To think hotel designers should at least have once slept in a room before being allowed to design a room.

THIS! I hate those. Don't need them and they are by definition dirty, as I don't know when they were last changed/cleaned.

No extendable mirror! I am very shortsighted so need to be about 10cm from the mirror to put my mascara on. I hate it when the only mirror in the bathroom is on the other side of the enormous sink so I have to somehow contort myself over it to get close enough.

Poor lighting. I want lighting options, not a room with just a handful of side lights. Nothing worse than a dimly lit room with horrible yellow lighting, gives me a headache.

Windows that don't open...

The paucity of hooks is the oddest as they’re cheap.

I’ve encountered all the issues mentioned but I’ll add a couple more:
Bedrooms with a big freestanding tub which look glamorous in photos but which are often not at all comfortable to bath in, give no privacy (bar the one place which provided a movable screen), nowhere to put your towels near it and sometimes roll top with nowhere to put your toiletries.

And an extra special mention - I’m not a fan of those bathroom doors which swing so you can close off either the toilet or the whole bathroom but the worst was the one with the towel rail on it and nowhere else to put towels. If you shut the bathroom door, the towels would be on the outside.

Oh and the breakfast cups were tiny thick coffee mugs and hot water was from a spout on coffee machine and not boiling so couldn’t even get a decent cup of tea at breakfast

1. Over complicated showers. Went on a two week tour earlier this year staying in about 8 hotels and in each one you have to work out which knob or lever to turn in which unique combination to get a shower. Complicated by the lack of HOT and COLD arrows and fixed shower heads so you’re squashed against the wall getting drenched in freezing water while you figure it out.
2. No hooks ever. They cost 50p.
3. Mugs and cups are those tiny thick things that you can’t make a decent cup of tea in.
4. Special mention for the hotel in Florence I just stayed in for one week that had a kettle and coffee machine and pods and teabags but no mugs. Only glasses. Assumed this was an oversight but reception said they were ‘against local regulations’. They wouldn’t give me a cup. Had to buy a souvenir mug and use that.

Skimping on towels is another bugbear. Two people in the room = two large towels please, not one to share. And they should be bath sheet size not bath towel size.

Stayed in a hotel in China last month and the bath was in a glass-walled room. On the balcony.

Yes, I agree, OP. I'd make a general list even 4* business hotels fall foul of (and sometimes expensive boutique or luxury hotels too)

• Shit lighting
• Poorly placed/ lack of plug sockets
• Shit coffee at breakfast (almost all hotels)
• Poor temperature control
• Can't do a decent cooked breakfast

I stayed in an otherwise pretty good hotel for work last week in central London., with actually a very well-designed room ☺️ But my room wasn't ready an hour after check in time and I ended up only having half an hour to get ready for an event. Not impressed. I guess they have enough regular custom to not bother to do any better.

a toilet roll holder with razor sharp edges placed so you can't avoid it with your knee.

shower pods inside the bedroom part. of course with translucent door and nowhere to place the towel.

I guess the hotels I usually stay in are designed by slightly more intelligent people as the only gripes I have are not enough hooks to hang towels and coats (and bathroom hooks that aren't actually hooks so the hand towel falls down very easily). Otherwise the bathrooms have been great, proper walls and doors, suitable lighting, showers that can be handheld (or when there's a rainfall shower there's a handheld too). Countertops stretching the length of the room so there's room to put all your toiletries and, not being the UK, sockets in the bathroom for the hairdryer in front of the massive mirror.
Good heavy firedoors so no sound or light from the corridor. Sockets and bedside tables. Lights that work well, one hotel even had a switch by the bed that switched all the lights off except the reading lights. Adjustable room temps. Breakfast buffets with separate gluten free sections that have their own, proper, toaster. Often there's a selection of different style pillows, so thinner and thicker ones and when there hasn't I've just asked at reception for extra pillows and get them.

Stayed in the Hilton at Stansted airport once and the shower head couldn't be adjusted and it sprayed the water out forwards rather than downwards! Was horrible trying to shower in that. And the beds for the children were hard as planks.

Not if you have curly hair it's not.

