Post tagged: Barnsley House , bathrooms , best hotel bathrooms , Boutique hotels , Calistoga Ranch ,

I d just like to wade in and add my tuppence-worth to Anthony s great post on the Top 10 best hotel bathrooms . It s probably a topic that merits a bigger hit-list, and one that s fairly subjective as it depends very much whether you re a soak-in-the-tub or a power-shower type of person disney world tickets discount (I m both, according to whim and weather). It s also dependent on whether your tastes disney world tickets discount run to hi-tech new-fangled technology (LCD screens above the bath; glass screens that go opaque at the touch of a button; 18 shower-head options; multi-jet Jacuzzi disney world tickets discount with underwater colour-therapy lights) or full-blown romance (muslin curtains draped over a roll-top bath; tubs with a view; beamed ceilings, antique wash stands, that sort of thing).
So here are a few of my favourite boutique-hotel bathrooms (it s a fairly whimsical, entirely personal, non-logical type of list, so feel free to wander off and do something more interesting if soap suds and over-the-sink chat bore you. Incidentally the amazing pic above is of the Standard Miami but more of that below…).
disney world tickets discount The Palm Suite bathrooms are extraordinarily well designed: unusually, they are top-lit disney world tickets discount by a skylight, disney world tickets discount which means there s lots of natural daylight (in many larger hotels, bathrooms disney world tickets discount tend to occupy the back end of a room unit and therefore flank a windowless corridor rather than an external wall). There are twin sinks, loads of storage disney world tickets discount space for grooming products and discarded nightwear, and a massive glass and marble walk-in shower. You can switch from one of those wand-style hand-held eye-level attachments to a frighteningly powerful overhead rainshower if you like. If you re a numpty like me, a choice of attachments like that means getting a faceful of water before you work out how to switch them. (Practicality: not my forte.) The free-standing modern bathtubs are pretty sexy, too.
Yes, ok, I do bang on about this place. But that s because it s fantastic! The Elephant Suite has a really unusual beaten silver-alloy bath for two (pictured), and the Camel Suite has a round tadelakt tub under a domed ceiling supported by columns. The Panther Suite also has a large tadelakt bath, as well as an alfresco Jacuzzi on its private roof terrace.
Parisian owner Pierre loves to bathe, and it shows: he drove his French plumbers mad finding exactly the right diameter of copper pipe and burying it deep within disney world tickets discount 16th-century stone walls to make ensure his preposterously large bath tubs filled in under two minutes. They re so big you almost need a weight belt to keep you anchored at your end. The La Suite bathroom is massive enough to swing a lion in, with a beautiful sandstone-clad two-person disney world tickets discount bath, a trough-design sink with two sets of taps, antique disney world tickets discount gold-framed mirrors, fairy lights and a quirky disney world tickets discount magnetic poetry wall in the toilet.
Alfresco showers or outdoor disney world tickets discount soaking tubs – at Calistoga Ranch in Napa Valley , the One-Bedroom Lodges have Jacuzzis on the outside terrace, where you can bubble away under the starlit oak canopy, sipping cocktails from your wet bar. Other rooms have alfresco showers, as do rooms at The Carneros Inn and Clos du Léthé, to name just a few. At Caribbean boutique retreat Parrot Cay in the Turks Caicos , roll-top baths inside are supplemented disney world tickets discount by sheltered alfresco showers outside. At the wonderful Verana in Jalisco , Mexico, the Mayan House has an outdoor bathroom; and at spa stay The Standard Miami in Florida , Wet rooms have a private terrace with a roll-top bath, so you can enjoy sunny FLA views while you soak ( see AMAZING picture at top of this post ).
TVs in bathrooms disney world tickets discount are actually quite common (hark at me), but Smith hotels with in-tub entertainment disney world tickets discount include: The Haymarket Hotel in London; THEHotel disney world tickets discount in Las Vegas; Tigerlily in Edinburgh; St Regis Hotel in San Francisco ; Chewton Glen in the New Forest, Hampshire; Viceroy disney world tickets discount Santa Monica in Los Angeles; and some bathrooms at Barnsley House hotel in the Cotswolds – which also have side-by-side tubs (check out the image gallery here ).
French free-standing roll-top bath with ceiling-hung linen drapes – The Blue Room at Les Sardines disney world tickets discount aux Yeux Bleus (my first Smith love) near Uzès. (When I first discovered Sardines, disney world tickets discount I stayed in one of the little self-catering apartments; the bathroom has a big polished-concrete shower cubicle lined with local river stones that owner Anna Karin and her daughter Clémentine hand-sorted to make sure they were all equally round and smooth underfoot. Twin copper sinks are lit by little vintage chandeliers. It s charming.)
