The Hotel Bathroom
When I first was diagnosed with Crohn’s, I was afraid to leave the house. You couldn’t pay me enough money to travel, and stay in a hotel bathroom. Over the years, I have gotten much more comfortable leaving the house, as my Crohn’s is under control. Recently, I have noticed a slight trend when I go to a hotel bathroom. The toilet is not powerful enough, and it doesn’t flush.
It's a problem when the toilet is clogged
As some of us could see this as being very comical, I don’t necessary get upset, I just get annoyed and slightly embarrassed. Even though I am sharing a hotel room most of the time with my finance, who could care less, it becomes a problem when the toilet is clogged. There have been times where I had to call the front desks twice during the night to have the toilet unclogged.
Hotel bathrooms don't always have a strong fan or an air freshener
Hotel bathrooms don’t always have a strong fan. As I wrote in my other articles, we bought our townhouse based on the bathrooms. The fans are used to block out any noise that others might hear. In most hotel rooms, the fan is very low. This results in others hearing what is going on in the bathroom. You better believe that I actually turn on the shower at times just to mask the noise.
They also don’t come with an air freshener. This could become a problem when sharing a hotel room with somebody else. Because there is not a lot of room for air to travel, it could cause for some smelling issues.
There isn't always an easy solution
So how do you avoid all this drama? I thought about this for some time, and there isn’t an easy solution. The one idea I had was to use the hotel lobby bathrooms. There is usually more than one stall in there, and they usually are always clean. Not many guests at a hotel use the lobby bathroom, because they'd rather have privacy in their own room. I decided to give it a test run. What is the worst that can happen?
Last month, I traveled to Oklahoma City, to visit family. I stay at the same hotel, and pretty much the same room each and every time. I was having a slight flare-up because of the travel difference, and new foods being introduced. I went down to the lobby to relieve myself, because I did not want to be that person calling the front desk at two in the morning. Believe it or not, it was a great idea! The toilets had a stronger flush, the fan was running, and there was nobody in there. This is a great “IBD” travel tip, that you should use, if you see yourself having a hotel room problem. Sometimes you get real lucky and there is an individual hotel lobby bathroom, which is like a double plus. You’re not using your own room’s bathroom and you have more privacy. I've often thought that asking the hotel when booking if they have powerful toilets would be sort of foolish, but now that I think about it, it would not be such a bad idea!
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