Orient Express Toilets: Private or Shared?
Find out if the Orient Express offers private en‑suite bathrooms, shared lavatories, or pull‑out toilets, and learn the etiquette, amenities, and booking tips.
Orient Express bathroom: Luxury train travel and the truth behind the myth
When people talk about the Orient Express bathroom, a symbol of early 20th-century rail luxury, often associated with the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express. Also known as European luxury rail travel, it represents a time when train journeys were about elegance, not just getting from point A to B. But here’s the thing—no one actually flies to India to see a bathroom. And yet, this single detail keeps popping up in searches, tangled with stories of gold taps and velvet curtains. Why? Because the Orient Express bathroom isn’t really about plumbing. It’s about the fantasy of travel at its most romantic, most exclusive, most unreachable.
That fantasy lives on in other places. Take the Pride of Africa, a 12-day luxury train journey across Africa, costing over $12,500 per person. Also known as the world’s most expensive train ride, it doesn’t just have a bathroom—it has private suites, gourmet meals served on fine china, and guides who know every hidden valley along the route. Then there’s the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, the modern revival of the original route, still running through the Alps and across Europe with polished wood, crystal glasses, and staff in vintage uniforms. Also known as the last great rail experience, it’s less about the bathroom and more about the entire ritual of slow, intentional travel.
Here’s the real contrast: while these trains cost more than a month’s rent for most people, India’s wild retreats offer something deeper. No gold-plated taps. No valets. But you’ll wake up to monkeys outside your tent, hear tigers rustle in the jungle at dusk, and sleep under stars no city light can touch. The luxury isn’t in the bathroom—it’s in the silence, the wildness, the feeling that you’re part of something older than any train line. The Orient Express bathroom is a relic. The Indian jungle is alive.
What you’ll find in these posts isn’t a guide to antique plumbing. It’s a collection of real travel truths—from how to stay safe in Mumbai, to why Nagpur is the actual heart of India, to what you really need to know before stepping into a temple. You’ll learn about the longest walking trail in India, the safest street food, the visa costs for US travelers, and why hiring a local guide isn’t optional on Himalayan treks. These aren’t curated fantasies. They’re the messy, brilliant, unpredictable details that make travel worth remembering. The Orient Express bathroom might be a postcard. But the Indian wild? That’s your next story.
