### The Great Vanishing Act: A Plea to Bring Bathroom Doors Back to Hotels

There’s a moment of quiet dread familiar to many modern travelers. You’ve just checked in. The lobby was beautiful, the staff was friendly, and the key card works on the first try. You swing open the door to your room, taking in the crisp linens on the bed and the city view from the window. Then, you spot it. Or rather, you spot the lack of it. The bathroom doesn’t have a proper door.

Instead, you’re faced with one of several questionable design choices that have become alarmingly trendy. Perhaps it’s a single, imposing pane of frosted glass that offers a blurry, R-rated shadow puppet show for anyone else in the room. Maybe it’s a rustic-chic barn door that slides on a rail, leaving a generous, privacy-defying gap on all sides. In the most egregious cases, it’s a completely open-concept design where the sink is in the bedroom and the toilet is tucked behind a flimsy half-wall.

Hoteliers, we need to talk. This has to stop.

The decision to sacrifice a solid, fully-sealing bathroom door at the altar of “sleek, modern design” is a fundamental misunderstanding of what a traveler needs. The goal, presumably, is to make smaller rooms feel more spacious and airy. The effect, however, is to make guests feel exposed and uncomfortable.

Let’s break down who this trend fails. It fails friends traveling together, forcing them into a level of intimacy neither signed up for. It fails families, where a parent might just want two minutes of solitary peace. It’s a complete nightmare for colleagues sharing a room on a business trip, creating a level of awkwardness that can’t be erased in the morning meeting.

And let’s be honest, it even fails couples. Not every moment needs to be a shared experience. The practicalities of a functional bathroom—the sounds, the smells, the steam—are things best contained behind a solid barrier. There’s also the simple issue of light. When one person needs to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, a frosted glass door effectively turns the entire hotel room into a giant, sleep-disrupting lantern.

A bathroom is, by its very nature, a private space. It’s one of the few places where we are guaranteed a moment of solitude. A proper door isn’t a luxury; it’s a basic component of comfort and dignity. It’s a non-verbal agreement between the hotel and the guest that says, “We respect your privacy.”

We’re not asking for much. We don’t need voice-activated, self-sanitizing smart doors. We just need a simple, solid door. One that latches. One that meets the frame. One that blocks light and sound effectively. It’s a piece of technology that was perfected centuries ago.

So, to the hotel designers and chains championing this open-concept revolution: we see what you’re trying to do, but it isn’t working. You can keep the rainfall showers, the high-thread-count sheets, and the fancy coffee makers. But please, give us back our privacy. Give us back the bathroom door.