Those of us with long hair don't wash every day necessarily so a hand held or an adjustable height shower is really useful.

I would also like to add a request to remove the rock hard beds which have become the norm in the last 8-10 years. I swear there have been instances where the floor would have been more comfortable. Some hotels now are using toppers so they know their beds are simply too hard.

Whaaaat? I don't know anyone, in my friends or family, who washes their hair every day other than men, and even most of them don't. And yes, we do all shower daily.

I was at a place with a 'rainfall shower' last weekend (no hand shower) - and it was absolutely HUGE, about 50cm long and 30cm wide. Never seen such a large shower head. Water pressure amazing, so I'm sure it was lovely - but I had to have a bath because I didn't want to wash my hair!!

Pillows. I absolutely hate the thick bouncy pillows. Even one is too deep.

We stayed in one where the fucker flashed. I put a plaster over it.
Stayed in two hotels where the bathroom became an accidental wetroom when you showered. One shitty hotel in Greece one cute and trendy place in amsterdam.
Oh and beds pushed against walls- looking at you cute amsterdam hotel again and Premier Inn hub Covent Garden, where the bed was also ridiculously high

Not weird at all!

Someone has briefly mentioned it but I hate the way they make the beds such that you have to untuck it to get it, which is more effort than just repositioning the duvet yourself.

I usually keep the DND sign on most of the time to avoid this annoyance only removing it if I need other supplies such as toilet roll, tea bags etc.

DP and I both travel for work and have a shared hatred of the inadequacy of those toasters where not one is set at the correct speed to turn bread into toast so you get either stale bread or sheets of carbon if you try a second pass through.

One hotel I use regularly for work actually has a sign telling people that it is set to the correct speed and to not mess with the settings (hotel is just down the road from a science park so they probably get lots of guests who are engineers who feel duty bound to correct the problem).

Of course it isn't set to the correct speed so I may have WhatsApped DP a picture captioned Lies! All LIES! as per the scene from Austin Powers.

Many things have irritated me but the top ones are:
Glass wall/vaguely open plan bathroom. Just no ffs.
Bathroom fans that run for ages after the light goes off. Bound to be the noisiest thing ever. I've become adept at searching out the isolation switch.
Dressing table with mirror, light, plug socket and chair . Great! Until you sit down and the back of the chair is against the foot of the bed effectively cutting the room in half. Proof that the designer never tried out the room... or had a partner that liked to perform a commando roll across the bed to get to the (glass walled) bathroom.

Oh so many!
Tucked in duvets, meaning the whole bottom sheet comes out when it's untucked, the first thing I do is untuck to get it over with.
Towels which are too fluffy and nonabsorbent, I think I have some sensory issues because this really bugs me.
Crappy instant coffee sachets. Finding a Nespresso in the room is a rare treat.
For the random bright lights on tvs, aircon controls, etc. I take a post it pad, and stick however many are needed to block the lights.
For the irritating plugged in phone, I normally unplug and stash in a drawer or under the bed.
The random arrangement of light switches, there seems to be no planning for their configuration, literally press them all until they go out!

Omg!! I feel all of your pain.

for me it’s all about the hair care. Yes, I wash mine every day.

No conditioner… body wash- yes. Shampoo- yes.
conditioner- no, leaving my hair an absolute nightmare to detangle

and not to mention those shitty hairdryers that you need to keep pressing the on button to keep it going. And if you accidentally stop pushing the thing conks out as it overheats.

If I give in and wash my hair every day, I fear it will get even greasier and I'll be nipping home to wash it in my lunch hour.

You might want to invest in silk pillowcases or hair caps - it isn't normal or healthy for hair to need to wash it every day.

Yep, I hate florescent lighting, especially over the bathroom mirror.

Ditto complicated shower controls. I once had a shower which had controls for different light settings and even music. But I was almost crying with frustration because I just wanted water that wasn't freezing cold.

One hotel room in Reykjavik had a mirror on the wall opposite the window which was perfectly placed to reflect a streetlight into my face. A room of ghostly streetlights isn't particularly relaxing and I did not sleep well.

Whaaaaat no one is washing their hair every time they shower(!) or are you only showering when you need to wash your hair??!