Posts in the category "Bathrooms":

Sometimes the yin/yang of the inbox is entertaining.

Today, for example, I received an urgent reminder to vote for America’s Best Restroom and a warning about staying away from the World’s Scariest Airports.

Let’s do both.

Each year Cintas takes nominations for the Best Restrooms in Canada and in the United States.

You can see all the past winners in the Hall of Fame, but here at StuckatTheAirport.com we’re still celebrating 2005, when Fort Smith Regional Airport in Arkansas took home the potty-prize.

Winning bathroom at Fort Smith Regional Airport

This year, no airports are on the list of ten finalists, but the restrooms at Santa Monica Pier are on the list as are those at New York City’s Muse Hotel and Bryant Park, where the amenities include attendants, flowers, scented oils and electronic seat covers  – amenities we’d be happy to see at all airports..

Take a look at the best-loo finalists and cast your vote for America’s Best Room by August 31^st.

Once you’ve voted for the best restroom in the U.S., take a look at the airports SmarterTravel.com has put on its list of World’s Scariest Airports.

In my book, scary airports are those with icky bathrooms, overpriced food or pay-to-use-WiFi. But this list defines scary airports as those where geography and/or weather make take-offs and landings dicey.  Which airports are on the list? In the U.S. the authors list New York’s LaGuardia Airport, Yeager Airport in West Virginia, John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, CA. – and the airport in Nantucket, MA.  International airports that make the list are in Guatemala, Scotland, New Zealand, Bhutan, Gibralter and Honduras.

What makes an airport scary for you?

Categories: Air Travel, Airports, Assistance, Bathrooms
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From getting stuck-by-suction on an airplane toilet seat to discovering that your credit card number is stored on your hotel key car or that the strange smell in a motel room is a dead body entombed under your box spring, there are some strange and spooky stories circulating in the world of travel.

Are they true? Some are.  But which ones?

In Travel legends: Separating fact from fiction, my column on msnbc.com this week, experts help flush out the truth.

For example:

Is it possible to get stuck to the seat of an airline toilet if you flush while seated?

This one has been swirling around for years, fueled by a widely distributed “news” story involving an SAS incident that turned out to be a hoax.

Regardless, we asked Paul DeYoung, a physics professor who runs the online “Ask a Physicist” column at Hope College in Holland, Mich., if it could happen. “While an airplane toilet really does use vacuum to suck the material out,” he doesn’t believe that anyone’s bottom would make a perfect seal and “if there is any gap at all, you don’t get stuck.”

But it’s possible. “Technically, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility,” said Boeing Commercial Airplanes spokesperson Tom Brabant. “It has happened in rare cases.”

Bottom line: DeYoung and Brabant encourage travelers to play it safe by making sure to stand up before flushing the toilet in an airplane lavatory. In fact, when Boeing’s new Dreamliner 787 jets start flying, flushing while standing will be your only option: lavatories on these planes have touchless flush mechanisms that automatically put down the lid before flushing the toilet.

TOO MANY BEDMATES

What they say:

Guests staying in foul-smelling hotel rooms have discovered dead bodies underneath the bed or hidden inside the bed frame.

The truth?

Sadly, it’s true. In March, police in Memphis, Tenn., found the body of a woman missing for two months stuffed inside a motel bed frame. The woman had stayed in the room when she was alive, but it was cleaned and rented out several times after her disappearance.

Snopes.com, the go-to site for getting the skinny on “urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors and misinformation,” has long list of documented incidents like this reaching back to the 1980s.

Want to find out the truth about personal information stored on hotel room keys and other travel legends going around?  Read the full column – Travel legends: Separating fact from fiction – on msnbc.com.

And if you’re curious about the veracity of other travel legends, send them along; we’ll ask the experts for advice and let you know.

Categories: Air Travel, Bathrooms, Fun Stuff, Hotels, Sleeping, Weird
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Been in any great airport bathrooms lately?

If so, then take a moment nominate it for the 2010 America’s Best Restroom Award.

