La Noria, Angkor, Cambodia

The hotel website looks all modern French bungalow, but it's a lie! The shower mysteriously comes with "antique Cambodian cisterns of water for your use," but it's just a breeding ground for mosquitoes. Too freaked out by plague-carrying mosquitoes to shower at all.

Seriously, there's dengue and malaria here. Dengue's called breakbone fever the first time you get it, and the second time your veins start leaking and you die.

The only thing to do is to spray the rock-hard bed with OFF and cower until morning, then switch hotels immediately.

The Standard, LA

Painfully hip, and to get to your room you have to walk a gauntlet of beautiful people in the hotel bar, not good if you're coming off a cross-country flight in sweats-and-luggage style.

The shower is smack in the middle of the room! The toilet and sink are wedged in a microscopic closet, but the shower is the size of a formal dining room. The room is bed + shower, and the shower has no walls.

Side 1 has the showerhead, Sides 2 & 3 are curtains, and Side 4 is open to the room, opposite a full-length mirror. Which is why I could take this picture. Did they put anti-fog on half the mirrors so you could watch yourself shower? Yes yes yes.

Note: Showers without walls are chilly. Maybe sexy (but still chilly) on a romantic stay? Unless you get hookers for your business trip. Maybe 4 or 5 hookers would make it less chilly.

Aerlie Center, Warrenton VA. Another Perspective: Room 20.

Special guest Brian, on his Aerlie Center experience. For the facts on Room 7, see posting below.

After a long, sweaty day returning kickoffs and running button-hooks against the best athlete's that EPA's climate science and economic modeling branches have to offer, I was certainly looking forward to a fine showering experience in Aerlie Center's Farm House room #20. What I found, would cause even the bandits from home alone to think twice before entering to wipe the tar and feathers from their unsanitary bodies.

First off, the door to the shower, while present ... would not close. This caused splash and leakage to seep onto the bathroom floor, causing the potential for slippage upon my eventual exit. The threat of such a calamity weighed deeply upon my conscious, not allowing me to fully enjoy the shower experience.

Secondly, there was no "ease-in" period. The shower had insufficient standing room and my experience began with a rush of fluid to the face, never a good way to begin an evening.

Lastly, the towels were waaaaay too far from the shower stall. Meaning, I had to leave the warmth of the shower in order to dry myself ... this hampered my ability to ease back into the real world ... the splendors of the shower were instantly ripped from my grasp, and the cold rush of reality consumed me, not unlike the cold breath of Scott Loomis himself asking me to engage in a trust fall.

Rating: 2 bars of soap.

Villa Montana. Isabela, Puerto Rico.

• An excellent shower
• Good water pressure
• Low tub
• Ample storage
• Safety note--watch out for the shower guard crab!

Coming Soon!

Special guest contributor and showering legend Heather tells us about her stay at the Borgata in A.C. It’d be hard to go wrong with a comped room, but, is she taking a gamble on the casino’s showers?

http://www.theborgata.com/Main.cfm?Category_1=2000&Category_2=2100&Category_3=2110

Aerlie Center. Warrenton, VA.

• Shower was clearly built for tall people; there was nowhere I could stand without a constant stream of water in my face.
• Insufficient room to maneuver. Like showering in an upright coffin.
• Slippery, inward sloping shelves, so everything just keeps falling.
• Good shower lighting.

http://www.airlie.com/accomodations/index.htm

Marriott Marquis. San Francisco, CA.

The hotel shower that started it all. Marriott, you should know better!
• Low water pressure.
• Inflexible shower head.
• Dangerously high-walled bathtub.
• Inadequate shower curtain—lets in cold air and out water.
• Inadequate shower lighting.
• Inward-sloped ledge (soap falls off, razor falls off, shampoo falls off).
• Nowhere to hang up towels near shower, or anywhere for that matter.
• Blow-dryer that shuts itself off mid-drying.

http://www.marriott.com/hotels/photo-tours.mi?marshaCode=sfodt&pageID=HWGRD&imageID=5

NH Krystal Palace, Cancun, Mexico.

I don’t remember this shower, which means it was fine. Or that I had too many drinks at Coco Bongo. Or I forgot to take a shower?

What I do remember though, and much appreciate about this hotel, is that they have “hospitality suites,” actual hotel rooms that you can use for free after check-out if you want to take a quick (or long) shower or nap in between the beach and heading to the airport. Is this a common hotel feature? I’ll be asking about this from now on. Anyway, about the shower. Drumroll please…..The hospitality suite had A Perfect Shower—just like home!! So maybe the room I stayed in did too? It remains a mystery.

http://www.nh-hotels.com/nh/en/hotels/mexico/cancun/nh-krystal-cancun.html?type=photos

Hotel LunaSol. Playa Del Carmen, Mexico.

