Why You Should Never Drink Out of Glasses in Hotel Rooms
Are the glasses in hotel rooms clean? Does housekeeping replace glasses after each guest? Do hotels wash glasses? If so, how are they washed?
Have you heard the latest travel news? It all revolves around the cleanliness of glasses found in hotel rooms. ABC News did an investigation that analyzed 15 different hotels across the country and 11 failed to take dirty glasses out of the room to clean and sanitize them before new guests arrived. I have to admit, I’m guilty of assuming the glasses sitting in the bathroom or next to the ice bucket are not only clean but have been sanitized.
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Never Drink Out of Glasses in Hotel Rooms
Below is a video showing how many hotel housekeepers clean the glasses:
Disclosure:Below you will find Amazon affiliate links.
I know a drinking from a glass cleaned with a blue liquid labeled “Do Not Drink,” then dried with a used washcloth, makes me cringe. So, I’m betting many of you feel the same. Yuck!
The truth is, there is no guarantee that your room glasses and mugs aren’t simply rinsed off under the tap by the cleaning staff — or even wiped down with the same sponge that’s used to clean other parts of the bathroom.
It’s difficult to assess how truly widespread a problem the not-really-cleaned” drinking glass phenomenon might be, as it can be a regular occurrence or an occasional exception. It can take place at large chain hotels or smaller locally-owned units.
It can also be a practice that housekeepers are instructed to follow by their supervisors or that they undertake on their own as a time-saving shortcut. The bottom line is when we check into our hotel room, we truly don’t know if the glasses are cleaned properly and sterilized.
So, one option is to never check In to a hotel without requesting clean glasses. Since there have been multiple sources that report that glasses in rooms often don’t get replaced or cleaned by housekeeping, just don’t use them!
If you are concerned about using possibly unclean and unsterilized drinking glasses here are some alternatives:
Use only plastic-wrapped, single-use drinking cups.
- Carry your own drinking cup (such as a collapsible cup) with you when you travel.
- Bring a glass from the hotel’s bar or restaurant up to your room (and tuck it away in a drawer when you leave your room for the day so housekeeping doesn’t remove it).
I now travel with the Silicone Collapsible Travel Cup because they are made with non-toxic silicone, they are BPA FREE, Eco-Friendly and they are collapsible and super lightweight. In between trips, I keep my travel cups in my suitcase, so I never forget them. You can find them on Amazon for only $8.99.
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What is your favorite travel tip? Please share in the comments below!
Yeah, it’s difficult to gauge which glasses have been cleaned and which haven’t. The same thing maybe happening in restaurants as well. We travel often and try to carry our own plastic glasses to be safe, or always clean the glasses again before use. But your collapsible cups look like a great idea!
Yuck! I have to admit I never drink out of hotel glasses, just because you never know. I always either bring home a to-go cup from a restaurant to use, bring my own (if we are driving), not use a cup at all or hope they have the plastic-wrapped disposable ones!
This is a great article for our current pandemic situation. Thank you for making this known.
Totally agree with this. Not bringing a to-go cup is sort of like a no-no these days. And not just for hotels. I would also be wary of drinking from a glass in a restaurant.