Ode to a Hotel Robe

Maybe I’m a hotel snob. Maybe I’ve become spoiled. I used to think a Holiday Inn was fancy. As a kid, during weekend, cross-border trips to Bangor, Maine to load up on cheap shoes, cheap gas, and cheap turkeys, I’d get a sleeping bag on the floor between double beds in a Motel 6. Cots were too expensive. “Waste of money,” my dad would say. And that was ok because staying in a hotel was an adventure. We’d have pop & chips and I’d stay up too late and in the morning we didn’t have to make the bed. And if the motel had a breakfast bar with a waffle maker…score! Adventure, I tell ya.

Great, weighty terry/waffle mixed robe from The Godfrey Hotel in Chicago.

This is my classic “I’m wearing a hotel robe, bitches!” pose it seems.

Not much has changed in the adventure department. I still love checking into hotels. I get a little thrill when I open the room door for the first time. And I still like using that waffle maker. But I’ve become pampered in my 30s. I’m horrified to think of the state of the carpet that used to be inches from my 10-year-old face. Now, I barely walk barefoot in hotel rooms. Even nice ones.

These days I always feel a slight pang of disappointment when I check into a new hotel room, look in the closet and there’s no robe. Yep, that’s the level of spoiled I’ve sunk to. We were lucky to get hair conditioner in that Motel 6 and now I’m glum if I don’t get a robe. How times have changed.

Always with the wet hair…

I love to come back to the room after a long day of exploring, strip off my clothes and wrap myself in a fluffy white robe. It feels decadent. Like I’m at a spa. Not like when I’m home and I throw on my Doctor Who pj pants and a branded freebie t-shirt picked up at a conference. In the hotel robe I feel a little more glamourous. A little more important.

Same for the morning. I roll out of bed, turn on the coffee maker and hop in the shower, knowing that when I get out that robe is waiting for me. I don’t like walking around the room in just my underwear and getting dressed straight out of the shower just isn’t right. I’m ensconced in white terry while I sip my morning brew and dry my hair. It feels cozy. It feels right.

When your pedi matches the hotel slippers…

Sometimes hotels will also provide slippers – of the single user variety. I don’t worry too much about that though since I carry my own now. But robes are too big and impractical for me to travel with so I count on the hotel. And no, I never think about pilfering that sucker and packing it in my suitcase for the journey home. There’s never enough space, I have my own fluffy robes at home, and I don’t want to be charged $100+ just to have the hotel logo. Though I do enjoy bringing touches of hotel chic into my own home.

For me, vacations are meant to be a time where I indulge myself and do a little pampering (when I’m not hanging off buildings or hiking or something). The hotel robe is a symbol of that. And maybe that makes me spoiled, but I’m ok with that.

What’re your thoughts on it? Do you indulge in the hotel robe?