Occasionally, one finds oneself in dire straits.
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Someone was left feeling dissatisfied with their meal and took a bite
out of this sink instead..?
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Like, it’s about 0930 in the morning, you are in town waiting for the library to open at 1000, and you suddenly find that your little lovely Bolle has done a massive, and I mean «through all her clothing and into the pushchair seat», poo.
This cannot wait for 30 min and has to be dealt with immediately.
So you look around and notice the local branch of McDonald’s, conveniently located opposite the library. It has just opened, at 0930 in the morning. You enter.
I’m not saying this was the actual situation when these facilities were reviewed.
In actual fact I entered said McDonalds restaurant and purveyor of fine foods because I wanted some fries.
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| Yes, I’d like a large security strap to go with that. |
But never mind that. There might, one day, be a crisis situation like the one above. You could be left with little choice but to use these horrid facilities. Because they were indeed horrid.
I remember a time when McDonald’s was seen as a supplier of reliably non-horrible and free toilets for backpackers, in locations such as Paris where toilets still might be found to be a hole in the ground (FACT! Or at least it was a decade ago, sorry French people).
I can only say that either their standards have slipped considerably since then, or mine have skyrocketed.
I suspect it’s the latter. I no longer holiday in locations where sharing a shower with 10 other people, which doesn’t really matter as there is no hot water anyway, is the norm.
Anyhoo, as you can probably suss out by now, and guess from the photos, this was pretty as far as changing facilities go.
It is sort of like the toilet in Trainspotting, except for babies.
Note from the photos that this was not at all late at night, and they had barely been open for a few hours. Still, I noticed the following points in addition to the sorry state of the actual facilities:
- Wet patches of mystery fluid on the floor
- Overflowing paper basket
- Lovely smears of fecal matter near the toilet
I told staff about the latter point, and the staff member sighed and yelled at a junior member of staff (there is a hierarchy at McDs, you know) to go clean it, at the same time as apologising to me and saying it’s difficult to avoid this type of mess.
As the mess in the toilet actually was way worse than my daughter’s diapers, she was hurriedly taken to the library to have her diaper changed there instead.
After I ate my fries, obviously.
VERDICT:
Let’s not even go there. Literally speaking.
Changing facilities: I don’t know if you could call it that.
Breast feeding facilities: None, and nor would you want to.
Parent peeing facilities: Smeared with brown stuff, but as this is a handicap toilet (poor disabled people!!) there is actually a loo.
Best feature: The library is nearby, and they have nice baby changing facilities!
Worst feature: The fact that there is a code lock on the door which for some reason they are not using, despite complaining about fecal matter smears being a recurrent issue. Hello?!
Would I use again? Please, no. Make it go awaaaaay!
Bolle says: «Why didn’t I get any fries?!»
Bolle wears: Still-wet diaper.