Hotel laundry service
Real laundry, next day, per item — and not what "laundry access" means.
No — pack as if you can't wash
This is the one that fools people. It is real laundry, but it is charged per garment, so nobody sends a week's clothes through it — which means it doesn't let you carry fewer. Answer "no" if this is all you'll have.
What it is
The bag in the wardrobe, the printed price list and the little form with a column for quantities. You fill it in, leave the bag out before the morning cutoff, and the clothes come back that evening or the next day, pressed and on hangers. It is genuinely good service. It is also the one option on this list that should not change what you pack, and that is worth spelling out, because the difference costs people either money or a heavier bag.
How it works, step by step
The mechanics are simple; the price list is the part to read.
- Find the laundry list before you fill the bag. It is in the wardrobe or the desk folder, and it prices every garment separately — that sheet is the whole decision.
- Note the cutoff time. It is usually somewhere between 08:00 and 10:00, and missing it by twenty minutes moves everything to the following day.
- Fill in the form item by item and count carefully. You are billed from what you write, and the returned bag is checked against it.
- Decide per garment, not per bag. Two shirts is a reasonable use of this service. Everything you own for a week is not.
- Check whether you want "laundry" or "dry cleaning" — they are separate price lists, and the second is roughly double.
- Check the bill against your form when it arrives, not at checkout.
This is the number that matters. Expect roughly €4–€8 to wash a shirt, €3–€5 for a t-shirt or a pair of socks or underwear, €6–€12 for trousers, and more in a luxury hotel. Doing one person's week of clothes routinely lands between €60 and €120 — often more than the room for a night. That is not a rip-off; it is what per-item handling and pressing genuinely costs. It is simply not a way to carry less.
- Express or same-day service, typically 50–100% on top
- Dry cleaning, priced on a separate and higher list
- Pressing only, which is cheaper and sometimes all you actually need
- Service charge and local tax, added at checkout rather than shown on the list
- It is priced per garment, so the cost scales with everything you own — which is precisely why it doesn't let you pack less
- There is a morning cutoff, so a Sunday-evening arrival often means Tuesday
- Many hotels don't run the service at weekends at all
- You cannot wash anything yourself: the machines are staff-only, and washing clothes in the room is discouraged in a lot of hotels
- Delicate and technical fabrics are handled by a commercial process you have no control over
- Nothing — but photograph the form and the bag before you leave it out
- A realistic idea of which two or three garments are worth it
- If this is your only option, a sink plug and a little detergent, so you can wash the small things yourself
- Need one shirt clean for tomorrow morning
- Are travelling on business and the cost isn't yours
- Have something that genuinely needs pressing
- Want the errand to be somebody else's job entirely
Turnaround is measured door to door — from handing the clothes over to wearing them again — not from the machine's timer.
Questions people ask about this
No. The question is asking whether you can realistically wash a load mid-trip and therefore carry fewer clothes — and at €4–€8 a shirt, nobody sends a week's wardrobe through a hotel service. Answer "no", pack for the days you're away, and treat the hotel service as a way to rescue one garment. If you'll also pass a launderette or have a machine in the room's building, that is a different answer.
Not in the building's machines, which are staff-only. What you can do is wash small items in the sink, which most hotels tolerate as long as you're sensible about where you hang them — a hanger on the shower rail rather than dripping over the carpet.
Because it is per-item handling: each garment is logged, washed to its own requirements, pressed, hung and returned to a specific room. It is a valet service that happens to involve a washing machine, and it is priced like one.
Laundry is washing in water; dry cleaning uses a solvent and is for suits, coats and things whose label shows a circle. They are separate lists and dry cleaning is usually about double. Sending a t-shirt for dry cleaning is a common and expensive mistake.
Only against a deadline. It typically adds 50–100% to get a same-day return instead of next-day. If your flight is tomorrow evening rather than tomorrow morning, the standard service is already fast enough.
The calculator asks whether you'll have laundry. Start with this answer filled in — honestly — and it will size the list for the number of days you're actually away.