Getting in a Lather About Hotel Soap Dispensers

We stayed in a pleasant Seattle area Hilton Garden Inn Thanksgiving night after a family dinner. We noticed that the hotel had posted a sign in the corridor proclaiming that rooms were cleaned every other day. That's okay with us, as we generally don't create a big mess in our lodgings. 

Was it done in the name of environmental consciousness ("We only use half as many supplies as before to clean your room") or as a cost saver for the hotel that would be passed along to the customers? We didn't stop to read the fine print, but realized we had been enhanced again.

Frequent travelers of our acquaintance are wryly amused when encountering the words "enhanced" and "enhancement" in the announcements of airlines and hotel chains. The travel industry has long utilized them to announce changes in their programs. The punch line is that, more often than not, the changes aren't in the best interests of consumers, despite the claims.

Let's talk about the recent enhancements to soap and shampoo, the amenities that virtually all hotels now provide. Have you heard of Ellsworth Statler, the founder of the chain of Statler Hotels? We hadn't either. Statler not only was one of the first American hoteliers to introduce private en suite bathrooms to hotel rooms, but he supplied individual bars of soap to guests starting around 1910. 

Believe it or not, it was as recently as 1970 that the Four Seasons London Hotel at Park Lane supposedly became the first hotel to offer shampoo, albeit packaged in those little plastic packets that are so annoying to rip open.  

Years after those innovations, hotel guests are now stuck with dispensers affixed to the wall of the shower. How did that happen? Lawmakers in a number of jurisdictions, including California, having solved all of the major problems they faced, found time to pass laws outlawing the distribution of "single-use" toiletries, legislation encouraged and welcomed by the hotel industry.

Along with the references to "sustainability" and "reduction of plastic waste", soap-dispenser manufacturers have advised hotel owners that they can start to see a return on their investment (ROI periods) in dispensers in as little as six months. Getting accolades for improving the environment while increasing profitability: what's not to like about that?

Well, for the record, we do dislike the liquid soap that one finds in the dispensers. Liquid soap contains much less soap and more additives, which may include stabilizers, thickeners, and preservatives. We find it watery and greasy - it's often labeled "shower gel" -  and have begun to carry our own soap, which adds a little bulk and the potential of some messiness in our rollaboards.  

There are other concerns. Although sealed container systems are available at a greater cost, in our experience most hotels use refillable bottles. It's a common practice to "top up" dispensers, rather than emptying them and cleaning them before putting them back in use. We've noticed moldy smells in the vicinity of the bottles more than once. 

Popular travel blogger Gary Leff of View From the Wing is a self-admitted germophobe who has been railing against dispensers for years. Most recently, he learned from a reader of a Hyatt property in Arizona with bulk toiletries on a housekeeping cart in condiment containers.

Take it from a manufacturer of sealed soap refill systems: Refillable soap dispensers are very labor-intensive to maintain properly, and that includes monthly sanitizing, which seems to us like minimal maintenance. One in four dispensers is contaminated with bacteria, leaving hands with up to 25 times more germs after washing than before. You can read about this in greater detail in a summary of a National Institute of Health study.

We learned of one final irony in regard to protecting the environment. The manufacturing and distributing of liquid soap carry a larger carbon footprint than that of bar soap because of its heavy water content. Analyses suggest that liquid soap can have about a 25% higher carbon footprint than bar soap on a per-wash basis.  

As for us, we'll continue to carry a bar of soap with us on our travels. Maybe we'll add a mini-bottle of shampoo or two to make it a clean break from those hotel dispensers. 

No TSA Real ID? You Can Soon Pay a Fee and Make Your Flight

THOUGH the mills of God grind slowly,

Yet they grind exceeding small;

Though with patience he stands waiting,

With exactness grinds he all.

    Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

Congress enacted the REAL ID Act in 2005, in response to the 2001 9/11 attacks. It was finally implemented May 7, 2025, after numerous delays. 

In November 2025, one of our relatives thought she had lost her passport a few days before a planned domestic flight. She made the mistake of canceling it immediately. A short while later her husband found the passport, but the damage was done. 

She discovered she could not cancel her cancellation, She had not upgraded her state driver's license to meet Real ID requirements, and that's impossible to do on short notice. She managed to apply immediately for a new passport. However, as part of that application procedure, the expired (or cancelled) passport must be surrendered, so she lost that form of ID (the TSA will accept recently expired ID, but we could find no definitive statement about cancelled ID). What to do? 

