Worst hotel you've ever stayed in

In My Humble Opinion
61

I thought I was a pretty savvy traveler in India when I finally learned to ask ahead of time what ammenities I could expect in a hotel-- my main concerns being hot water and CNN. Feeling pretty pleased with myself, I asked the front desk at a local hotel in Madurai if they had hot water. Yes, of course they do. And unlike most hotels in India, they said it worked around the clock.

So, some time later, I was surprised to step into the shower to nothing but cold water. I ased about it, and was told it wold take half an hour. I thought to myself that they had to fire up the water heater, no biggie.

Half an hour later, there was a knock on my door. Upon opening it, I was handed a nice bucket of hot water.

Any hotel or even private residence hosting a foreigner is required to report to the local police station within 24 hours. The hotel registration slips for foreigners are collected, and at least occasionally used to determine if you’ve done anything like tried to slip into Tibet without a permit. They were probably debating if they had the right paperwork and if it was worth the bother.

62

Hotel Pennsylvania in NYC was a nightmare. In the mid-90’s I worked for a small company and wanted to save the owner some money so I scoped out this hotel. It was pre-internet so I’m not sure how I researched it, probably a book or something. As a bonus it was right across from an office we were visiting by Madison Square Garden.

I show up and the building from the outside looked impressive but the lobby was very filthy. They gave me a room on the 2nd floor which was good news because only one elevator was working and it wasn’t coming down to the lobby regularly. I took the stairs and found this beautiful old ornate stairwell that took me to the 2nd floor which reminded me how great this place had to have been back in the day.

Once on the 2nd floor I noticed the carpet was old and dirty. The walls were old and dirty. There was dust everywhere. I found my room and entered through this old fashioned oversized door. It had the little window above the door that people used to open before air conditioning.

The room was very large and had floor to ceiling windows but had no curtains! The bathroom looked right out of the 1950’s or earlier and there was a long hallway that led to a number of empty rooms! Very creepy. It looked like in the old days it had been a luxury suite but now it was just a bunch of empty rooms.

The room was filthy too. I stayed fully dressed and did not get inside the covers that night. Luckily I only had to stay one night otherwise I would have had to find a new place.

So thanks Glen Miller for writing your song about this place and getting my hopes up…

63

Reminds me of the Metropolitan Hotel in Calabar, Nigeria. The water was intermittent, so they filled up the bathtub to have a water supply so you could flush the toilet with a bucket. Made taking a shower a bit problematic, though.

They did have CNN, and this was back in 1993 when it was far from universal. I put it on, and they were showing a promo on all the wonderful hotels that featured CNN around the world, like the Hotel Royal Chateau Deluxe in Geneva and so on. I kept waiting for them to show the segment on the Metropolitan Hotel in Calabar.

64

Comparitively, I’ve never stayed anywhere all that bad.

Some minorly bad ones -
Shuswap Lake Hostel. Really beautiful location. Really filthy hostel. This has the selling point that the dorms are in revamped train cars and there’s also breakfast for a minimal fee. To get to the cars, you have to go through the general store & house (where the private rooms supposedly are.) I got there late, so I couldn’t really see the store, but I could see the cobwebs in the store. The house hadn’t been cleaned in a while and was kind of coated in animal fur (and based on reviews that’s its normal state). The train cars & bathroom were coated in a layer of grime. For breakfast the next morning, the very rude owner made pancakes (animal fur in the batter!) with dirty dishes on a filthy grill.

Some random B&B in Victoria. B&Bs often have clutter & trinkets & knickknacks as decorations, these people went nuts and covered every available horizontal surface with so much crap that dusting was impossible. The rest of the “Bed” part of B&B was pretty ok. As for the “Breakfast” part - they’d built the breakfast room themselves. No way was it up to any code, the electric - which was exposed and visible - looked like it had been strung up by a madman. Then halfway through the meal, they brought in the bird. We were then told that the bird had been flying around the kitchen while breakfast was being cooked-but now that the cooking was done and the owners were joining the guests in the breakfast room, the bird got to fly around the breakfast room as guests ate (or in my party’s case, stared in horror as a bird flew and pooped its way around the room, stopping at times to get a treat from the B&B owners.)

65

The Knights Inn Houston North. I’ll let my TripAdvisor review speak for itself:

“The room had roaches, the bedding was stained, the water from the tap was yellowish. Anything you don’t want in a hotel, this one has, short of Norman Bates with a knife. Actually, maybe it had that too, but I was too grossed out to use the shower.”

66

Rome, Italy.