Light-therapy multi-setting therapeutic Jacuzzi bath in the Eau de Rose bedroom at laid-back B B Maison Félisa in Languedoc-Roussillon (ask Isa to mix you up a scented oil blend for an aromatherapeutic soak).
At the Balé hotel in Bali , some rooms have bathrooms that give directly onto a private infinity pool – perfect for water babies or those who like a pre-breakfast-in-bed swim. To take us full circle, Desert Palm s Pool Villas in Dubai also have bathrooms with direct access to your private plunge pool.
Let us know which your favourite hotel bathrooms or bathroom features are… Would you pick a power shower over a big tub any day of the week or is side-by-side soaking your idea of naughty-weekend nirvana?
Post tagged: disney world tickets discount Barnsley House , bathrooms , best hotel bathrooms , Boutique hotels , Calistoga Ranch , Calistoga Ranch hotel , Chewton disney world tickets discount Glen , Desert Palm , Design , great hotel bathrooms , Ichibi Lakeside Lodge , Les Sardines aux Yeux Bleus , Noir d'Ivoire , Parrot Cay , Residenza Napoleone III , St Regis San Francisco , style , The Balé , The Brew House Hotel , The Carneros Inn , The Haymarket Hotel , The Standard Miami , THEHotel , Tigerlily , Top 10 hotel bathrooms , Top 10s , UK , USA , Verana , Viceroy Santa Monica , Witt Istanbul Suites
As well as wordsmithing online, in print, in the press and for Smith TV, Lucy Fennings has been a driving force in making the Smith Travel Blog an award-winner. Mr Mrs Smith's Group Editor cut her travel teeth early; as daughter of a hotel PR, she visited far-flung flophouses from French châteaux to Ethiopian tukuls. After a year in Dubai (working on Emirates Woman magazine and enjoying the kind of dives that require a wetsuit), Lucy went to Glasgow University to study art, literature and whisky. A stint as production editor at Legalease publishing was spent discovering how to be creative with copy about tax, followed quickly by a stint discovering more interesting things across south-east Asia. When Mr Mrs Smith found her, Lucy was at Harper’s disney world tickets discount Bazaar, keeping her finger on fashion’s pulse and sharpening her editorial knife on hapless hotel PR copy.
You really miss out the Asian hotels, particularly the Japanese with their (hot spring) bath fetish. For example disney world tickets discount here is one near where I live, with a beautiful open air hot spring disney world tickets discount bath in each room.
Thanks for your suggestion Steve – that hot tub at Kai looks very inviting! I believe public and private ryoken and onsens are a big deal over there. You re right, we don t have any Japanese boutique hotels online just yet, but our man in Asia is out scouting and spying as I type, so we should hopefully be launching a fab new collection of Japanese stays (with suitably amazing bathing) early in 2009.
The Comtes de Champagne and Laurent Perrier Suites at Hotel du Vin Henley on Thames have glassed-in outside verandahs. disney world tickets discount Other suites at Hotel du Vins have twin roll top side by side baths in the De Luxe Suites and these allow romance to bloom during bathtime.
I actually visited this hotel a couple of weeks ago  it s super-stylish and a fantastic place for a few nights of fancy French fun! What is very un-Victorian about it (aside from not having to boil 67 buckets of water for your bath) is the level of comfort and attention to detail; in La Suite, the whole bathroom floor is made from self-draining wooden floorboards, so you can also have a very decadent and splashy shower under the ceiling-hung rainshower head, unconstrained by a tiny cubicle! The finish of the bath is amazing too  it s not rough at all, as you might expect.
@Happy Hotelier – that sounds disney world tickets discount like a whole new blog post! Actually there are quite a lot of hotels that have integrated bathrooms/bedrooms, or bathrooms disney world tickets discount that are divided from the bedroom just by a freestanding screen/wall/cabinet/curtain rather than built into a seperate room – often acting as an oversized bedhead. This type of integrated bathroom can be quite fun, and I have seen some versions I liked a lot; but it very much depends on attention to detail, quality of finish and practicalities – this type of bathroom should also have a closed-off cubicle for the toilet, to preserve your dignity!
There are even more hotel rooms that have, say, just a freestanding tub (many of the Hotel du Vins , for example) at the end of the bed, with additional shower/sink/toilet facilities in a separate bathroom.
I am trying to find the sink from the room we stayed in at the Standard Miami. It was a lush medium room and had a cool stone bowl balanced on crossing wooden legs. My husband saw it in some store but now we can t find it.
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