World Duty Free, Gatwick Airport

This was a good toilet hidden behind the shop. It was very clean and had a sweet strawberry scent. In the spacious cubicle there was a special shelf with extra toilet rolls although there was no hook for the bag. The highlight was the sink area. Decorated by bright sunflower art, many mirrors and the bespoke hand dryer hidden behind the mirror. Derek the architect says that this is not so easy to do. Hiding things behind mirrors so got to be bespoke. Wow.

Yumi enjoying the bespoke sinks.

I give this one an extra half star. I think the strawberry smell was very strong. Like sweets. Maybe too strong...

Everything else was on the ball though.

 - Debbie

Irish ferries, Irish Sea (somewhere between Dublin & Holyhead)

We were lucky enough to travel across the Irish Sea on Jonathan Swift last week (the ferry not the writer) and took the opportunity to sample the facilities at sea.

a. Jonathan Swift (ferry)

b. Jonathan Swift (Irish writer & satirist)

The toilets were well equipped and clean. The doors were very heavy which led to some embarrassment in front of other travellers as I struggled to escape the cubicle. I suspect that heavy doors may be a necessary feature aboard ferries though so I haven't based my score on this factor.

There were some very detailed instructions on how to wash your hands on the wall of the toilets, which we later found to be a common occurrence across Ireland (see exhibit c). One of the steps was to dry your hands with a paper towel and then use a fresh paper towel to turn off the tap. This seemed a bit paranoid to me and as there were no paper towels in the toilets I was unable to complete my hand-washing chore list. It doesn't appear to have done me any harm.

One last feature to mention were the air sickness bags next to the sink. Do people get airsick on ferries?

c. OCD?