Rated 4 stars, and all we got were:

A small tiny room where the door wouldn’t open the whole way and smacked into the foot of the bed.
There was a single window with no glass, just wooden louvres, which wouldn’t be a dealbreaker except that it overlooked a narrow alley. The room was on the second floor and directly over the trash dumpsters. Multiple times through the night and early morning, trucks would come and toss the dumpsters. They’d idle for a long time, pumping diesel exhaust in through the window.
The bathroom wasn’t plumbed with any U-traps, so there was a constant flow of sewage air coming up through the drains, so much so that you could feel the draft of it. We tried stuffing all of the drains with wet rags and shrink wrap, which barely helped.

Fuck Rome.

67

I stayed in a motel on the outskirst of South Bend, IN over by the airport. The area was clearly used only by hookers and dealers but I was traveling on the dime of a very broke organization and trying to save them money. My initial room smelled scary (chemicals and fire) so I asked for a different room. They gave me the key but apparently forgot to change my room assignment in their book.

At 3:30 a.m., two loud people tried to enter the room. Only the interior chain kept them out. I yelled “occupied” and they closed the door and went away. About 20 minutes later, a cop knocked on the door and yelled the classic “Open, police!” So I opened and we sorted the confusion. The two others were not in sight. I asked the cop about this place clearly being a drug haven and he said, “Can’t catch them all.” and left.

I was afraid for myself, afraid for my car, afraid for a coworker in a different room. I didn’t sleep any more that night.

68

This isn’t a hotel, but I remember a small cabin/bungalow on Maui the wife and I stayed in. It was in a state park, and the park service operated these bungalows. Cheap and they come with cooking utensils in the kitchen. You have to reserve far in advance though due to heavy demand. So we picked up our key at park headquarters and spent the worst night of our lives together awake with the lights on fending off giant bugs. We were glad we’d only rented it for the one night. That’s not a hotel room per se but should count.

The most amusing place we stayed in was probably this one hotel in the old city of Ayutthaya, a couple hours north of Bangkok. Lonely Planet had mentioned the place, and it was cheap, so we stayed there. The first indication that something was a little off was the red light bulb inside the room. Then when we heard all the comings (heh) and goings throughout the night, we realized we had picked what was essentially a short-time hotel. But it was actually an okay place to stay. We were there two nights.

I’m familiar with the Waikiki Prince even though I’ve never stayed there myself, and they will clean your room every few days, more often if you really do want it, but don’t push it. It does have a loyal following. People don’t realize what a drug haven Waikiki is, or at least was back in my day. Probably still is. My main grad-school field work at the U of Hawaii was working needle exchange down on Hotel Street in Chinatown. That’s become gentrified to some extent, but in my day it was basically Honolulu’s skid row. And there was another place not far from Waikiki. The exchange was operated by an outfit called the CHOW Project. One night they assigned me to spend all night wandering around Waikiki until dawn, just checking out the drug activity. They’d already pointed out several shooting galleries (near the Waikiki Prince, in fact). When you’re specifically scouting for this sort of thing, a lot of activity jumps out at you. But it’s largely hidden from your average tourist, who may not stop to wonder exactly why there are so many cops on the beat in Waikiki.

69

Motel [del]Sux[/del] 6 - Norfolk, Va, this past Mother’s Day weekend

There was also the otherwise-very nice Radisson Blu in Germany. Main building then a courtyard with about ½ dozen 3-story outbuildings/villas. I’m in one of the villas, on the third floor. Three floor to ceiling glass panels, one of which is a door to the balcony, but no traditionally-opening windows in the room. I open the door, go onto the balcony then leave the door open when I come back in. Left it open all night to get fresh air, then the next day when I went out. It wasn’t until the third morning that I discover it’s a shared balcony with the next room, after I realize I accidentally stole their wine that they left on the floor of the balcony.
Went down to the front desk to bitch a fit when the manager’s response is that they’re in a safe neighborhood. My not-so-polite response was that you’re a hotel, people here aren’t locals; I’m not even from this continent, let alone country. Damn lucky I didn’t get robbed.
I have stayed there again, but insisted on the main building, where’s there’s no second door into my room.

70

I’ve stayed in hotels on five continents and anywhere from Motel 6 to 5-star class. I can’t really say I’ve ever been scared (maybe just ignorance) or didn’t get what I paid for (BTW, ever notice the lower cost hotels usually have free internet, even if it’s just a computer by the front door while the 4-star places charge you an arm and a leg for internet?).

Only place I would not recommend was a Hostel in Kaikoura, New Zealand. It looked pretty nice from the outside and our guide said we would be upgrade to private rooms (sleeping 4-6 a room is interesting and I rather enjoyed it, but I was ready for some privacy). Looking at some of the rooms we passed (hotel quality) I was looking forward to seeing my room.

