12 Romantic Hotel Date Night Ideas (& Airbnb!)
11 Feb, 2024
Eva Mitchell
Tim & I are living our dream of travelling the world together. It can be difficult to keep the romance alive while travelling long-term. Many of the activities we do on the daily would be considered date night worthy in a more conventional setting however to us, they just feel like another crazy day on the road.
To keep the spark alive, we intentionally schedule in fun date nights to spend quality time together without distractions. We have had a lot of experience recently organising fun things to do in a hotel room or Airbnb that make for the best date nights.
So, buckle up and read on as we spill the beans on our top picks for romantic Airbnb and hotel date night ideas that can sprinkle some love on your travels with your partner!
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Creative Hotel Date Night Ideas
1. Paint by Numbers Date Night
If you are feeling like getting a little creative, a Paint by Numbers date night is so easy to set up in a hotel or Airbnb, as long as you have a desk or table in your room to rest the canvas on. When travelling the UK, we snagged ourselves a Paint-by-numbers set from a local craft shop for a £3 on clearance! Our set came with the canvas, numbered paints and paint brushes.
A painting date night is one of the best creative hotel date night ideas to do with your partner. Pop on your favourite spotify playlist, grab a drink and get painting!
I would recommend bringing along a table cover with you that you don’t mind getting paint on to avoid any mishaps in the hotel.
2. Portrait Painting Date Night
Another fun painting date night idea that requires a little more organisation is a portrait painting date night. You will need to purchase a small canvas each, paints and paintbrushes to get started. During this hotel date night, you will be painting a portrait of your partner. Set up your painting on a desk or table, stare your sweet heart in the eyes and get painting! It’s good to have a sense of humour for this one, as you might find your partners creative skills are not quite up to your expectations. It’s the thought that counts right?
1) Start with the face outline.
2) paint your partners key facial features eg. Eyes, nose and mouth.
3) Work from dark to light colours.
When you have each completed you portrait, take turns at showing them to each other.
Finish your date night off by explaining three things that you think are beautiful about your partner.
3. Sketching Date Night
A slightly easier and less messy option to painting is a sketching hotel date night. Bring along a sketching pad, a set of pencils, an eraser and a pencil sharpener.
A sketching date night is one of the best hotel date night ideas for couples wanting to explore their creative side in a relaxed environment. Make this a date night to remember by sketching a local attraction or something you saw when you were out and about today. That way, you can take your sketches home as a souvenir of your time in this beautiful location.
We found a sketching date night to be one of the most romantic things to do in Florence, Italy.
Want more ideas of what to sketch? Why not follow a video tutorial, check out these sketching ideas here:
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Themed/Games Hotel Date Night Ideas
4. Escape Room Mystery Game Date Night (Charity shop find!)
Let me tell you how we hit the jackpot with our Escape Room Charity Shop find! For a mere £3 we picked up a brand-new Escape Game from a charity shop in Manchester during our travels. Our escape room game happened to be Japanese themed and came with lots of props and decorations to add to the Japanese vibe.
Chances are, you may not have time to search high and low for a charity shop bargain like we did, however there are plenty of shops that sell at-home escape rooms that make for the perfect hotel date night for less than £10.
You could always order one from Amazon prior to your date night.
Show Escape Room Games on Amazon
5. Movie themed Date Night
When the new Barbie film came out, I knew we had to do a Barbie themed date night as soon as we could pay to download it from Amazon! We wore pink clothes, made pink food and drinks and snuggled up together on the couch to watch Barbie The Movie.
You could pick any movie you like for your movie date night, preferably something both you and your partner will enjoy. Then put together the rest to make it a memorable moment.
A selection of our pink food and drink! Dessert was easy but we had to think outside-of-the-box for our main. Pink pasta, pigs in blankets, and pink salmon on blinis.
- Wear clothes that suit the movie theme
Pick a colour, grab some feather boas from the dollar shop, thriller or scary movie? Dress as scary characters. - Gather some food and drinks that fit the movie theme
If the movie is set in Paris, purchase a French wine to share while enjoying a crusty baguette with delicious cheese and macaroons for dessert. - Set the scene
You may like to bring some props or decorations to set up around the hotel room in line with the movie theme. Think Japanese lanterns, fairy lights or… - Snuggle up together and hit play!
Have the most romantic hotel date night ever.
A movie themed date night is one of our favourite hotel date night ideas that can be a lot of fun. Bringing your movie theme to the hotel room adds that special fun and romantic touch to what would usually be a boring movie date night.
Not sure what movie to base your movie hotel date night on? Check out Rotten Tomatoes for plenty of movie suggestions with reviews included.
6. Board Game and Card Game Date Night
Tim and I are board and card game obsessed! You will find us in the midst of card game date nights everywhere from our hotel in the Isle of Skye to our glamping tent in the Sahara Desert. Unfortunately out vast selection of board games didn't fit in our luggage. However, we've managed to travel with a few card games. An ideal hotel date night to us, looks like a cheeky wine in one hand and a roll of the dice in the other. We are both super competitive when it comes to board games, luckily Tim isn’t a sore loser because "luck" seems to be in my favour the majority of the time!
Playing a board game is one of the easiest hotel date nights to set up and one of the most fun things to do in a hotel room with your partner.
As the size of some board games made it hard to include in our luggage. We found that we could play a couple of our favourite titles online while we travelled! Try Ticket To Ride, and Splendor from Steam.
Here are some of our favourite card and board games:
- Ticket to Ride
- Monopoly Deal
- Euchre
- Splendor
- Hoard
Foodie Hotel Date Night Ideas
7. MasterChef Challenge Date Night
Let your inner chef shine through with this fun hotel date night idea! This one will be best to do in an Airbnb or hotel that includes a kitchenette and oven.
