Whether you're traveling for business or pleasure, your hotel accommodations go a long way to ensuring a good night's rest. After a long day of working or sightseeing, nothing beats a comfortable bed and quiet surroundings to recharge the old batteries.
A polite front desk staff, helpful concierges, and friendly employees make a huge difference in making sure your stay is a five-star experience. Unfortunately, not all of us are lucky when it comes to our hotel choices. Sometimes we're drawn in by a beautifully marketed brochure, only to find out upon arrival that the the pictures don't match the reality.
These hotel disaster stories will ensure that you read all the TripAdvisor reviews before you book your next vacation.
45. It's Not Worth The Savings
A French budget hotel where a friend and I stayed before embarking on a camping trip. The rest of the clientele looked like women who charged by the hour. As my friend and I were getting dressed in the morning, one of the cleaning staff stuck their hand through the open window towards my handbag which was sitting on a table! Yeah, I started using Tripadvisor after that...
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44. Pay To Leave
We booked a place that looked really nice in the advertisements. When we arrived, it was actually a man's house, out of which he ran a tattoo parlor. The kitchen was covered in week old food, the entire house smelled like pot (while we were there), and he had guys coming into the living room to get ink. We were feeling pretty nervous by the end of the first night, so we decided to move. The owner got so angry he started threatening us and we ended up having to bribe him to be allowed to leave.
43. Stairway To Heaven
A small dusty hallway ending in an unmarked staircase. Climb the stairs to the fourth floor (this information wasn't provided but the fourth floor was the only one with lights, so we figured).
The stairs are completely dark, there's old furniture strewn across the steps.
The rooms were cramped and stank, the lady who ran the place only spoke Chinese, and the price was higher than advertised.
On the upside, the room had air conditioning, which is a big deal in Taiwan in the summer.
42. Impromptu Hotel
It was in Jiangxi province, China. I roll into town at like four or five o'clock and I need a place to stay, so I walk into this modern looking place by the bus station. Turns out it's so modern it's not all the way built yet. There's no one at the front desk, so I yell, and the guy I passed in the parking lot doing donuts on a scooter comes in. He's inebriated. He quotes me a really good price for a room so I take a look at it; there's exposed concrete everywhere, wires coming out of the walls (live, maybe?), basically a construction site. But I'm only going to be there one night and the price is right so I take it. As best I can tell, I'm the only occupant of this massive hotel.
So I go hiking the next day and when I'm back and ready to leave the hotel guy, still inebriated, asks me where I'm going next. I tell him, and he says, basically, "OK cool, I'll get beverages and tickets". Which he does. He's off like a shot. So he blows off his job and goes with me to the next town, four and a half hours away, sharing his drinks with the bus driver and being pretty cool for a random hotel clerk.
We get dinner when we arrive (which was incredible), but after that he wants to find some *ahem* female companions, so I excuse myself and flee to the next province.
I still wonder whether he worked there or not.
41. You Bashing Turkmenbashi?
Hotel "Turkmenbashi" in, well Turkmenbashi, Turkmenistan. When you pull up, it looks like an emerald, sitting above the Caspian Sea with the desert behind. The lobby is highly impressive, with green marble and large fish tanks.
Then you get to the rooms... I don't think they'd been cleaned since the Soviets left. The AC hardly worked (it was well over 100 during the day and not much better at night), the food was horrible, and to this day I have no idea how I didn't pick up bed bugs.
On the upside, the bar opened at 10 am so my "translator", my Ukrainian colleague and I would drink the local drinks through the day.
40. To The Window, To The Wall... (Same Thing)
Metro Hotel in Hagersten, Sweden, right outside Stockholm. It was a converted warehouse and had interior windowless rooms, which is a fire code violation in the US. The location is in an industrial district bereft of anything but sketchy people. My bag gathered dust bunnies on the roll down the hall. The bathroom smelled like pee. I told my kids they could not walk barefoot nor take a shower without wearing flip-flops. The curtain was so thin that the industrial strength security lighting lit up our room at night. The elevator was a cargo elevator, which was kind of fun. And, if you canceled any portion of your reservation without a minimum of 24 hours notice, they charged you the full reservation amount plus a cancellation fee.
Anyway, the moment I got my computer on the wifi, I booked us into a much better more expensive hotel for the rest of our stay in Stockholm, but one I knew was clean. When we drove away after two nights, we were missing a license plate.
39. Gently Used
Econo Lodge in Pasadena California. I checked in, got to my room and laid down on the bed. When I looked over to turn out the beside table lamp there as a used rubber hanging off of the lampshade. I decided that I wasn't going to stay the rest of the night. I packed up, got my money back, and went to a different hotel. My total stay was about 15 minutes.
