Travelers Share The Hotel Stays That Ruined Their Vacation

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.

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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.

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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.

Shibuya_-_Hotel_Sunreon_love_hotel_01_15554736517-300x199.jpg Joe Mabel/Wikimedia

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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36. French Hospitality

35. Rule No. 1: Don't Tell Anyone (Also Rule No. 2)

Every time I have ever moved, the house I was moving to has never vacated on time, so at the last minute, I've had to stay for a week or two at some motel. The most recent one I like to call Fight Club. I asked to be moved three times because I wound up next to a room with constant screaming matches going on. The parking lot, where no doubt a lot of crime was going down, had brawls happening every day. Sometimes it was homeless people, one time it was a huge gang of about a dozen people going at it. The fight actually spread to the inside of the hotel where they were chasing each other down the halls and they were kicking in doors. The front desk clerk got beat up. He had to go to the hospital after he called the cops, who showed up nearly an hour later. I kicked the leg out from a table and held it like a baseball bat, and I waited by the door waiting for my turn, waiting to see if anyone was going to kick my door in. After about a week of this, I left and I spent three days sleeping in my car waiting for those people to vacate my house.

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34. Rats

On a family trip to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame a few years ago. Everyone in the place would gather at the pool and hot tub area in the late afternoon, adults & kids. There was this really odd smell near the hot tub; an icky, rotting smell. Thought it was the trash since there was a communal grill in the same area, it was summer, and people are slobs. Three nights, every night hotel guests at the hot tub, kids dunking themselves in the water, playing and spitting it at each other, kid stuff. By the third night, the smell was really distinct. I was sitting with my 6-year-old, both of us in the hot tub. I was playing around with the filter lid for no particular reason when it popped out of place. To my absolute horror, the most wretched decaying smell wafted up and inside the filter basket was a huge corpse of a bloated half-boiled rat. Everyone screamed, freaking out ensued. Called manager and security. Not at all amused about the thought of all the diseases that me and my kid, along with the other guests, had been stewing in for three nights. Some kids had that decayed rat water in their mouths (not mine, yay!). I have never scrubbed myself and my son as much as that evening. I wanted to remove a layer or two of skin. They did comp the whole stay, but it was disgusting.

alcoholic-beverages-beverages-blur-bottles-587738-300x200.jpg Photo by fu zhichao from Pexels

33. Just Like Magic

Stayed in a hotel in Greece as a part of a tour package. When we got there, we were told that the hotel, as well as the neighboring buildings, had no power or water. We were forced to carry our bags to the third floor with no help from any of the staff. After hauling all our luggage upstairs, we were told it would be another 2 hours before anything was fixed. Our tour guide decided to take us for a walk around town to pass time. Fast forward 2 hours later with no progress whatsoever. I decided to go to the hotel next door, only to see it is fully functioning. When I ask the front desk if they were having power issues they had no idea what I was talking about. I also noticed the room prices were half the price of what the hotel next door was charging.

I go back to my hotel to confront the staff about the situation. They look at me confused when I told them the hotel next door has power and water. When I mention the room prices there were nearly half price the last lady at the front desk became passive aggressive. The power was magically restored within 5 minutes.

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32. Do It Yourself

30. Spent Less Money For Double The Problems

Me and my wife stayed at a hotel in a rural place in Texas. We decided to cheap out a bit on the hotel cause we figured it couldn't be too bad. It wasn't spectacularly bad, but it was bad enough that I'll never cheap out on a hotel again.

The hot water wasn't working so they switched us around to a few different rooms before determining that the building's hot water unit was broken. After taking a cold shower, I decided to try the complimentary coffee they keep in the room. Huge mistake.

That night we got treated to a serenade by the other people staying at the hotel that I think was titled "late night arguments." It was a long serenade that lasted pretty much the entire 8 hours I was trying to sleep on a deformed spring mattress.

So the next day, after having a breakfast of stale cereal and warm milk, me and my wife go out. When we got back, we found out that they locked us out of our room. There was a different person working the front that day, so they were just as confused as we were about what to do about it. After about 30 minutes, they made us a new pair of key cards.