With some research help from us, she discovered it wasn't that big a deal. We learned she would be well advised to arrive at the checkpoint early, to carry whatever photo ID she had, and to be prepared to spend some extra time. Along with her driver's license, she had government-employee photo ID, which might help and definitely wouldn't hurt.

After all of the stress and concern she experienced in the days leading up to the flight, the anti-climactic reality was that the TSA employees checked her ID, swabbed her hands, and quickly cleared her. The return trip proved even simpler, with no hand-swabbing.

The TSA has now decided to monetize such situations by charging a rather hefty $45 fee to process travelers lacking REAL ID as of February 1. The original fee proposed was $18, so we might consider the new fee both punitive and profitable.

On the other hand, knowing well in advance she'd be cleared to fly would have alleviated her worries, making such a fee a cost-effective, if pricey, investment in peace of mind. 

Years ago there was talk of chip implants to facilitate ID - they do work for dogs and other pets. It turns out facial recognition technology seems to have eliminated any such need. As we proceed through the US Immigration Global Entry line upon returning from abroad, we no longer have to physically present our passports to the kiosk machines, but only our faces for a photo. The immigration officers match our photos to our faces and so far have let us through without any delay.

It greatly simplifies the process, while being a somewhat eerie and, yes, unsettling experience. Longfellow's "mills of God" - or government - may grind slowly, but we're no doubt dinosaurs for worrying about being ground up in the process. 

 

Just Another Travel Adventure: Lufthansa Destroys Our Rollaboard and Threatens to Have Us Arrested

​Why were we checking our rollaboards? How did we end up, thanks to Lufthansa Airlines, with a case of misshapen identity, to coin a phrase?

We're well known (some might say "notorious") among family and friends for wanting to limit our luggage to carry-on bags, what some airlines call cabin baggage. Our main reasons are to avoid damage to the bags and their contents, and to avoid spending long periods of time waiting at the airport arrival carousels for the bags to be delivered. We were reminded of that more than once as we traveled home.

We disembarked from Marina in Barcelona, and spent a couple of days in Barcelona mainly resting. We stayed in a fair-to-middling Indigo Hotel, an IHG property, that was a relatively short walk away from a large shopping mall and a variety of restaurants. 

We said our goodbyes to Tom and Ellyn in the Barcelona Airport, as they headed toward southwest Colorado via Amsterdam and Istanbul on Turkish Airlines business class, while our immediate destination was Frankfurt via Lufthansa and an overnight stay in the FRA Airport Hilton before flying home, non-stop to Seattle on Condor,  and then to Bellingham on Alaska.

At this point we were tired  (youngsters like Tom and Ellyn can wear out us geezers) and still fighting colds accompanied by bad coughs. We thought of the chances of remote gates at either or both airports, and the thought of lugging our bags, two for each of us, on the steep stairs between the plane and the tarmac was unappealing. For a short flight on one of the world's leading airlines, what could go wrong if we checked our bags? What indeed?

We landed in Frankfurt and we did have to walk down the stairs and board a bus to take us to the terminal. 

We made our way to the baggage carousel, and waited. Then we waited some more. Then a sign was illuminated saying our luggage was delayed and asking for our patience. 

Eventually the bags arrived. As we pulled up our handles, we noticed that Kathy's was completely mangled with a part missing. What to do?

Years ago, we experienced a similar problem at London Heathrow and British Airways gave us a rather inferior replacement on the spot. When we arrived at the Lufthansa office that handled such matters, we learned their intent was the same.

The Lufthansa employees offered us a Hobson's choice. We could have the bag repaired by a qualified repairman. However, they don't work on Sunday and today happened to be a Sunday. Otherwise, we could choose a replacement bag on the spot. The suitcases themselves were the Travelite brand and quite decent. The problem with that was the carry-on they were offering was the puny European size that wouldn't have held what Kathy's carry-on contained. Other than that, there was a medium suitcase and a large suitcase.

We told them we would really just prefer to get some sort of reimbursement in Euros. We buy cheap bags at places like Costco, and usually pay well under a hundred dollars for a rollaboard. You might say we're not high rollers. Accordingly, we would have been happy with a forty-Euro settlement but were told that wasn't possible.