38. By 'Chateau' We Mean 'Rent By The Hour'
The Chateau Royale Inn in Lake Geneva. Great location, awful hotel. It was so bad I wonder if it’s a front for something illegal. Everything was dirty, service was awful, it was truly a nightmare.
It’s in a popular tourist town. It seems like with just a little effort it would be very profitable, so I just don’t understand the business plan. Maybe there’s an unlimited supply of overflow from the crowded hotels elsewhere in town, but I highly doubt that any legitimate tourist stays there twice. If it’s the only hotel available, don’t stay there, look for something 30 miles away and commute.
I also wonder about some of the reviews I see online. Some are legit and say how bad it is. But hundreds of others do not, making me think those are fake reviews.
37. It's One Of A Kind
The Westbury Hotel near Earl's Court, London.
My girlfriend hadn't traveled much internationally, and the Westbury was the default option in a package trip we were buying. I tried to tell her it wouldn't be anywhere near as nice as the average U.S. hotel, but she didn't believe me.
The common areas of the hotel were fine, if a bit tatty and rundown.
We got to the room, however, and it was a nightmare. There wasn't a bed: the mattress was actually on the floor. It looked like the carpets hadn't been vacuumed in a couple weeks, and there were crumbs and crumbled up straw wrappers on the floor. The TV looked like it was from 1994 (this was 2004). There was a small balcony, but someone had removed the doorknob; the ever-resourceful people who owned the place had stuffed paper towels in the holes to keep the cold air out.
The "shower" was a tiny corner of the bathroom. There wasn't a door or even a "lip" around the shower area - it was just a corner of the room where they'd installed a shower head, drain and curved curtain rod. The shower curtain was covered in mildew, so you didn't want to touch it, but that was impossible, even for my 5'2 girlfriend -- the shower was that small. This was especially puzzling because the bathroom itself was quite large -- almost as large as the bedroom. But here was this 18" shower that flooded the whole bathroom when you used it.
I think my favorite thing was this exchange between my girlfriend and the front desk girl after we noticed that there wasn't a washcloth in the room:
Girlfriend: Excuse me, could I get a washcloth? There doesn't seem to be one in our room.
Front Desk: YOU AMERICANS! EVERY TIME YOU COME YOU ASK FOR WASHCLOTH! WHAT ARE WE, WASHCLOTH FACTORY? PEOPLE ASK ME 50 TIMES A WEEK, 'YOU HAVE WASHCLOTH?' I TELL YOU WHAT I TELL THEM -- NO! NO WASHCLOTH HERE!
GF: But if you get asked for a washcloth '50 times a week', don't you think that's a sign you should maybe order some?
36. French Hospitality
35. Rule No. 1: Don't Tell Anyone (Also Rule No. 2)
34. Rats
33. Just Like Magic
32. Do It Yourself
30. Spent Less Money For Double The Problems
28. Making A Smokey Exit
26. Birthday Night Fail
25. A New Lock
24. Too Tired To Care
Earlier this summer a friend and I were driving from San Diego to New Orleans. My friend booked a place because it was cheap and a 3-star hotel. We got there around 2 a.m. and they said we couldn't check in. They said, "we've already marked you as a no-show." We wait 45 minutes while the guy gets it worked out. When we got to the room, the entire floor smelled horrible.
The room's lock was missing, the shower curtain was covered in red stains, all the towels smelled clean but were covered in brown hair, the phone was wet and covered in something, and the beds couldn't have been more uncomfortable.
However, we were extremely tired and already in the room so we decided to just call it a night.
23. Scary Birthday Cake
22. Not-So-Pet-Friendly Hotel
19. Getting Lost Sleepwalking
18. Insects
15. Don't Look Back
14. Surprise Waterbed
12. Late Night Stranger Danger
11. The Sound Of Footsteps
New Year's Eve, 7 or 8 years ago. Was attending a decent sized outdoor shindig (~50-75 people) with my girlfriend at the time. Everyone was welcome to bring tents/crash on the floor inside, but there was a hotel about 2 miles away that seemed much more welcoming.