We had a bit of time to sit down at that point, so I decided to try out their free WiFi. It turns out the WiFi isn't free. You had to be a subscriber to some network or other to use it. So I connected to the network of some adjacent business that provided a speed somewhere between dial-up and snail mail.

On the way back home, me and my wife decided to double our budget for a hotel in the future.

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29. The Italian Job

28. Making A Smokey Exit

I had a traumatic experience at a hotel in Texas a few years ago. I was with my son, who was 9 at the time. First night there and all of a sudden, the fire alarm goes off. My son freaks out, and I try to calm him down, saying someone probably pulled the alarm by accident. As I'm putting on my shoes, he opens the door. Thick, white smoke barrels into the room. He is terrified and so am I. We are on the 5th floor. I know we have to get out, so I grab his hand, tell him we're going for the stairs at the end of the hallway and to take a deep breath.

We get into the hallway, and the smoke is so thick we can't see 2 inches in front of our faces. Breathing in means instant choking. Running on pure adrenaline, I run to the end of the hallway and start pounding on the wall to find the door to the stairwell. I find it, throw it open, and down the stairs we fly. We burst outside, exhaling white puffs while we cough and choke. Fire trucks show up, we are stuck outside with nothing but our pajamas. Finally, at 2 a.m., a fireman calls everyone over for an announcement. It wasn't a fire, some jerks set off all of the fire extinguishers in the hallways and pulled the alarm.

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27. Bed Sores

26. Birthday Night Fail

25. A New Lock

We were on route to Washington, D.C., when we started to lose daylight and had to find a place to stay. The motel we found didn't have a paved parking lot and the air was full of dust. I think I recall seeing some piles of cement blocks but not much else.

We pull in and a lady with a pink muumuu and hair curlers comes out to our car, telling us she owns the place and that all the rooms are taken and the rest are being renovated. Behind her is her son: a meaty behemoth that may not have had all the lights on upstairs. She does have one room and she can let us have it at a discount. My dad jumps at this chance.

I remember there was a pool in a courtyard behind the main building. My mother scouted it out first and then insisted we were not to go anywhere near it.

Our room didn't have a door lock on the front door. The bathroom didn't have a door at all. The carpet was a long shag rug in dark blue and green. Nothing felt or looked remotely clean. There was one very hard bed and one lamp, and not much else.

My father phones the front desk to find out why the door lock isn't working. The result was the son knocking on our door with a chair we could use to prop under the doorknob. My father spent the night trying to sleep in a chair by the jury-rigged door. We paid and left early the next day.

Sick Chirpse

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.

Photo by João Francisco on Unsplash

23. Scary Birthday Cake

22. Not-So-Pet-Friendly Hotel

Coming in after registering online with a pet-friendly hotel we'd stayed in before. They left us alone our entire stay and the moment we left I had a nasty email explaining how they were going to do an extra charge of $40 for our dog. They had no additional pet fee, so I asked what the issue was.

The next email was from the owner of the hotel going on a hateful rant about how we stayed there often enough that we knew they had a pet fee and that we were going to pay it because it had been charged to our card.

I forwarded all the emails to regional after contacting the company via Twitter for the address. We weren't getting responses calling the hotel directly.

A few days later the entire hotel stay was refunded to my card along with the fee. I'm super confused. I have a new email from the president of this huge global hotel chain. He's apologizing for the local hotel treating us so poorly and made the owner call and apologize. He then credited over a hundred dollars to our reward card for their company so we can go out again at their expense.

Never been back to that hotel but have happily stayed in other hotels by the chain.

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21. Awake Before The Crack Of Dawn

19. Getting Lost Sleepwalking

18. Insects

I was in Topeka. Decided to stay at Motel 6 to save some money. I get in the bed and feel something crawling on my leg. I throw the cover off, and insects are all over my legs. I get dressed and get out of there PRONTO.

I go to the front desk and they say I can't have my money back, I already paid, no refunds. Finally, she says I can have a different room. I say no, I don't want to stay at your insect-infested motel. I say bring the manager out. She says she's not here.