We checked Lufthansa's own terms after we returned home, and our reading of that and EU regulations indicates we had a right to cash compensation, but that isn't what the Lufthansa employees told us. 

Shame on them, we think. In the meantime, the conversation took an unpleasant turn, all because of the photo below that Brian snapped of Lufthansa's replacement luggage inventory.

The heretofore civil employee suddenly went ballistic and accused Brian of taking a photo of him. That was illegal and he was going to call the police. Brian, who was trying to conceal his amusement at the employee's almost hysterical outburst, told him to feel free to call the police. At the same time, a female employee approached us and said ominously, "The laws are different in Germany." We did read later that there are significant restrictions in Germany, even in public places, on taking photos of individuals without their permission. 

The thing is that Brian only took a photo of the luggage, not of any people.  Technically, he apparently should have asked permission to take any photos while on Lufthansa property, but it was a tempest in a teapot. 

The employee demanded to see the photo, and the photo before it. Once he saw that the two photos on Brian's phone were of our own damaged rollaboard and of Lufthansa's stack of replacement bags, the great climb-down took place. 

We took a midsize suitcase with no paperwork or receipt. 

They seemed strangely happy to be rid of us, and we were happy the Polizei didn't appear on the scene to interrogate us.

We checked in at the Hilton where we'd again been upgraded to a large suite. One last taste of luxury!

A walk-in closet and a bathtub!

We eventually packed the broken rollaboard inside the new suitcase as we had no practical place to leave it. 

We savored our final European meal of the trip at the Paulaner Restaurant on the other side of the FRA Squaire from the Hilton. Zwiebelschnitzel for Brian and Goulaschsuppe for Kathy.

The next morning we checked it in and flew a non-too-comfortable flight in Condor's Premium Economy section non-stop from FRA to SEA. We had a lot of legroom, sitting adjacent to the A330's exit door, but the seats themselves were cramped and unyielding. 

The good-sized German Shepherd (naturally) that sat many rows behind us was undoubtedly even more crowded.

Wouldn't you know it? Our checked luggage was delayed after we landed in Seattle. Yes, we waited 45 minutes at the carousel for our new suitcase to appear. We kept ourselves awake with Cappuccinos in the Alaska Lounge until our flight departed several hours later. 

We are blessed with great neighbors on both sides of us, and one of them was waiting for us when we landed at Bellingham International Airport after our short flight.

This time, given the size of BLI, it wasn't a long wait at the baggage carousel, and before long we were riding up I-5 in Bob's snazzy jeep, looking forward to home.

Now where to store our shiny new suitcase? We'll figure that out another day.

Why Oceania Remains Our Cruise Line of Choice

 As the centerpiece of our recent trip to Europe with Kathy's brother and sister-in-law, we all boarded the Oceania Cruises 1250-passenger Marina for our 29th Oceania cruise, sailing from Athens to Barcelona on an 11-day voyage. It's oddly comforting to arrive in our stateroom and feel like we're back home.

Why Oceania (pronounced in four syllables without the "i")? That's a somewhat long story, going all the way back to 2007 for us.

We two had cruised on a variety of lines, starting with a Holland American Mediterranean cruise in October 2001, a strange and occasionally eerie experience just after our retirement and of course September 11. 

There were bargains to be had. Along with the aforementioned HAL, we sailed  one or more cruises on Princess, Celebrity, Carnival, Royal Caribbean, and even on Cunard's magnificent ocean liner, the Queen Mary II. Earlier this year we sailed on Seabourne, another premium line.

What caused us to become "cruised out," as Brian put it? There were many reasons. First, we couldn't help but notice that cruise ships seem designed as money-making machines with the objective of extracting the maximum amount of money possible from each passenger, with the lure of luxurious lodging and all-inclusive food. 

There were ship's photographers taking photos every time you board or disembark. There were art auctions. There were casinos with regular slot and blackjack tournaments. There was Bingo twice daily, announced loudly throughout the ship.There were the shops, looking like strip malls on the largest ships.

There were climbing walls and water slides and bumper cars on some vessels.

There were expensive excursions ashore and spas offering a variety of "treatments" aboard. Most ships offer a "Drink of the Day" and various kinds of expensive "prestige" and "elite" wine and liquor packages. What have we left out? 