Checked into the hotel at about 3 am, walked into the room, and the phone starts ringing. A woman who was in the room below us was calling and complaining about the noise we were making. We had literally walked in and my GF had ducked into the bathroom. I don't think we had even said anything. Tried to explain this to the woman, she hung up. A few minutes later my GF leaves the bathroom, walks to the bed and gets in, and the phone rings again. Apparently, the sound of a 110 lb woman walking 15 ft across the floor in this brand new hotel had once again disturbed her sleep. We chuckled about it, turned on the TV to a low volume, and started to wind down. We were pretty tired and quickly decided to sleep. I turned off the bedside light, took off my glasses, and accidentally missed the nightstand, dropping them on the floor. Again, the phone rang - "YOU THINK THIS IS A FREAKING GAME?" I told her in no uncertain terms where to go, how to get there, and what she could do upon arrival.
We briefly discussed the amount of crazy below us, and fell asleep. Woke up a bit later (20-30 minutes?) to beating on the door. She had called the police and told them we were partying, jumping on the floor, and trying to torture her. I explained the situation to the police, invited them in the room to demonstrate the lack of party happening, and just then... the phone rings.
She heard the multiple footsteps in the room (and it's not like the cops were stomping everywhere) and called. I asked the officer to answer and sure enough, she immediately fell in on him, threatening to come up and kick butts, etc. The police were happy to go down a floor and explain that someone walking on the floor in the room above you is not a crime, but threatening people is. She wasn't arrested, but they did shut her up, and came back up to our room to have a chuckle and leave.
Since I was pretty wound up and my shot at sleeping any time soon had been ruined, I unplugged the phone, grabbed my rolling luggage, and paced the room for about an hour and a half. Then I slept like a baby.
10. The Master Key
I paid way too much (probably a couple hundred) for a bad motel. It was obvious from the outside that it was bad, but we were desperate because some other plans had fallen through. It was winter in Utah in the middle of the 2002 Olympics, so all the places were gouging and it was way too cold to try to sleep in the car. So we found the one place that had a vacancy and figured we'd deal with it.
It was disgusting. There were stains on the floor and the beds. We bought a sheet at a dollar store to throw over the bed because we didn't want to touch it. There were used towels tossed in a corner when we came in that housekeeping had never bothered to clean up. There were holes in the linoleum on the bathroom floor. There was no shower curtain. Just a disgusting mess of a room.
But that wasn't the worst part. At some point I needed to grab something from the car, so I took the key (they were still using an old metal key), locked the door behind me, and went to get whatever I needed. When I came back I put the key in the door, heard it click open and stepped into the room. Then I got very confused because I saw someone else's bags in the room and the shower was running. I backed out of the room and shut the door, then looked at the number and realized I'd gone up the wrong stairs. Ours was room 28, and I'd gone to room 38. But the key had worked. Did this cheap piece of poo motel only have one key for every door?
How many doors would this key unlock? How many keys were out there that would open our door? I slept with one eye open that night.
9. A Quick Poke
My cousin's son was about 3 playing in a hotel room in Florida and was stuck with a hypodermic needle he found under the bed.
8. Surprise Visitors
Hotel in Kings Cross (Sydney), it had this door that would slam very loudly and quite regularly throughout the night. So our sleep was relatively disturbed anyway. Then on one of the nights at some point after midnight, housekeeping thought our room was empty and opened the door to let some new guests in.
7. I Just Want To Take A Shower
We stopped around midnight to find an available room on our way home from vacation, when I decided I was too tired to keep going. We pulled off at an exit that had two options, a La Quinta and a Days Inn. I voted La Quinta, but my husband stressed that he really wanted to see if there was something available at the Days inn first since we happened to stop in at one on the way to our destination and it was actually really nice.
We get into the lobby and they set us up in what was one of the few rooms remaining. Very nice front desk agent tells us that it's just gone done being renovated the price is decent so I figure why not. We get inside and the room is way different than the last Days Inn. The room is painted these super bright almost highlighter type colors and the room smells like paint. At this point, I feel like I am just being picky, but we try to put the a/c on since it's July and it doesn't turn on.
They give us another room, upgrade us to a "suite" for the trouble. So we start walking to the room and are forced to pass these 3 guys leaning against the wall to get to our room which is about two doors down from them. As we walk past and unlock the door they make snide comments about the two of us getting the suite and what we're going to do inside. Super classy, but whatever... I'll get over it. This one smells like paint AND cat pee, but whatever I want to sleep. Try to go and take a shower and the set up is super weird. In every other hotel/home/apartment I have ever been in has had a normal tub spout. This one just has a very tiny tube underneath the handle for the shower and when I turned the shower on it caused a strong stream of water to shoot out. It's actually so strong that it hits the wall at the back of the shower and sprays out into the bathroom. Its strong enough to be semi-painful to my hand, and it is at crotch height for me. Not into this and no way to stop it. Take a video, partly because at this point I cannot stop thinking "what the heck?" and head back to the front desk.
