A traveler has finally spoken up on a hotel design trend that’s been ruining romantic getaways and family vacations for years: the complete and utter lack of a proper bathroom door. Seriously, if you’ve recently stayed in a modern hotel and found yourself staring at a flimsy glass panel or a sliding door with massive gaps, you’re not alone, and one TikToker is making it her personal mission to name and shame the properties responsible.
Her name is Sadie, and she’s had enough of arriving at hotels only to find the bathroom has no real door—or worse, a see-through glass one that barely closes. For someone who loves to travel with friends and family, she’s also a big fan of hotel privacy, which is something these new designs actively try to destroy.
This isn’t as bad as a hotel break-in, but it’s pretty bad to lose your privacy. Something that should be as standard as having a bed has been sacrificed in the name of aesthetics, and it’s awful for anyone who values a little bit of personal space. Sadie, who is now known online as @bring_back_doors, has gone viral, calling out one hotel after another for what she considers an unacceptable bathroom door situation.
I want two doors, actually
The problem, as she demonstrates, is twofold. First, the doors often don’t close all the way, leaving massive gaps between the door and the frame. She points out that her standard for an acceptable door is one where “all of the edges are fully touching the frame. I’m not talking about some 50%.”
She’s tired of hotels and designers “pretending that this is an acceptable door because it’s not. It is not an acceptable door,” and, to be fair, I completely agree. No one wants to hear or see what’s going on in the bathroom, especially if you’re traveling with someone you’re not entirely comfortable with yet.
@bring_back_doors Hotel Name
♬ original sound – Bring Back DoorsHolmes Hotel, London, England I’m done arriving at hotels to find that the room doesn’t have a bathroom door. So I built a website that can quickly tell you if the hotel you’re staying at has a bathroom door or not.
in bio to find out. If you’ve stayed at a hotel with no bathroom door, send me a DM (with a photo if possible) and I will add it to the 50+ doorless hotels I’ve already found. The days of the hotel industry forcing tourists to stay in rooms that don’t have bathroom doors are over. From now on, travelers will have ALL relevant information when booking a hotel room. #hotel #bathroom #travel Where have bathroom doors gone | why do hotels not have doors | hotel bathroom doors | no bathroom doors | bathroom doors | bathroom design | hotel design | bad hotel design
The second part of the privacy nightmare is the material itself. You’re seeing a ton of glass doors now, and even the ones that are frosted or foggy are still completely transparent. In one viral video, Sadie was calling out the Alexander Hotel in the Netherlands, stating she had the hotel’s email her back and say, “Oh, we have glass doors, but don’t worry, don’t worry. They’re foggy, you can see through them.”
But as she shows, this is a total lie. “A, yes, you can see through these. Like you can clearly see through this door,” she says. She’s making her position on this perfectly clear, writing in one caption: “I need to be clear. Glass doors are not private. And making them foggy does not make them private. I am once again sitting here saying screw you to all bathroom doors that are not solid and close fully.”
This crusade isn’t just a TikTok complaint; Sadie has built a full-on movement around fixing the problem, creating the website BringBackDoors.com. She got fed up after “a few too many hotel stays that were lacking in privacy but oozing in awkward moments.” The context, as she explained, is simple: “I’m tired of arriving at hotels and discovering they don’t have proper doors. I enjoy taking family vacations, but I also enjoy not knowing every single thing about my family.”
The site is an amazing resource, featuring a searchable database where you can check if a hotel has a proper bathroom door before you book. They also have city-specific guides for travelers looking for guaranteed bathroom privacy. On the other hand, if you’ve stayed at a doorless hotel, you can submit it to her name-and-shame section to “protect the dignity of future travelers.”
