really make or break the experience. Later on in this blog post I will be calling on the wisdom of my CBT – Chief Bath Tester – a.k.a. my husband, to highlight his recent top 3 favorite bath experiences. While I go for space and the brightness of a bathroom, he is all about how good the bathtub is and I can usually tell his reaction by how long he stays in there soaking and mucking about on Instagram (check out @guyd1967 and you may glimpse of few of these said tubs)…if an hour has passed, I know I will hear the words, “that was a good bath”.
Infinity edge tub at the Skylofts at the MGM Grand, Las Vegas
But first I’ll tell you a bit about what thrills me in this department, in no particular order. Storage space – at times it seems like I travel with the whole of my medicine cabinet (remember, I’m a take-it-just-incase kinda gal) and always appreciate extra room to store my toiletries that I don’t need to hand. So an under sink cabinet or shelves are always a welcome sight. The Redbury hotel in LA was a perfect example of that, it was quite a small vanity area but there were drawers and cupboards to tuck everything away. Next, I can’t tell you how much I enjoy the magnifying vanity mirrors! Who can resist looking at all your enlarged pores and how crazy your face looks so close up? And although the list could go on forever, I will finish with a mention of the shower heads – I like the look and the idea of rain head showers and they are perfect for outdoor showering in a tropical destination, but to be honest I don’t love them in the shower when I’m trying to get clean and wash my hair! What I do like is a shower-combo type thing where there’s a fixed head and then a detachable shower head so rinsing the shampoo suds out is so much easier. Showers of note recently have been at the Inn at Rancho Santa Fe (probably one of my most favorite bathrooms) and the Hotel Shangri-La in Santa Monica.
Shangri-La Hotel, Santa Monica
So on to amenities. I’m a fussy amenity taker and have long ago stopped taking every amenity from every bathroom, I ended up giving so many away that it just seemed wasteful, so now I just take the ones I really enjoy. I find when I’m using the lotion or shower gel at home from a resort, the smell really does remind me of my stay – brilliant brand recognition for the properties and of course it’s always a great way for the product companies to get people to try their brands and hopefully gain new customers. The three bathroom amenities I’m using at home at the moment are: Bvlgari au thé rouge from the Skylofts at MGM Grand (Las Vegas), Asprey of London Purple Water from the Boston Harbor Hotel (Boston, MA), and Laboratoire Reméde from The Phoenician (Arizona).
And finally, you can’t spell bathroom without bath; here are this years top picks from Mr. One Extra Night himself. Using the Olympic ratings we have:
Bronze - Skylofts at MGM Grand, Las Vegas
Liked: the depth and novelty factor of the infinity edge tub with it’s changing under water mood lights. Disliked: after the novelty had worn off the infinity edge became unrelaxing and too much effort to control. Although our Butler did offer to ‘draw the bath, Sir’, my husband declined.
Silver – Shangri-La Hotel, Santa Monica
Liked: perfect size, depth and the faucet placement. Disliked: you can see through all of the doors!
And taking the GOLD – Red Mountain Spa Resort, Utah
Liked: size of tub, size of bathroom and overall ambience of said bathroom won this bather over. Disliked: having to get out.
Red Mountain Spa Resort (I don’t think this picture does it complete justice!)
I have to say before I even read everything my first thought was “WHY are all those windows there right by the tub??!!” that is a little off putting, but it does look like a relaxing tub anyhow.