Dr. HFH

Thanks for your correction.

I disagree with you, but that's neither here nor there.

GUWonder

AlanInDC

No need to waste. I have a small zip-loc in my toiletry kit. The leftover soap goes in there, either to use at the next hotel stop or at home. If at a hotel, then I just take home the intact soap in a box and start with the leftover soap.

tarheelnj

Most recent stay was at a CY with the bottles on the wall. About 20 minutes after my shower on the last day, I heard a crash in the bathroom. I found the whole apparatus on the floor. I just set it on the counter right outside the bathroom and told the FD clerk on the way out. Lots of ways that could have turned out worse, particularly if the containers were glass.

Badenoch

Good for Marriott. They can improve their bottom line, send virtue-signalling press releases to their potential clients and curry favor among the eco-obsessed.

This is of little consequence to me as I don't use hotel toiletries regardless of how they are dispensed. I bring my own because smell is a powerful emotion and I feel better in far-away foreign lands when I smell the same as at home. The dispensers are ignored and the dinky little bottles are cleared off the limited counter space found in most hotel bathrooms never to be seen again. The impossible to hold postage-stamp size bars of soap are replaced with an grownup version of my preferred brand.

Although my toiletry habits have absolutely nothing to do with reducing plastic I will, like Marriott, showcase my behavior and bask in the glowing approval of the environmental elites.

Antarius

this sounds like a hotel issue, not a dispenser issue. There are enough seams and corners in a shower for mold to grow - there was probably more elsewhere too.

GUWonder

CPH-Flyer

I would like to see the medical literature documenting an infectious disease picked up from using a hotel TV remote control.

Can't say I visited ANA's facility for laundering their J class PJs, but to be honest I would not find it concerning. That is one of the places where I have encounter the laundered PJ discussions, it could go hand in hand with the borrowed sports wear at gyms in hotels and for the now shelved idea of a gym in th Cathay lounges (yoga room came though).

I am not saying the dispensers can't build up to a sanitary problem in hotels, just the the assumption as a matter of principle that it always, or even frequently, will is wrong. And where they do, the dispensere are not a cause but part of the effect of the problem

I also find the reference to plastic glasses in the rooms mildly amusing. That is one that alternates between 'So disgusting to have glasses instead of platoc cups as housekeeping won't clean them properly" and "Outrageous cost cutting to remove the glasses for plastic cups" There is just no positive way out for the hotel operators...
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cmd320

No, my position is that this is nothing more than cutting costs. Whatever environmental benefit that may (I'm not really sold on the idea that there will be an real tangible benefit here) exist will be negligible and customers will be left with these terrible wall-mounted dispensers.

stimpy

Who ever said that glasses aren't cleaned by hotel maids? And if you find an unclean glass in your room, what is stopping you from cleaning it yourself? Plastic cups in hotel rooms is a new cost cutting effort. They never existed previously. We have done fine for a very long time with glass. Sorry but unclean glasses is a false argument. Saving the environment is not a false argument.

WillBarrett_68

are you serious?

WillBarrett_68

From a psychological point of view, this thread is absolutely fascinating. I wasn't aware people A) worry about catching ebola from shampoo and B) think people are hatching elaborate plots to contaminate soap

WillBarrett_68

I seriously doubt he needs them on a regular basis but we've all been caught on the road without one item or another, haven't we? It's usually easy enough to pop in a drug store but if the front desk has the item all the better.

KRSW

THIS! Worse, they're usually wrapped in plastic on top of it. Adding insult to injury, the plastic cups I've seen at the lower-end Marriott properties were so darn thin that they were almost unusable. As much as I love the SHS in Anchorage, they had these cups. After the first night I went next door to Walmart and picked up an $0.88 stemless wine glass, which has become my usual when I encounter such properties. Maybe it's just me, but I find it's something far more enjoyable drinking out of a glass than plastic cup.

The rest of the shower was clean actually. There was a little spot of mold growing on the ceiling, but that's about it. I'm definitely willing to bet that the mold growing on/around the dispensers was a problem at more rooms than just mine.

It's one more place, one more complication, that can lead to a service failure for the guest. Let's be honest -- housekeeping staff are usually the lowest-paid employees at a hotel. Sometimes you get what you pay for. Best to take the McDonald's approach with this and try to engineer out as many points of failure as you can.

I'd love to bring my own stuff, but the TSA still believes in Hollywood movie plots and fairytales, so I can't carry my toiletries with me. Sidenote: Take a look at the latest TSA ban -- empty coke bottles that resemble Looney-Tunes style bombs. EMPTY bottles...

I'm staying at a property which has the dreaded wall pump dispensers tomorrow. I'll see if I can snag an empty bottle. Nothing a small accurate scale can't figure out. Lord knows I have plenty of the little bottles at home to compare it to.

CPH-Flyer

You should Google hotel forums a bit, it has been a recurring topic. People claiming that cleaning of the glasses can't be trusted. One argument being that housekeeping never seem to have new glasses on their carts, I.e. the housekeepers just wash the glasses in the sink in the bathroom.

If I find the glass I the bathroom to be less clean that desirable, I will just have them replaced. It is not a big deal, and not me complaining on the topic.