I saw it. It had a bunk bed. I mean, that is all it had, no dresser, no chair, nothing on the walls…all it needed was bars to make it the perfect jail cell circa 1950. And of course it was located at the end of the hall farthest from the bathroom and showers.

By that time I had been on the road for 25 days and didn’t have the energy to complain, so I just crashed there (bedding was not comfortable at all) and bid it a non-fond adieu the next morning.

71

Yeah, and it’s a good thing you didn’t leave anything out on the balcony. Somebody might have taken it!:wink:

72

When were you there? My brother and sister went to Hawaii with the marching band in the mid 1980s, and were warned about that. He told me about people openly selling bricks of hash, that kind of thing. I had a chance to go in 1980, and don’t remember the warning. Long story made short: I decided not to go at the last minute (my mother went as a chaperone, so we wouldn’t lose all the money I had raised for the trip) and it’s a decision I have never regretted. :frowning:

73

I’ve stayed at the Prince in Waikiki probably a dozen times over the last ten years, and never once had any of the problems listed with it. It is not the most modern hotel, but it is better than some of the wings of the Hawaiian Village, which is generally a poor choice of hotel. (I’m pretty sure if a TV gameshow gives someone a trip to Hawaii, the show is obligated by law to force the winners to stay at the Hawaiian Village. That’s why 2/3rd of the patrons look like they have been on The Price Is Right.)

74

I’ve stayed in some bad motels but they were all run of the mill dumps - nothing interesting enough to justify a story although it is probably worth mentioning that about half of the dumpy motels in New York state are in the Hamptons - which, oddly enough, doesn’t really have any chain or “name brand” lodgings.

But I am remembering one stay that was just weird and a little spooky. I had decided at the last minute to attend a convention in Indianapolis. Now, Indianapolis gets WAY booked up a long time in advance whenever there is a big event or two in town so I was resigned to being stuck at an airport hotel or somewhere out in the burbs.

But I went on-line and found a chain hotel downtown near the convention center ( I think it was a Ramada Inn ) with an available room and I booked it.

I get into a taxi at the airport and I tell the driver I’m going to the downtown Ramada Inn and he looks puzzled. I give him the address - he says something like “I had no idea there was a hotel here”" as he drops me off.

The hotel itself was in an older building and the only signage outside was a discreet brass plaque. The lobby was gorgeous - huge with high, high ceilings, big chandeliers, a lot of dark wood paneling and Victorian style rugs and furniture, recorded classical music playing softly in the background. I went and checked in at the ornate, old-fashioned marble topped front desk. There was not another person in sight except for the clerk at the counter.

The room itself was completely unexceptional, the same totally neutral modernish mid-quality furnishings i’ve seen in dozens of mid-priced chains, except it appeared to be completely new.

And, although this stay was during a bustling week in Indianapolis ( a large convention + a sports event, IIRC) and every other hotel in town was completely full - I never saw another guest during my entire 4 day stay. Every evening after dinner I would leave the bustling streets and walk into that gorgeous and totally deserted Victorian lobby with the soft music playing and I felt like I had wandered into some sort of time warp or a gateway into another dimension.

It was actually sort of cool. I never found out what the story was - my best guess was that the hotel had just opened on the day I checked in and maybe they were doing some sort of really really really soft opening with just a few guests who I just happened to never see.

Now someone may mention that Indianapolis handles all downtown hotel bookings centrally - at least they did for a time, don’t know if they still do, but this happened a few years before they started doing that.

75

Here’s a Trip Advisor review I left about the Adams Trinity Hotel (Now named the Mercantile, 28 Dame Street) in Dublin:

The pillows are a small step above cardboard, and a bed of hammers would be more comfortable and less lopsided. Single pane glass with a sheet metal vent on top are all that prevent the sounds of a bustling avenue full of sirens and bar fights out of the room, and the plywood doors actually amplify the sounds coming from the hallway. The parking they recommend closes early and opens late, leaving you no access to your car. The staff becomes offended when you point out this dump’s shortcomings. Worst of all, the downstairs bar needs to clean their Guinness taps out occasionally, it tasted like crap.

Save your money, spend it on beer, and pass out in a dark alley. You’ll be happier for it.

76

When I first walked outside, there were three bottles, German wine, German champagne, & a Californian wine, along with a full ashtray on the ground in a place that was not so visible from inside the room. I could see how both the previous occupants & the maid missed it. I took one bottle to give to my friend as a thank you to his playing chauffeur.
When I came back the next day, after the maid had been in the ashtray had been emptied, but the bottles were still there. Okay, the maid cleaned outside today, I thought.
When I walked outside the next morning, the bottles were gone & the ashtray again had butts in it. That was when I looked & realized that the next room had access to the balcony. For whatever reason they had opaque glass. Having never heard of a shared balcony before, & having the next room not look similar to mine, I didn’t even begin to suspect that it was a doorway.

