Adjoining vs connecting rooms: the difference that costs families a good night
Hotels use these words loosely, and it catches families out. What you actually want is a door — an interior door between two rooms that you can open without going out into the hallway. Here’s how the words usually break down:
- Connecting rooms
- Two rooms with an interior door between them. This is the one you want — a parent can move between rooms without stepping into the corridor.
- Adjoining rooms
- Rooms next to each other. Often this means a shared wall and no door between them — but some hotels use “adjoining” to mean the same as connecting.
- Interconnecting rooms
- Common outside the US, and means the same as connecting: a door between the two.
Don’t trust the word — confirm the door
Because there’s no universal rule, the safest thing is not to rely on which word a hotel used. A room booked as “adjoining” might have a door, or might not. A room called “connecting” almost always does — but confirm it.
Ask for exactly this, in these words: “a connecting room, with a door between the two rooms.” Then get the answer in writing — on the reservation, or in a message from the hotel.
And remember that even a confirmed connecting room is only reliable when the hotel guarantees it at booking — which almost none do. See which chains actually guarantee it →