Privy Privacy
One thing which I’ve always considered normal for a hotel is for the bathrooms to be somewhat private — you can do your business without being seen or heard. This trip has had a variety of instances where that wasn’t always the case. It hasn’t been a problem, but it’s kind of interesting.
In Huahine, our hotel was definitely not fancy — it was somewhat hostel-like. In our private room, the walls of the bathroom didn’t go up to the ceiling. And the door was basically a shower curtain.
On the boat, the bathroom was perfectly private. Except that it had a window on its ceiling, and anyone walking on deck could look in. Of course, we all averted our eyes over these windows.
In Papeete, one of the three rooms we were in had a latch on its normal bathroom door which was broken, and you couldn’t close the door from the inside. Most of the time it would be pretty shut, but often it would just kind of open on its own. They fixed it as soon as we brought it to their attention.
The winner, though, is our fancy three-star hotel here in Noumea. Not only does the sliding unlockable door have diagonal slats which provide auditory sharing, but there is a large picture window between the bathtub and the bed, with perforated venetian blinds. If the light is on in the bathroom and it isn’t in the bedroom, the person in the bathroom is essentially “on television” to the person in the bed, even if the blinds are closed.