This is the ninth year the Cintas Corporation has been running this wacky contest and there have been some pretty swanky loos among the contestants.  But back in 2005, the grand prize winner was none other than the Fort Smith Regional Airport (FSM) in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

Here’s a description of their winning restrooms:

Fort Smith Regional Airport prides itself on the Southern hospitality that it displays for its visitors. The restrooms are always clean, with sanitation being of utmost importance. Beautiful décor and comfortable seating, both inside and outside the stalls, compliment the restrooms’ cleanliness. Dried flower arrangements are always on display. And you’ll never have to manually flush a toilet or turn on a sink here—everything is automated.

Sounds like a lovely spot for a traveler to take a tinkle, doesn’t it?

Nominations for the best restroom – airport or not, in the United States and in Canada – are being accepted through through April 26, 2010. 10 finalists will be announced in July and the public will get to vote for the favorites, with the winner announced in  September.

Besides the Fort Smith Airport, other winners have included the University of Notre Dame; The Grand Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi; Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin; Jungle Jim’s International Market in Fairfield, Ohio; Hermitage Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee; and in 2009, Shoji Tabuchi Theatre in Branson, Missouri.

You can see the winners and the runners up in the America’s Best Restroom Hall of Fame.

Categories: Air Travel, Bathrooms
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If you stop and look around you should be able to find an exhibit case at many airports filled with some of the items the US Fish & Wildlife Service has confiscated from travelers.

(Confiscated wildlife products, JFK. Courtesy US Fish & Wildlife Service)

Sadly, smuggling endangered species – and items made from the parts of endangered species – is big business.  Wildlife inspectors around the country are kept on their toes inspecting cargo shipments and suitcases for everything from bags of writhing snakes to dried sea horses and mounted sea turtles.  And, according to this AP article, Bizarre Finds Normal for Airport Inspectors, last year the inspectors at the airport in Anchorage, Alaska made more seizures than JFK airport in New York.

There’s the case of the women who tried to hide a bear gall in her bra cup; the sad tale of the live monkey shipped with snakes, and the chronic sea horse importer. Every time Chris Andrews opens a package or inspects a passenger in his job as a U.S. Fish and Wildlife inspection officer at Anchorage’s Ted Stevens International Airport, he chances an even more bizarre find…… He says that some of the saddest cases he’s seen involve live animals shipped as cargo, including a monkey in a cage shipped with taped-up snakes. The snakes got loose and killed the monkey.”

Sad, yes; but really sort of fascinating.  The article goes on to mention snake wine, elephant toenails, and jars of bear fat.  I’m not even sure I want to know what these items might be used for, but it’s intriguing to read about how crafty some of these smugglers get with their contraband.

And, speaking of crafty. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) now has those nifty Step ’n Wash units in 72 public restrooms at the airport.

These Step ‘n Wash units are self-retracting steps that are secured beneath restroom sink counters to make it easier for kids to reach the faucets and wash their hands.

Great idea!

Categories: Bathrooms, Smuggling
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When I toured one of Boeing’s test 787 Dreamliner planes recently, I was pleased to see that the lavatories feature touchless faucets and flushers, as well as a nifty feature that automatically puts down the toilet seat lid.

(Photo by Jerome Tso)

And back in November, 2009, I was intrigued by the news from ANA (All Nippon Airways) that it was the first airline to install warm water “washlets” – bidet toilets – in the First and Business Class lavatories onboard its Boeing 777-300 ER aircraft.

Now comes news that on March 1^st (the beginning of Women’s History Month), the airline will designate one ladies-only lavatory on each airplane serving international routes (except those served by A320/B737 aircraft).

(You’ll know it’s the ladies-only lav by the pink sign!)

Why a woman’s only lav?  Women who have flown on long flights don’t even need to ask. But an ANA spokesman explains it this way: “Many customers requested it, so, in order to enhance their in-flight experience, comfort and convenience, we’re implementing it.”

Enough toilet talk?  Before you go,  take a moment to watch the “Art of Arrival” animation on the ANA website.  It uses the Japanese animation style known as anime  and, like the ladies-only lavs, is quite unusual.

Categories: Air Travel, Airline policies, Bathrooms
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