The wonderful front desk clerk is apologetic, asks to see the video and is also very flabbergasted. Offers to escort us to the 3rd room.. the last one they have available. Off the 3 of us go. The last one smells like paint, still terrible colors all of which I was expecting. AC works so I walk into the bathroom to make sure there isn't some stupid issue here. The shower doesn't work at all, neither us nor the front desk can figure out how to turn it on. We get back to the front desk where the poor woman is apologizing over and over and the "owner" is waiting. Front desk agent refunds our card while the owner keeps talking about how she saw nothing wrong with the shower in the second room.
That was both the worst and the oddest experience I have ever had and has so far been the only bad review I have ever left on trip advisor. They tried to publicly smooth things over with an apology response but I think the shower video speaks for itself.
6. Charlotte's Web
Planned a trip once and looked into motels/hotels about 30 minutes outside the city. I can't remember the name of the hotel because it wasn't a national chain, plus it was 7 years ago (and I think my mind's done its best to shut out the experience as best it can).
Anyway, the pictures on the website all looked nice. Rooms looked good for what I needed and with a free breakfast, what could go wrong? It was $100 a night, seemed reasonable.
So I get there, and in the large hotel parking lot, there are only about 2-3 cars outside.
I go in, and it takes roughly 15 minutes for someone to meet me at the front desk. I check in, and start off to my room. The elevator door opens and boom, dark hallway, no lights.
I was like "wuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut". It was being renovated or something, and you had to walk through the renovation to get to your room.
I get to my room, and it's roughly about half the size I thought it was. I go to the bathroom because I want to shower after a long roadtrip. I turn on the water and the cold water doesn't work. I turn on the hot water, and it never gets hot, it just stays cold.
At this point, I'm getting really frustrated cause I'm paying $100 for this experience. I'm so tired that I say whatever and try to take a nap. I go to sit on the bed and something moves. I don't know what it is at this point, but I know I saw something small move.
I lift the pillow and...........spider nest.
I immediately pack my stuff back up and again walk through the renovation to the elevator. I press the lobby button, the doors shut, and......you guessed it, elevator gets stuck. Now I'm trapped, and after about 3 minutes in there, the lights also go out.
I pull my cellphone out and try calling the main desk. It takes 4 calls before they pick up. They say they'll send someone. After 2 hours, finally someone gets the elevator working and I'm let out.
After I get to the front desk and get my refund, I storm out of the place and toward my car. On the way, I trip on one of those long concrete barriers at the front of parking spots, and promptly break my wrist.
5. Old School Alarm
Driving cross-country from Wisconsin to Florida. Three o'clock in the morning, we've been on the road for hours, and neither of us can keep our eyes open anymore. We agree we have to stop at the next hotel, motel, Holiday Inn...anything.
Shortly we come upon an exit with a hotel. It's easy to tell this, because its name is just "Hotel".
We go in, and it looks pretty shady, but it's late and we're exhausted, so we get a room from the nice Pakistani fellow behind the desk. We only need a few hours sleep, so we request a wakeup call.
Opening the door to our room, we see that it's definitely shady, as everything in the room has been bolted and/or chained to the walls or floor.
At least, everything had been, because it's all gone now. The television, the mirror, the fridge, the end tables, the phone...they've all been stolen, and judging by the conditions left behind, usually, a good amount of force was employed.
We pile our bags between the two beds and both sleep with knives under our pillows.
As I drift off to sleep, my exhaustion-fogged brain catches onto an important detail I had missed earlier...how are they going to leave a wakeup call when we don't have a phone?
7:00 a.m. - KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK "HELLO IN THERE! IT IS TIME FOR YOU TO BEING AWAKE NOW! HELLO! YOU MUST BE GETTING WITH THE WAKING UP!"
4. Leave It To The Professionals
We needed a place to stay just one night after attending a concert an hour or so away from home. It only needed to be a simple place to stay, but I found a cheap little place with a spa in the room and though it would be fun to use the opportunity for a bit of romantic night away. We arrived before the gig and found the place painted a cheesy shade of pink, and the layout of the room was like a shady drive in motel, stained carpet and plastic furniture. The toilet broke two seconds after arriving and we had to call maintenance to fix it. We left for the gig, laughing at what a dodgy place we'd found ourselves in. Later in the night we arrived back at the hotel a little wasted and ready for some fun in the spa. As soon as we entered the bathroom we were hit with the unmistakable sound of obvious intimacy thumping through the walls. It pounded through the room and we giggled at the raunchiness of it, and when it stopped suddenly we panicked a little that they'd heard us. But we just heard chatting coming from the room next door; small break. Five seconds later, moaning and screaming. Suddenly, regular conversation. These guys were going from being intimate to polite conversation in seconds. Eventually, we realised; it was an adult video. They were making suggestive content. This ebb and flow of screaming and chit chat continued for HOURS, constantly, until they finally packed up all their equipment in a van at about 4am and went home, after 7 hours of 'hard' work.
