Pronouncing “está el”

I know that “a” and “el” contracts to “al” to mean “to the”. Listening to some audio lessons it seems like any word ending in “a” and followed by el also contracts.

So for example the pronunciation of “¿Dónde está el baño?” becomes something more like “¿Dónde estál baño?”. Of course, I know it is not written this way, but is that a fair way to generalize the pronunciation one would hear in real life?