Even though I packed enough underwear to last us for the duration of our three week trip (I am not…read moregoing to be like my mom, washing underpants every night and hanging them up around the hotel room to dry -- that's a hard no), I did hope to do laundry at least once, but none of our accommodations had laundry facilities. Fortunately, there was a laundromat near our hotel in Brussels, less than a ten minute walk away, so I did a load of laundry on our last night in Brussels.
I had planned to do laundry in the early evening, but I scouted out the laundromat earlier in the day when I was out and about, checking the prices, method of payment, length of time to wash and dry, opening hours, etc, so that I would be prepared and not have any unpleasant surprises. My reconnaissance mission was actually very useful.
The laundromat was cash only (this was the only time I actually *needed* to use cash on our trip, so good thing I brought a minimal amount of cash on my trip), and the price for a load in the washer (which was 40 minutes) was "one token" which was €4.50 (quite steep, in my opinion). The minimum price to use the dryer was €1, but the dryers only took €0.5 coins (you could get change from the change machine -- I put in a €5 note and got €0.5 coins) and €0.5 was only 4 minutes. I ended up paying €4 (32 minutes) and because I only had a small load (mostly socks and underwear), my clothes were fairy dried, but had it been a regular load of laundry with pants and shirts and towels, I would have needed about an hour (which would have been €7.5).
Aside from the annoyance of the laundromat being cash only and fairly expensive, there was no bathroom, no wifi (which meant I couldn't do any work on my laptop to pass the time), and the radio was on a little too loudly (which made it difficult to read).
While I was waiting for my laundry, a creepy guy came in. He didn't have any laundry, and while one could argue that he may have been scouting out the place for prices and information, as I had done earlier, I could tell by his actions (for example, he was not reading any signs with information or looking at the machines, and he was really twitchy) that this was not the case. (I highly recommend everyone, especially woman, read The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker!) Thankfully he left without raping me. Aside from the creep, only one other person came in while I was there -- a woman with a load of laundry came in shortly before I left. (Hopefully she was safe in there.)
While I was able to wash my clothes without any problems, the lack of washroom and wifi, loud radio, cash only, high prices, and not feeling safe, warrant no more than two stars. Also, if you are in a wheelchair, you can just wallow in your own filth -- there is a small and unnecessary step at the entrance, making it inaccessible for wheelchair users.
[Yelp collections: Europe 2024; Brussels, Belgium; Beware of stairs!]