This was a cute hotel—they folded the towels into crocodile shapes!—but! I was deceived into staying here by false talk of a Jacuzzi. It was an oddly cold week (70’s---brrr!) in the Yucatan, and I just needed to thaw out a bit. Apparently, in Mexico, “jacuzzi” is a word that means a non-heated part of the frosty cold pool that has some water movement. But, onto the shower. And this was a very important shower, because I had not showered for days beforehand, due to a combination of laziness and other circumstances (see entry for Diamante K below):
• Not fully enclosed—cold air in, hot water out (major flooding issues).
• Modesty issues—no bathroom door, and partially open shower.
• No in-shower storage.
• Inflexible shower head.
• Insufficient towel rack space to hang our de-crocodiled towels after use.

http://www.lunasolhotel.com/English/rooms.htm

Diamante K. Tulum, Mexico

Okay. If you have even one eco-dork bone in your body, you will love this hotel. Bungalow on the beach! Organic oatmeal! Hammocks! But, if you are really into high-environmental impact showering, you can only stay here for as long as you can go without a shower.
• No hot water

http://www.diamantek.com/ImageGallery.html

Fiesta Americana Cozumel Dive Resort, Cozumel, Mexico.

• On the whole, a good shower.
• Good water pressure—but perhaps too good. After my first shower, about half of my spray tan was left on the shower floor, turning my Jersey Shore-ready tan into giraffe spots.

http://www.fiestamericana.com/portal/p/en_MX/FA/FDR/5/FDRmenuizquierdo.html/virtualtour/FDRvirtualtour.html?id_seccion=M5

The Hotel at Mandalay Bay. Las Vegas (THESuite)

What’s not to love about a room featuring 1.5 bathrooms when 5 girls are sharing a room?
• Good water pressure
• Shower-only, so not quite enough leg space
• Enough in-shower storage to hold 2-3 girls’ shower supplies
• Would be improved if the walls weren’t clear, so we could use the mirror and sink while someone else is showering (without them having to wear a bathing suit)

http://www.mandalaybay.com/accommodations/THEhotel.aspx

Mespil Hotel. Dublin, Ireland.

• Blow-dryer hidden in, and fixed to, a desk drawer nowhere near the bathroom.

http://www.mespilhotel.com/index.php?id=bedrooms

Madagascar—All Hotels

Madagascar as a whole is not known for its showers. But, whatever, it’s Madagascar, I’m not mad. Developed countries that can’t get their shower act together? That’s another story (see entries below for The Netherlands and Germany).
• Hand-held shower heads
• No tub/rim, anything to keep the floor from flooding
• Rare hot water

Madagascar—One very special hotel whose name I’ve long forgotten

• Creepiness--Eww, gross. There’s mud on the shower curtain. Oh wait, that’s not mud. It’s a leech.

Gunnewig Hotel Residence. Bonn, Germany.

Germany, I don’t get you. Were all of your bright young engineers lured away from work in the shower-design field by the siren song of the Volkswagon factory, or your sexy sexy wind farms and solar installations?
• Tub wall waaaay too high.
• Inadequate water pressure.
• Showerhead located in the corner of the shower. This makes things very very difficult. There is no escaping the water, there is no redirecting the water. You are at the mercy of the water.
• Oddly angled tub floor. You’re on a slant no matter where you go.
• Inadequate in-shower storage.
• Inadequate towel racks.

http://www.guennewig.de/bnreside/homepage_e.php

Hotel Director. Santiago, Chile

I was very worried about this shower at first. It was chillier in Chile than I was expecting, and it took around 20 minutes for sufficiently hot water to kick in on my first shower. After that, no major problems. Instant hot water everyday.
• Good water pressure
• Tub wall a bit too high
• Unbeatable view of the Andes out of the bathroom window (see picture)

http://www.director.cl/suites/rooms.asp

Mdluli Concession. Kruger Park, South Africa.

Though there are serious safety and storage issues here, this is actually my favorite shower on the planet.
• Safety issues. Must leave safe-seeming enclosed tent and walk to shower in the darkness (I am not getting up pre-safari to shower. Out of the question.) knowing full well that any number of poisonous snakes can fit under the electrified fence surrounding our camp.
• Good water pressure
• No towel racks, no lighting
• But! No roof and amazing (Amazing! Amazing!) star views! And horrifying, but awesome animal sounds.

http://www.ecoafrica.com/Africa/South-Africa/Kruger-National-Park/3-day-Classic-Kruger-Safari#Itin

Mar Del Plata, Argentina. Friend’s friend’s grandmother’s apartment. So, not technically a hotel. But, notable.

• Creepiness--Bottle of Holy Water hanging in shower.

Netherlands--residences

What I am about to say must not be shared with the Dutch, for they pride themselves on being better than everyone at everything. They may speak better English than us, and know more about American politics than we do, but the Dutch do not know how to build a proper shower.

• Water pressure, fine.
• Water temperature is not maintained long enough for an American showerer.
• Insufficient shower curtain coverage. Why all Dutch shower curtains are missing about a foot of width, I’ll never understand. Cold cold cold Dutch air in, tepid Dutch water out.
• No floor ledge. Automatic flooding. Why?