Here’s our rules for our Masterchef Challenge date nights:
Budget: Each have a set budget to purchase your ingredients for the night, this can be as little or as much as you like, and will depend on the local food prices. When we did our Masterchef Challenge date night, we had a budget of £10 each which was just enough to make some great meals but little enough to make us really think about how we could stretch our money far enough while still creating flavour-packed food.
Timing: We set a time limit of 4 hrs, this included prep time, and time that anything was in the oven.
Scoring: You will need a scoring system, we scored each round out of 30 points. Ten points for creativity, Ten points for Presentation and Ten points for the Cook and Taste of the meal. To make it fair we secretly scored our own dish and our partners dish for consistency. We set up a camera in a seperate room that we would record the scoring and then after the cook we sat down and watched the scoring video. It was a lot of laughs!
Whose dessert do you think looks the tastiest - Tim's Toffee Sticky Date Pudding or my Choc Covered Marshmallow Dome?
Guess who won our Masterchef challenge?
...NO ONE!
After all the cooking and scoring we ended up with a tie. Despite the tie, we had an absolute ball on our Masterchef Challenge date night.
Follow our guide on how to book the perfect accommodation for your Airbnb or hotel date night below.
8. DIY High Tea Date Night
Recreate that fancy high tea experience in the comfort of your hotel room or Airbnb with a DIY high tea date night. Of all of our romantic hotel date night ideas, a DIY high tea is one of the easiest ones to put together.
All you need to do is head down to the local supermarket, bakery or food market to pick up some treats that would be perfect for your DIY high tea experience. Remember to include both sweet and savoury food options.
Here are a few ideas of small bites:
- Macaroons
- Meringues
- Scones with cream & jam
- Savoury scones
- Slices of baguette with a variety of toppings: cheese, cream cheese and salmon, store-brought dip
- Club sandwiches
- A slice of cake
If your hotel room has plates and bowls, you should be able to DIY a tiered stand for your food (see our engineered cake stand in the photo above).
Otherwise, consider purchasing a high tea stand from Amazon like this one here, before your hotel stay to take with you.
During your high tea hotel date night, you might like to purchase a selection of tea to taste. Most hotels will have a kettle and mugs, however if you want to be a little more fancy, feel free to bring along a teapot to brew your tea.
For hotel rooms that do not have boiling water facilities, you have two options. One, consider having a sparkling wine with your DIY high tea instead or if there is a nearby café or restaurant, order a tea to go that can be enjoyed in your hotel room with your DIY high tea.
Active Hotel Date Night Ideas
9. Dance Lesson Date Night
One of the best hotel date night ideas is a dance lesson date night. All you need is a stable internet connection, your phone or a smart tv and a little bit of space to dance.
A dance lesson date night is one of the most fun things to do in a hotel room with your partner. Your dance lesson doesn’t have to be ballroom dancing either! You will find basic dance tutorials for just about every style of dance on Youtube.
We went with a Bollywood dance lesson that had us in absolute fits of laughter as we attempted to pull off each Bollywood move. It’s fair to say, we probably won’t be breaking out these moves at any parties in the near future!
Here's a handful of dance styles to try:
- Hip hop
- Bollywood
- Line dancing
- Irish dancing
- Salsa
- Ballet
- Belly dancing
10. Couple’s Yoga Date Night
Feeling flexy? Why not give a couples yoga date night a go! Couples yoga is a whole lot of fun, regardless of your fitness level. Our couples yoga date night involved a lot of laughs and we surprised ourselves with our ability to hold some of the trickier yoga poses.
11. Cupcake or Cookie Decorating Date Night
This hotel date night idea is perfect for that Airbnb or apartment with an oven. However, if you don’t have an oven, there is no reason you can’t skip the baking step and purchase ready to decorate cupcakes or cookies from your local supermarket.
Fire up the oven and get to work baking some delicious sweet treats to decorate. Why not enjoy a cheeky beverage while they chill and then let your creative side run wild as you decorate.
What you will need:
- Oven
- Baking tray
- Cupcake cups
- Cupcake or cookie ingredients (grab a baking box and the extra items on the box)
- Icing and decorations
Relaxing Hotel Date Night Ideas
12. Bath/Spa Date night
A spa date night is one of the easiest and romantic hotel date night ideas as it requires minimum prep. Just make sure to book a hotel that has a bath or spa included! Pop by the local pharmacy, Lush, Body Shop or wellness shop to stock up on pampering items.
I would recommend grabbing a bath bomb, a face mask each, some massage oil so you can share massages, battery-operated candles or fairy lights to set the mood, a sweet treat and yummy drink to enjoy together.
Make sure to download a Spotify playlist with romantic songs you can listen to during your spa hotel date night. Indulging in a spa date with your partner is just one of many fun things to do in a hotel room as a romantic date night.
Set your hotel room up with all of your goodies and enjoy a romantic evening pampering each other.
So what are you waiting for? Go ahead and book in that perfect hotel or Airbnb for your next romantic hotel date night and make sure to give one of these fun things to do in a hotel room a go!
Share with us how your hotel date night went in the comments below!
Safe Travels 😊
About Us
Hello, Hola, Ciao! We are Tim & Eva, a couple of kiwis who have spent the last few years saving for and planning our epic year-long adventure around the world. Our goal is to inspire fellow wanderlust souls (just like you!) to Make Cents Of Travel by sharing our experiences and strategies we used to turn our dream of long-term travel into a reality.
