Your profile says you live in the Czech Republic? Is that what determines your experience of what "most people do at home"? My experience is that people in the US mostly use the sheet system at home, so the hotel is just giving them what they're used to (since most guests are domestic visitors). I think Americans visiting Europe tend to think the "blanket cover, no sheets" system is weird. Just a cultural difference.

Related: travel.stackexchange.com/questions/52224/…

I too live in the US and find it bizarre. Ive never met anyone personally who uses this system at home. My guess is that it's faster for the housekeepers to change two sheets than try to wrestle a blanket cover or comforter cover on/off daily per room.

It took me a while to figure out what you mean by blanket cover — I guess like a duvet cover, but for a blanket instead of a duvet? The top sheet is usually tucked under the mattress, whereas the blankets or comforters are not, and perhaps because I grew up with that system, tangling has never been an issue for me. It's nice to feel tucked in but not weighed down. Besides, wouldn't you encounter the same problem when you have multiple blankets, or does every blanket have its own cover? Or do Europeans just use fewer layers, given the climate in most places has relatively fewer extremes?

What is a "blanket cover"? Why do Europeans use them?

I live in Canada. At home we used a duvet (with a duvet cover) and two sheets. The sheets are easier to wash; the duvet cover only needs to be washed occasionally as a result of the second sheet.

@JimMackenzie but don't you have to constantly readjust the two sheets while sleeping? To me washing the duvet cover is no different from washing a sheet.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but - two sheets between the blanket and your body? The usual American system, as in the question I linked above, has two sheets between the bed and the blanket, but you're meant to sleep between the two, so that there is only one sheet between your body and the blanket. This is what I find most Americans doing at home, and likewise in most American hotels. Is there really an extra sheet at your hotel, or are you perhaps doing it wrong?

@JonathanReez As Nate said, we sleep between the sheets. The bottom one is fitted to the mattress (usually); the top one is a flat sheet. The bottom is left alone; the top one is lifted and one gets underneath it. Unless the bottom fitted sheet becomes detached from the mattress corners, no adjustments should be needed.

@NateEldredge There's the main sheet over the bed, then a second sheet, then the blanket, then another sheet. By default the blanket is tucked under the bed, but I like to untuck it.

I see. The sheet on top of the blanket is less common. It's probably so that you have a clean surface if you wish to sit or lie on top of the blanket. If it's in the way, you could remove it, since it isn't relevant when you are in bed under the blanket.

What gets me is not so much the sheet and the blanket coming out of alignment (though that is annoying too), but that hotels invariably seem to tuck all layers of the sandwich tight under the mattress, such that when you pull the blanket and top sheet out (such that there's actually space for you underneath), the bottom sheet comes completely loose too.

This pretty much guarantees that you'll need daily housekeeping for the bed not to look like a bomb crater -- I don't know if they use special tools for wrapping the bed unsleepably tight each day? -- whereas it would take only a few seconds for a guest to lay a covered duvet out nicely on the bed himself because the actual sheet is then still tucked in.

In my experience, cheap hotels use blankets and sheets. Better hotels use duvets and covers. It might also be a regional thing. Or related to the “style” of the hotel (so many hotels with pseudo-old-European decor, urk).

@AzorAhai this is a decent explanation of the difference in bedding styles: craneandcanopy.com/pages/101-duvet-vs-comforter

What I find really annoying about that it that the sheet (the one for the blanket) is usually tucked under the matress, and if you pull it out from there, you also partly pull out the other sheet (the one you're sleeping on), so if you're unlucky in the course of the night it will start getting off the mattress -- any solution for that?

How is washing duvet cover no different from washing a sheet? How many duvet cover can you fit in your washing machine? Proper is a bit pretensions.

To contribute to the cultural spectrum, I grew up in Argentina and the first time I ever saw the duvet thing was at hotels in Europe. And I kept looking at the bed asking myself "where are the sheets?"

@paparazzo a duvet cover is equivalent to two sheets in thickness. I can wash at least 10 at a time in mine.

@JonathanReez 2x is 2x. I can not wash even 10 single sheets in my washer.

What a strange question! These things vary dramatically around the world.

I know exactly what you mean, JonathanReez, and I don't understand how everyone just calls it a cultural difference. It's just lazy and unhygienic. Separate mattresses and blankets or different pillow shapes a cultural differences and a matter of taste. This is just nasty. I'm from Germany and I'm currently living in the US. I hate staying at hotels or airbnbs in the U.S. because only a thin sheet separates your body from a dirty never washed comforter/blanket or whatever you wanna call it. I always try to move as little as possible to not touch the comforter with my arm on top or accidentally

@Irina: Wouldn't it be equally accurate under the other system to say "only a thin duvet cover separates your body from a dirty/never-washed duvet"? Or does the duvet itself get washed as frequently as its cover?

@BenVoigt with a duvet cover there's no chance you would touch the blanket as it's sealed off with a zip lock at the end of the cover. With the two sheets system you have to be very careful to make sure the sheets don't slip while you're asleep.

Do you have an updated link for your example? Your link is broken.

@Ferrybig done.

@shoover where were these hotels? I’ve stayed in 30+ over the past 5 years and only one hotel had a duvet cover. This is not a historical question.

I mean I've never seen the blanket sandwiched between two sheets like you describe. I've seen mattress, mattress pad/cover, fitted sheet, flat sheet, blanket, bedspread as described in the link Nate Eldredge left. Also where: California, Nevada, Texas, Illinois, Ohio, Virginia, New Hampshire, Maine...