Why are hotel showers so complicated?

When Bob Phillips first enters a hotel room, he heads straight for the shower. Years of touring have taught the Detroit-based comedian to inspect the bathing apparatus in advance. If he skips this step, he could end up soaked and scalded, or even worse, unwashed and ill-humored right before a performance.

"That is the number-one priority when I’m staying at a downtown hotel or something that's a little more upscale," Phillips said before a recent Chicago gig. "I know better than to try to take a shower an hour before a show, because sometimes I need more time to figure out the mechanics of it."

Any traveler who has stared down an intimidating hotel shower system with Hydra heads and snaking limbs can relate. A few years ago on Twitter, Phillips summed up the experience with a GIF of a raccoon frolicking in a lawn sprinkler. More recently, he tweeted an image of Britain's new king with the tagline, "When you figure out the hotel shower on the first try."

"Charles was looking very self-satisfied and I thought, ‘Well, what would I have to do to look like that?’" he said.

When you figure out the hotel shower on the first try. pic.twitter.com/rKpFCBoS7E

Conquering a hotel shower earns you gloating rights. In terms of guest challenges, it's up there with adjusting your room's temperamental air-conditioning unit and extinguishing its Milky Way of lights. At older or more modest lodgings, the shower is often as simple as turning a knob or two. However, the health-and-wellness movement has transformed the hotel bathroom from a basic necessity into a self-care sanctuary.

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"One of the primary functions of the bathroom is to groom and clean for hygiene purposes," said Christina Trauthwein, vice president of content and partnerships at Hotel Business and InspireDesign, a publishing company that specializes in hotel trends, "but it's also become a place to relax, to revive yourself and to refresh. The shower is really where it's at."

As part of this renaissance, interior designers are opening up the once-private space to create more harmonious accommodations. To achieve this look, they are tearing down shower curtains and doors, introducing window views and natural light, and eliminating tubs and TVs embedded in the mirrors, according to Jese Medina-Suarez, creative director and principal at Campbell House, an interior design firm that specializes in hotels and restaurants around the world.

"You don't get this feeling of having a box inside another box, but rather something very holistic," Medina-Suarez said from his Paris outpost.

The shower is often the centerpiece of the reimagined bathroom, especially as hotels pull the plug on bathtub-and-shower combos. Jason Reynolds, director of hospitality and architect and designer sales at Moen, which produces kitchen and bathroom products, said brands are favoring shower-only facilities with glass enclosures, though, over the years, these partitions have been slowly disappearing or downsizing.

Inside the shower stall, travelers may find a multitude of amenities, including a bench for guests with mobility issues or tired legs, a towel rack, bathrobe hooks, toiletry pumps and shower heads with varying water pressure and spray sensations. Designers also have to consider ADA-compliant features, such as roll-in showers or handheld heads, for certain hotel rooms.

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"Hotels have found that a key for attracting luxury room bookers is designing a space that offers several showering outlets: ceiling rain shower heads for coverage, wall-mounted shower heads for those who want to avoid the vertical downpour, body sprays for an immersive experience and handhelds for a targeted experience," Reynolds said.

According to Hotels.com app reviews from 2022 to 2023, travelers are especially fond of rainfall showers, followed by dual-head showers. They are also appreciative of additional temperature controls and shower-head heights that can accommodate tall frames. Alternately, they are highly critical of hotel showers with weak water pressure.

Overall, guests prefer "simple elegance over extravagance," a Hotels.com spokesperson said. "Bathroom design doesn't dominate Hotels.com reviews. In fact, two- and three-star properties receive the most strongly positive reviews on our app."

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Reynolds acknowledges the downside of too many shower heads. The tangle of hardware can crowd out the guest and cause a deluge that can overwhelm the drain and create a small flood on the bathroom floor. If the design is not intuitive, guests might have to retrieve their pants and make the dreaded call.

"I have cried uncle and said to [the front desk]: ‘You’ve got to come up here and figure this out for me, because I can't even get the water to start running. I have no idea how to adjust the temperature,’" Phillips said, recalling his experience at a Hilton in Chicago a few years ago.

Trauthwein has found showering guidance within her circle of travel companions. During a business trip, she said the shower "was just not doing what I needed it to do." She didn't want to bother her colleagues for assistance, but she later shared her frustrations with a friend, who also had to wrangle the shower.

"We started consulting on the side with each other about it," she admitted.

Medina-Suarez said thoughtful placement of the shower's main components — such as the mixer, which combines the hot and cold water, and the shower-head controls — can help guests avoid an accidental dousing.

"Ideally you are close to the mixer and to the device that allows you to swap from shower head to spout to shower handle," he said. "With that kind of system, [shooting water] would never happen."

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Reynolds said hotels should use a manufacturer whose on/off and diverter systems are familiar to guests or can be mastered with a quick glance. "No one wants to be in the vulnerable position of being unclothed and on the phone requesting bathing assistance," he said.

Trauthwein suggests hotels place an instruction card in the guest room or provide a QR code on how to operate the shower. "You are standing there, pulling at this and pushing at this, and still not getting what you want," she said. "I think one of the things that the industry needs to work on is education."

One shining example: Many Glacier Hotel in Glacier National Park in Montana. The historic property has affixed laminated cards to the bathroom walls to help guests operate its "octopus control," a main feature of its claw-foot tub.

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If the convoluted shower wins the battle, James Hamblin, a physician and lecturer at Yale's School of Public Health, says don't sweat it. Although washing your hands is a critical public health measure, cleansing your hair and body is not.

"Showering is not about disease prevention at all," said Hamblin, who wrote about abstaining from showering in his book "Clean: The New Science of Skin." "It's almost entirely about personal enjoyment and the social codes of how we look."

As for the bouquet of fancy shower heads, he said these perks are for pampering only. Any water source will suffice.

"There's nothing happening under a waterfall shower that couldn't be just as well achieved with a bucket of soapy water and a rag," he said.

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Why are hotel showers so complicated?