Oh, and the ports of call. Many if not most of them are likewise designed to separate cruisers from their money and offer little or no authentic flavor of their region or country. The Caribbean and Latin American ports are among the least attractive destinations, in our blunt opinion. If you want to explore a place, come back when the cruise ships aren’t docked there.

Most if not all cruise ships feature specialty restaurants, where you can partake of presumably superior cuisine in extra-upscale surroundings for an additional fee. Over the next few years, we noticed a general decline in the quality of the cuisine. We were booking specialty restaurants as a defensive strategy in the hopes of getting a decent meal! 

We once spotted a seafood soup on a Holland America ship made with "sea legs," or artificial crab. We encountered packets of margarine on a Celebrity cruise. Don’t get us started on artificial whipped cream. The horror! If our raised eyebrows at such minor travesties exposes us as food snobs, we'll cheerfully plead guilty. 

The thrill of dressing up for dinner (Brian even packed his old tuxedo on a few early cruises) and making charming conversation with the same dinner companions every night at set times eventually paled. Some were great and others were characters. No doubt some felt the same about us! Then we discovered Oceania.

Two cruise industry veterans acquired a couple of 684-passenger ships from the defunct Renaissance Cruises, a well-reputed line that did not survive September 11. What a gutsy time to start up a new cruise line! They developed a distinctive brand with free-style dining, and their trademarked claim of "The Finest Cuisine at Sea." With rare exception, they consistently deliver on that. 

The small ships offer two specialty restaurants, one Italian and the other a steakhouse, and the larger ships offer four. Passengers are entitled to dine once at each specialty restaurant, and "extra" reservations are often available, although not guaranteed. All steaks on Oceania are USDA Prime Grade and the food in general is up to the same high standard.

Here’s one of our visits to Red Ginger, the pan-Asian restaurant on Marina. The Versace charger plates lend an elegant touch.

We even left room for dessert.

We embarked on our first Oceania cruise in November 2007, a 12-day transatlantic cruise on the 684-passenger Regatta from Barcelona to Miami. Despite (or maybe because of) the adventure of sailing through a North Atlantic hurricane for 30 hours, we were hooked. 

There’s no question that meals like this one in Toscana, the Italian specialty restaurant, are a major attraction.

How about some thinly sliced Beef Carpaccio as a starter? Calamari?

The Trio Toscana is a particular favorite when you’re hard-pressed to choose just one pasta or risotto.

Our first few cruises were bargains, and as they added additional ships to their modest fleet, we sailed on most of them. Oceania enjoys an almost cult following. 

The current status levels of the Oceania Club loyalty program including Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, and President's Circle, based on the length and number of cruises taken. 

We're sitting in the middle of the Platinum tier, which gives us shipboard credit, currently $750 per cruise, dinner with one of the ship's officers (we really enjoyed our dinner with the Food and Beverage Manager and the HR Manager) and a few other perks. 

It's been intriguing to watch the company having to add new tiers to recognize people buying up to one hundred cruises. It's also been more and more challenging to find cruises we consider affordable.

Here are some scenes from a dinner in Polo, the steakhouse.

Have we mentioned the various breadbaskets are truly outstanding? The Baguettes and Grissini are especially amazing.

This presentation of Pork Belly is impressive and very tasty.

Oddly enough, even though we've spent the equivalent of one year at sea since our 2001 retirement, we don't consider ourselves to be serious cruisers. That's because we've met some truly serious cruisers. As we more and more enjoy the comforts of home, there may well be more cruising in our future. The photos below offer some more reasons why.

We enjoy dining in Jacques, the French specialty restaurant named in honor of Jacques Pépin, the venerable celebrity chef and Oceania’s executive culinary director.

A Vichyssoise based on peas is one of Brian’s favorites, not to mention Scallops.

Escargot and one variation of Foie Gras, complemented by pineapple.

Medium rare Prime Rib and Dover Sole deboned and served tableside.

A little Crêpes Suzette for dessert.

And an old fashioned Apple tart.

As to the non-food aspects, the weather was generally excellent, the seas were calm, and we encountered some spectacular scenery along the way.

Despite all of us battling colds and coughs for upwards of half the cruise, we greatly enjoyed ourselves.

What’s not to like?