Do you use hotel towels or bring your own

[Butterfly98]

Conversation I had earlier with a friend has put me right off using hotel towels! She's an assistant manager of a 4 star hotel and said after 2 wedding receptions over Easter weekend some of the bath towels had to be thrown out where guests had been sick after too much alcohol and looked like they used the towels to clean up etc some in one room had worse on it (you can use your imagination). This can happen fairly regularly and the room cleaners wear gloves to put towels and bedding into one bag and clean toilet etc and then wearing the same gloves leave out fresh towels and change the beds with all those germs transferred! Then they move on to the next room and are on a strict timeframe to get them all done as quickly as possible! Laundry decides if towels should be thrown depending on how soiled they are but it all sounds disgusting to me! It's not practical to bring bath towels for all the family especially if going abroad but now after having a nice shower do you really want to wrap yourself up in one of these towels? Thoughts please! Btw I'm not totally OCD about cleanliness though I might sound it!!

I never bring towels. I'm sure they've been washed at high heat and as you say if they were really in a bad state they'd have been thrown out.

How do you get into the room without touching the keycard, lift buttons, door handle etc?

Well, to be honest, if you are worried about hotel towels, what about everything else? Based on that logic, one should never stay in a hotel or other holiday accommodation, never eat outside the home, etc.

Oh god a new MN thing like not answering the door or the phone ever.

Suggest those who are neurotic about it pack pillows, sheets, towels, quilts, throws, glasses, cups and spoons.
That'll sort it!

FFS MN, what fresh neuroticism is this?

I worked as chamber-maid. We might only rearrange your sheets if we were very short of clean sheets, but towels on floor or in a check-out room went for a very hot wash. They are much closer to sterile than any towel I could bring from home.

I use hotel towels but take a freezer bag for the remote runs away

😂

I take antibacterial wipes and wipe anything I will touch such as the remote control, light switches, door handles and the bedside cabinet

I use hotel towels but take a freezer bag for the remote runs away

🤮

I also take a pack of antibac wipes and wipe all the door handles , kettle etc blush

✋🏼

I have always used the towels. This post had made me think twice but they do always seem clean

A sterile environment would make us sick quicker than anything else.
We are covered inside and out with other living organisms.
Humans are teeming with bugs, including tiny spiders, lice and microbial colonies. Far from being a hazard, however, they are the making of you.3 Apr 2015
BBC - Future - The disgusting creatures inhabiting your body

The world's gone mad.

If this is a problem then where do you draw the line? Don't use bedding, cups ect ?
Met a couple on holidays once and she brought her cleaning stuff and gave the room a good clean and did use her own sheets .Cleaned the room daily . Brought their own cups and coffee. It was a good 4* hotel so she was crazy. Apparently she just had a thing that nowhere could be as clean as her. Missed so much by cleaning .
We thought it sad and a waste of money.

I tend to give the remote a good clean before I touch it.
Don’t really care about towels and bedding. If I read too much into it, I might never stay in a hotel again. Or eat in a restaurant, use public transport, touch public doors for that matter.

I do all of the above, and aside from a cold or two in winter, I haven’t been ill in years.

I’ve yet to hear of someone getting ‘towel poisoning’ in a hotel.

My thoughts exactly. Life is too short to worry about it, unless you have actual OCD in which case the towels in a hotel are the least of your problems.

God, I thought I was neurotic, but clearly not compared to you lot... thank you to lljkk for shedding light on the towel laundering process!

Our bodies are designed to cope with germs.

I use the towels but I don't like to use the pillow, I know it's a bit silly and irrational but I sleep so much better on my own pillow so if I'm driving I will take mine from home. If I don't have room to take a pillow I take a towelling waterproof pillow protector to put over the top of the hotel pillow. It's the feeling of having my face directly next to something that someone has dribbled on/sweated on etc that I find a bit icky.

I don't stay in grotty hotels and don't think about the rest. I feel more at risk of catching up nasties with people coughing in my face or just breathing in my plane than old germs on a boiled- wash towel.

I always read threads like this and think HOW CAN WOMEN WHO HAVE GIVEN BIRTH BE SO SQUEAMISH?

I was put off after watching the documentary on Claridge's some time ago, where apparently they wash the towels at only 30 degrees 'to keep them nice and fluffy'. I don't know whether that is a thing in hotels......

Fucksake.

HOW CAN WOMEN WHO HAVE GIVEN BIRTH BE SO SQUEAMISH?
it's further from your face to be fair

that said, i use my own bedding and towel with a baby until 6 months-ish. After the kids are given the same germ-ridden horror than the rest of us!

Who the hell can be arsed to lug around a suitcase full of damp, heavy towels?

FFS.

If that's your attitude, why travel at all? You might have to sit on plane seats that other bums have sat on or - the horrors - eat from plates that others have eaten from.

Have you tried to wash your towels at 30? They don't come out as clean, so I don't buy it. Claridges towels are pristine.

I know it's a bit silly and irrational but I sleep so much better on my own pillow so if I'm driving I will take mine from home

I know quite a few people who do that. I've never done so, but on the strength of this thread I might start. Hotel pillows are never plump enough.

Have worked in MANY hotels and all of them washed all towels or linens on HOT wash either in the hotels own laundry or more usually via a service that collects. Washes and returns. And all towels were washed if used or suspected o Mr use by guests. It’s not good biz practice to allow hotels to be unhygienic!

I kiss my dog's nose - I don't have it in me to give two fucks about hotel towels

I’ve yet to hear of someone getting ‘towel poisoning’ in a hotel.

This made me giggle. What on earth do people think is going to happen to them as a result of using a hotel towel? Surely the bed sheets would be worse for hygiene ? Do you bring those too? Or how about the entire bed? Maybe just camp outside the hotel in a tent in case a previous guest has puked on the carpet.

Mumsnet has officially gone mad