I walk out and get a room at the Holiday Inn across the street. Wonderful people. Friendly, clean spacious room. I get to my room and go to bed. Next morning I call the manager and ask for my money back. She says no. I say my next call is going to be to American Express and tell them to block the charge. She gives me my money back.

women-do-not-stand-bugs-crawling-on-bare-feet-slaps-the-dor_e10hen4__f0000-1529102043842.jpg Videoblocks

17. Saved Money But Left After 30 Minutes

Found this one place, something of a converted apartment building, the rooms were huge. The office was separate from the building, and it looked like they tried to make more rooms out of it. On the second floor was a huge window duct taped onto the frame. We were tired and continued to the fourth floor.

We get to the door and there was no lock on the door, it was held closed from the outside with a chair. We were hungry and ordered pizza and went to pick it up, so we explored our temporary squalid abode for any more atrocities. There was a full fridge, filled with mold... and mustard, an attic door that led to somewhere dark and crusty, and stains in the bathroom.

Anyway, pizza comes back and we hear "we need to get out of here, there are some guys with knives hanging out." We decide to get out of there. Race down the stairs, and the first floor smelled really bad. Sounded like a few fights coming from somewhere and we weren't going to find out any more than that. We get to the office and ask for a refund.

They didn't want to give us a refund since we were in the room for around 30 minutes.

I said, "Give me a refund, this place should be burned down. You couldn't pay us to actually stay here. We are over 1,000 miles from home, give us something, seriously."

Did I mention this was a family vacation?

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16. The Bad Times Overfloweth

15. Don't Look Back

My cousin and I got to our last stop on a road trip. I get out to check in while my cousin waits in the car. Everyone stares at us. I walk into the tiny, dirty "lobby" and a man with two teeth emerges from his apartment behind the front desk. He makes strange small talk and tells me I look like a Stephanie and he's going to call me Stephanie. He tells me he gets off at 11 and that he gave us the best room, right above his apartment.

I return to my cousin's jeep and she looks horrified. She said a man came up to her jeep, touching it and peeking in until he realized she was still inside. He bolted.

Our room was the last one in front of a large deck and next to a ladder leading down to the man's apartment. We quickly realize that the conjoining door to the room next door is open and has no way to lock. We prop something up against it to keep it closed and unpack. We see scratches down the walls and dents in the walls-- signs of a struggle.

As I'm in the bathroom, the door has about a half inch between the door and the frame where anyone can see through. It's weird, but I deal with it. My cousin calls to me. She points to the main door, where the deadbolt is busted clean off. There's a latch, but nothing to latch onto. The peephole is also covered by a plastic sheet.

My cousin wants to leave, but I tell her we have until 11 until the worker's shift ends and we can sit and think about it. Just then, my mom saw some photos I sent her from the room and sends back two words: "leave now."

My cousin and I literally run to the car and speed out of that parking lot, never turning back.

FRPATB

14. Surprise Waterbed

12. Late Night Stranger Danger

My friend and I were working a fitness expo in Vegas and stayed at a cheap hotel to save some money. They have two sections to this hotel. The tower when you first walk in, which is equivalent to a nice hotel. Then they have the back section which you get to by walking through the entire hotel, EXITING the building, and entering another building. This building is next to some type of alley and anyone can just walk in without being seen by any type of employee or security.

That night around 2 a.m., there is a pounding on the door. It woke me up out of a dead sleep. I can see feet under the door and I just stayed as still and quiet as possible. He kept pounding and pounding on the door. He stood there for almost 5 minutes in silence (I could hear his heavy breathing and see his feet under the door). Then started pounding and kicking the door angrily, while making crazy noises. He eventually kicked one last time and then ran down the hall. Less than a minute later we heard 4 loud gunshots down the hall. I have never been so scared in my life. We stayed up all night and talked to the front desk (in the nice part of the hotel) the next morning. They claimed they knew nothing about any gunshots and happily switched us to the secure portion of the hotel.

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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.

Image by Robin Higgins from Pixabay

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.

Photo by CMDR Shane on Unsplash

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.

Photo by Hyttalo Souza on Unsplash

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.

Photo by Jilbert Ebrahimi on Unsplash

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.

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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.

Photo by Егор Камелев on Unsplash

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!"

Photo by Bruno van der Kraan on Unsplash

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.

Photo by Pablo Heimplatz on Unsplash

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.

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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.

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