Best and Worst Toilets of 2008

2008 proved to be a landmark year for Where’s the Toilet?

We managed to review more than 150 bathrooms around the world, including some in some faraway and exotic locations as Russia, Singapore, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Australia and more, and also visited toilets in some famous settings, like the Grand Canyon, the Hermitage Museum, Universal Studios Orlando and Grand Central Station, to name a few. Sadly, despite many requests, we were unable to review the toilet in the Minneapolis airport where Sen. Larry Craig was charged with “disorderly conduct.” Maybe next year...

Now that the year is over, we’ve chosen to post our second annual Best and Worst Toilets of the Year list.

So without further delay....

The Top 5

1. Mansion at Forsyth Park (Savannah, GA)

Easily the best of the year -- nothing else came close, and this was the best restroom we visited since our stop at the Wynn Las Vegas bathrooms (which topped our Best Toilets of 2007 list). As we said in our review of the Mansion, this is "a regal, marble-filled environment filled with amazing architectural frills, top-notch cleanliness and peaceful feelings."

2. Barrier Island Sanctuary Management & Education Center (Melbourne Beach, FL)

The best environmentally conscious (or "green") bathroom we visited this year, with a relaxing beach theme woven into the experience. "This bathroom has a lot of ambition and wants to be both stylish and environmentally friendly, and it pulls it off," we said in our review, "putting other high-profile locations to shame, really."

3. Pan Pacific Hotel (Singapore)

Quality is the name of the game at this luxurious stopping point, which features such high-end flourishes as walnut and veneer toilet stall doors and granite walls. "I could spend plenty of time in this place any time," we said in our review. "I look forward to my next visit."

4. Paris Las Vegas Hotel and Casino (Las Vegas, NV)

We visited plenty of Las Vegas bathrooms this year, and while none matched the jaw-dropping wonder of the Wynn Las Vegas bathrooms, this one, with its art nouveau decor and European feel, came closest.

5. Islands of Adventure at Universal Orlando (Lost Continent Toilets) (Orlando, FL)

The best theme park bathroom we experienced this year. Clean, quiet and practically kid-free -- the fact that it's somewhat tucked away from the park's major attractions certainly helps the quality factor, we thought.

Honorable Mentions:

Pearl Restaurant (Vero Beach, FL) -- A small one-bagger located in a homey restaurant on Florida's Atlantic coast. It takes the elegance of Vegas and brings it down to the everyday level, but doesn't lose the "wow" factor in doing so.

Bicester Outlet Shopping Village (Bicester, UK) -- The best UK bathroom we visited this year. Wood walls, Gilchrist and Soames hand soap, floor-to-ceiling toilet stall doors -- why couldn't the rest of the UK toilets we experienced have been this comfortable?

The Bottom 5

1. Southwest Indian Traders (Cortez, CO)

Not so much a bathroom but a collection of shoddy parts that have been put together without any care. The walls do nothing to protect you from the wind outside (and yes, the wind will catch you where the sun doesn't shine). The visible roof rafters above house dozens of cobwebs. And not all the plumbing works. As we said in our review, "Put an outhouse in the parking lot instead -- it would actually offer more comfort."

2. Kappy’s Submarine Sandwiches (Maitland, FL)

More the setting of a horror movie than a proper bathroom, this place features lights that grow dimmer the longer you stay and a used ketchup bottle containing watery, ineffective hand soap. "This is the stuff of nightmares," we said in our review.

3. Oxford Railway Station (Oxford, England)

The worst English toilet we experienced this year -- and there were some doozies! While it seems clean on the surface, the smell inside was overpowering and nearly every toilet was filled with excrement. Worse still, an attendant stood by the whole time, doing nothing. "Just a disgusting experience," we said in our review. "I wanted to shower after leaving."

4. CVS Pharmacy, HWY 80 (Savannah, GA)

The worst-smelling bathroom we visited all year -- with a smell so foul that you start smelling it from down the hall. A popular store like this should know better.

5. Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House (Savannah, GA)

Part of Paula Deen's restaurant empire and where the Southern food queen films her Paula's Party show. The place specializes in seafood you eat with your hands, like peel-and-eat shrimp and oysters, but the bathroom doesn't have soap to clean your hands with, or towels -- just Purell and a hand drier that doesn't work. As you can imagine, the fish odor here is pretty extreme.

Honorable Mentions:

Homebase (Oxford, England) -- A home repair store where almost everything in the bathroom is out of order and covered in filth. Word to the wise: Don't touch anything!

Waffle House (Walterboro, SC) -- A notch below the typical Waffle House bathroom, with plenty of grime-covered utilities and a not-so-heavenly aroma of trash and mildew in the air.

War Zone Haven

Bandaranaike International Airport,
Katunayake,
Sri Lanka.


Where is it?

From the central information point the terminal is shaped like a T. Take the leg of the T and the second toilet on your left is where we are.


What’s it like?

You know when I booked my flight and there was a stop off in Colombo I thought nothing of it. It’s just one of those places you pay little thought to when you’re making your way to wherever it is you are going and having to make a transfer. I’ve only regretted this lack of thought once before, a flight where I took Aeroflot to Nairobi and found myself unannounced in Northern Cyprus and the Yemen. This was a surprise, especially as both were far from stable at the time.

I guess this time I didn’t really have the excuse of not knowing where I was going, but the fact that Sri Lanka is once again in the middle of civil war only came to mind as the plane was landing. Passing the military section of the airport, alongside two gleaming and combat ready jets I saw the scraped out hulks of two aircraft complete with bullet holes. That’s all it took to jog my memory. Still, we do a fair bit of business here and its clear that the Tamil factions only come this far south every once in a while and are no more dangerous than the IRA were in London back in the day. And hey we upped the insurance before I left.

So I guess I was surprised when I got into the terminal building. I really wasn’t expecting it to be so bright. The whole building was absolutely gleaming. A spotless, granite floor stretched in to the distance down the hall. This was a temple for the aeroplane. Whilst not huge – I certainly noticed the arrival of 180 Japanese tourists joining the same flight I was – it inspired confidence. And the staff were some of the friendliest I’ve come across.

And that brings me to the toilets. When I walked in there were two cleaners with a flooded floor. It seems that’s the way the clean toilets here. Flood the floor and sweep the water into the drain at the end. I decided to go to the next toilet along but these cleaners were having nothing of it and insisted that I should wait and they’d get out the way. Frantic activity followed and they cleared the floor, and placed toilet paper on the seat and ushered me in to the cubical. This is extraordinary I thought slightly amused.

The toilets themselves were spic and span and quite stylish in keeping with the rest of the airport. A shelf that gave plenty of room for bags and coats was availiable. The door was had an elegant slider and as is the norm in asia there was a sprayer that was almost blinding. They were obviously clean as could be, but once the toilet paper was removed you could the see the seat had seem some serious wear and tear. That made me glad that I’d had the service from the cleaners.

So knowing what was likely to come next I went about searching for some cash. No US dollars to be found I hoped some Astralian dollars would have to do. And give these guys credit where it was due they were over the moon. Good on them.

Marks out of 10:

8. Worth tipping for.


Comments to the management:

Unexpectedly good. Just get the toilet seat changed.