I better recognize that room one day.
3. Ramada I'm Out
Ramada Inn - Tyler, TX - Mid 90's
I was traveling a lot for work. Over 4 years, I averaged 2 round trips per week. I never cared about getting into a quality hotel, just not a dump. This trip is more involved than average, so I'm there for 2 nights.
I got in on a late flight and to the hotel about 11 pm. There was only 1 other car in the parking lot - that should have been a sign. It was obviously an older building, but I've been in older. I check in as usual and drop my bags in the room. A quick look shows some cracks in the bathroom tile and sink - nothing functionally bad. The carpet is cheap and stiff - not crunchy though. The TV gets 1 channel - it was either weather or in Spanish.
Hungry, I stop at the desk to ask for a recommendation. Not only is is not the same person that checked me in 10 minutes ago, they don't know of any restaurants in the area. I go find something on my own. As I walk past the desk on my way back an hour later, it's another new person behind the desk greeting me. Still the same one other car in the lot.
At 3 am, there's a pounding on my door. It's a deputy with what appears to be another new person from the front desk (turnover can't be that high, can it?) hovering behind the cop. The deputy is here to evict me. According to the desk guy, I owe rent for a couple weeks and he wants me out "NOW!" He hands the deputy a clipboard with the paperwork. Half asleep and reading upside down, I say 'That paperwork is for room 301. This is room 103. I assume we're done here.' The deputy apologizes (not the desk jockey, though) and I shut the door and go back to sleep.
I go to the client site the next day and pass yet another new person behind the desk. I opt out of the 'breakfast' offered. Another vendor onsite offers to buy dinner, so I head to the hotel for a quick shower. My stuff is gone. All I left was an overnight bag, since I travel light and took my laptop to work. I talk to the new guy at the desk (I seriously never saw the same person twice). He checks the computer and says I was only checked in for one night. We sort out that error and he makes a couple phone calls. Apparently, the maid locked my bag in the maids closet and I have to wait because she has the only key. An hour later, he gets a phone call and goes to get my bag for me. I strongly suspect someone took it home hoping something of value was in it.
After a quick shower, I meet the vendor for dinner and tell the whole story of the hotel so far. He says there's plenty of room in the Holiday Inn across town he's in, but I feel like I have to stay through the end. I get the feeling there has to be a punch line at the end of this joke of a hotel. On the way back to the hotel, I had the idea that I was going to see a crane with a wrecking ball in the parking lot when I woke up - just a random thought.
After a relatively uneventful night (some noisy people in the halls is all), I check out. There's a new, handwritten sign at the desk stating 'NO REFUNDS'. After I sign my receipt, I point to it and say, 'My butt. I'm getting every penny back.' The new guy at the desk says something about the policy that I interrupt with, 'I'll get it from corporate, easily.' I get to my rental car and there are 3 bullet holes in the rear driver's side door.
On the flight home, I type up an email summary to my travel coordinator. I try to keep it on the humorous side and include all the relevant details. At the end, I request never to be booked in a Ramada and recommend the company be dropped from preferred vendor status. She forwards the email to Ramada and CC's my manager. Ramada is pretty much blacklisted by the company and the email makes the rounds through the company for the humor.
A week later, I get a refund check from Ramada. It's handwritten and includes a stack of coupons for free stays at any Ramada Inn. I cashed the check and returned the coupons with a note stating that I have no use for them since I will sleep in my car before I stay at another Ramada Inn.
2. The Minifridge Incident
My family had gone to Florida for vacation and were staying in a cheap but relatively nice hotel. After the first three days we noticed they had a minifridge in the room, so naturally, my brother looks inside. Some sick bastard before us had opened two of the soda cans in the fridge and half drank both of them, which placed back in the fridge upside down. After a few days, what seemed like the hotel's entire ant population had swarmed inside the fridge through god knows where. When my brother opened it, so many came pouring out that it may have looked like a miniscule interpretation of the Killer Ant scene from Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The fridge was promptly shut, and after my brother's quick shower, we decided we didn't want to stay in the hotel after that night.