I felt (a little bit) bad about it, but whomever my neighbors were had already checked out & frankly I blame the hotel for not letting either of us know that it was a common space.

77

I was there in the early 1990s after the first time I lived here in Thailand. But I don’t want to give the impression that Waikiki is very dangerous. The criminal activity is largely low key and nonviolent. But it is good to be aware. Too bad you could not get to Hawaii, because it’s one of my favorite places in the world.

No, I’ve never heard of any problems either. Again, it has a loyal following. If you don’t need five- or even three- or four-star treatment and don’t have to be staying right on the beach, this place is good value for money. Also again, I’ve not stayed there myself, but I know it by reputation.

Another hotel that I have not stayed in had a great (as in “not so great”) review. It was a guest review 10 years ago slamming the place, but the hotel proudly displayed it on its website, not realizing it was a slam. A hotel in Pattaya, Thailand, and while the review has been taken down, a friend of mine ran it on his website:

"Room has cockroach. Stayed in the room 417 with wholly covered
carpet on the floor. The carpet is so dirty that it smells as it
has been in dead-mans grave for a hundred years. Been promised at
the booking that it will be a room on high floor with sea view.
But upon the arriving the hotel says that no room on high floor
is available. Instead got a room on the forth floor at the sea side
without seeing sea but only the roof of front buildings. The worst
thing is that the room has cockroaches. Fortunately enough warm
water that keep me clean. The hotel has the simplest breakfast I
have never ever seen and every day the same. The good thing about
the hotel is the central location."

78

When I was in the Air Force I used to stay in BOQs. I had an some odd experiences.
The first was when I was briefly TDY to a base that had formerly been a major training base. There were maybe a dozen or more BOQ buildings. I was placed in one the furthest from the BOQ office. I was the only person in the building. When I took an evening walk, I saw that the hallways of the other BOQs were lit, but none of them had lights on in the rooms. Hundreds of rooms, and only me in one building, and it was the furthest from the office.

The time I checked into a BOQ and found a naked man in the room, due to a room assignment mixup, was more amusing than frightening.

Room mixups happened more than you’d think. A former boyfriend helped me take my luggage to my room and when I went to hang my uniform bag in the closet I saw a Colonel’s uniform hanging there and my boyfriend discovered men’s toiletries in the bath. I told my boyfriend, I thought I’d keep the room since a Colonel was a Colonel and he was only a Captain. But noooo…had to get another room.

79

I had an experience at a backpackers similar to Ann Hedonia, in Tasmania. I hadn’t beeked ahead, as it was off season, and, as a single non-picky girl, I’d had no trouble.

Check-in is in a cafe/bar area downstairs, and there’s a couple ahead of me when I arrive. I get there just in time to overhear the girl saying “Nothing at all? Even separate dorms is fine, everywhere seems to be full today” The guy behind the counter shrugged, and suggested another hostel, and the couple left. I go up anyway, and ask if they’re completely full, just in case they have one single bed left.

To my surprise, the guy says yes, they do have a bed! Great!

So, he checks me in, I pay for one night, and he says he’ll show me the room. I follow him upstairs, down a corridor, through a door marked ’ Staff Only’, through what looked like a store room, then through another door into a room with two sets of bunks in. It’s unoccupied, and he says I can pick any bunk. There’s a mass of dodgy looking wires sticking out the wall.

I go downstairs again, and decide to have some lunch in the nice, normal looking cafe bit. During the time I’m sat there, I watch about 4 other people get told the hostel was full, and turned away. I figure the other beds in my room must have been booked.

I go out to explore the town, and come back in late evening.

My room is still empty.

I spent the whole freaking night staring at the door expecting the check in guy to burst in.

He didn’t, and I did not get raped and/or murdered, but I didn’t get an explanation either.

80

Sounds like the Ritz, compared to the New Jersey motel where a body had been left to decay under a bed for five years.

*“I dropped the television remote, and when I went to check under the bed I found her. It was like something out of a scary movie,” said Aaron Silver, the man staying in the room…

The motel has not made a comment about the issue but have told police that they are constantly cleaning their rooms and have no idea how this could have slipped beneath the cracks.

“I clean that room every day. I noticed a smell several times, and told my manager,” said Anita Rodriguez, a housekeeper at the motel. “He told me to just use extra Febreeze in the room and it would go away eventually. I always hated cleaning that room.”…

“Funny thing is, the records also show literally almost 1,000 complaints from people who stayed in the room over the years. Everything from a bad smell to an ‘eerie feeling.’ Several people even asked to switch rooms in the middle of the night,” said Goldsmith. “The motel really should have checked out that room a little more closely.”*