Pressure ⭐⭐ Temperature ⭐⭐⭐ Shower Head ⭐ Mechanism ⭐ This Belgian campsite has a rather confusing shower mechanism. When you enter a cubicle, there is a contactless card mechanism that asks you to present your “Camping Card”, however, this isn’t actually used at all as you just press “start” and the water comes on for 5 minutes. The actual shower itsself is just a simple spray nozzle sticking out from the wall, with no method of adjusting the angle of spray which does enroach on the area where you’re supposed to keep your towel. The water was nice and hot and got up to temperature very quickly, but there is no way to adjust the temperature. There is also no way to adjust the pressure, which is far too high. The water comes out almost atomised in a way that makes it quite unusable at times.

Pressure ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Temperature ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Shower Head ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Mechanism ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Environment ⭐⭐⭐ The showers here were some of the best showers I’ve come across, with a great range of available heat, a standard and simple mixer mechanism and brilliant pressure. The shower head could have been better but was perfectly acceptable, being a removable head with plenty of length on the hose to move it around. However, for this place I need to introduce an entirely new category that I haven’t had to consider before - the environment. There is no shower building, but a building with showers inside each of which has a door leading to the outside. This isn’t a problem on it’s own, but out of all the showers only a single lightbulb inside the building was working. The shower also drained directly onto the floor which wasn’t sloped enough to stop the water from eaching the area for storing your belongings.

Pressure ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Temperature ⭐⭐⭐ Shower Head ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Mechanism ⭐ In this German camping site, they use a rather complicated shower branded “water & more” - which is ironic as the shower can barely manage it’s core purpose of providing water. It’s activated with a capacitive touch ON/OFF button which turns the water on for a few minutes after which it shuts off and you need to turn it back on. Normally, you would occasionally press the button to reset the timer to ensure a continuous flow of water. For this, though, pressing the button whilst it was running would turn the water off so you had to wait each time for the water to stop, then press the button and start it again. To make matters worse, the capacitive button meant that trying to press the button with soapy hands didn’t work properly half the time. ...

Pressure ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Temperature ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Shower Head ⭐⭐ Mechanism ⭐⭐ The Mercure is a massive, imposing (and somewhat old) looking building with basic but well furnished rooms. The bathroom here was more traditional, less like some of the more modern hotels and more like the bathroom you would have at home. The shower was fine, being a dual bath-shower head type system with a surprisingly good pressure and no problems with temperature. The shower curtain was the glass type, however, the seal was broken leading to it being ineffective.

Pressure ⭐⭐⭐ Temperature ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Shower Head ⭐⭐ Mechanism ⭐⭐⭐ The Ibis in Nottingham City Centre is exactly what it says, it’s right in the centre of Nottingham. The shower and toilet were all contained in one large wipe cubicle that appeared to be designed to just be sprayed directly with a hose once a guest has left. The shower was a simple single head with okay pressure and good temperature, especially given that my shower took place at peak showering times it performed flawlessly.

Pressure ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Temperature ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Shower Head ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Mechanism ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Casa Henry is a villa in Nerja, Spain. It has two showers, but for this I will be focussing on the main shower. A dual head shower with a handheld mounted to the wall and rainfall shower coming from the ceiling. The entire shower booth was flush with the floor with only a piece of glass to separate you and the water from your belongings. The towel rack was also rather inconveniently placed directly opposite the shower leading to a soaked towel if you were to accidentally turn on the handheld. There is also no shelf for shampoo etc. ...

Pressure ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Temperature ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Shower Head ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Mechanism ⭐⭐⭐ Church Street Hotel is a beautifully decorated hotel in an unassuming part of Camberwell, London which for some reason brings up prescription drug spam when you Google it. Similar to Generator, the bathroom was tiled however unlike there the shower was closed off with a glass door and a basin, like you would expect. The day I was there was incredibly warm so my idea of good temperature might be skewed, but the pressure was absolutely fine and the shower was perfectly usable other than the mechanism being a little bit annoying. Honestly, probably the most forgettable shower and that’s probably a good thing.

Pressure ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Temperature ⭐⭐⭐ Shower Head ⭐⭐ Mechanism ⭐⭐⭐ Generator is a hotel for trendy-but-poor 20-somethings offering rooms with up to 12 other random strangers in from around £20/night. The regular clientele probably only comes back to the dorm to pass out after a long night of drinking in the ground-floor bar. Since my plans for the night were to watch YouTube on my laptop in my underwear I opted for the single room. ...

Pressure ⭐ Temperature ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Shower Head ⭐ Mechanism ⭐⭐ The Arriva Hotel is situated just 6 minutes from King’s Cross station which is about the only redeeming feature except for the price. Trip advisor reviews describe the hotel as “very basic”, “like a 60s B&B only worse” and “old and smelly”. But we don’t care about that, how was the shower? The shower cubicle was pretty badly stained and had clearly been installed quite some time ago. The shower its self was a fixed head and a single temperature/pressure knob. The head was not adjustable and rather annoyingly was pointed so that half of the water would spray out of the shower door if it was open, meaning you had to take your chances with the temperature instead of waiting for it to heat up. ...

Pressure ⭐⭐ Temperature ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Shower Head ⭐⭐ Mechanism ⭐⭐⭐⭐ “Yotel” is a rather cringily named indie hotel chain, situated here in the equally cringey district of Shoreditch in London. Yotel focuses on making incredibly tiny hotel rooms feel less cramped than they really are, which they succeed at doing. The shower in the room was a dual head, with one large fixed head above and a smaller detachable shower head below it. Either could be activated by turning the knob left or right. At first I stuck with the trusty detachable shower head, but this soon proved to be a mistake as the detachable head had all the pressure of a leisurely sunday drive. There was barely enough water coming out to wash with, so I switched to the overhead fixed head which was much, much better. The temperature was perfectly fine, although took a little bit of time to heat up. The shower mechanism was fairly self explanatory, with a knob for temperature and another one for pressure/head selection.