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Hotel horror stories

This story was back from sometime in the 1990's probably and I can't recall ever stayed at a place this bad since then. Growing up we used to show cattle and usually went to a national show with our state junior association. One year it was in Fort Worth, TX so instead of a dozen or so familes all taking truck and trailers that far someone lined up a semi which we loaded all the cattle and supplies in and everyone just took a vehicle and followed the semi load to Texas. Went non-stop and arrived in Fort Worth about 2am, unloaded the cattle and got to the hotel around 4am. Someone who had stayed at this hotel earlier in the year had booked us a block of rooms in advance. We basically had Apu from the Simpsons running the front desk when we pulled in and chaos eventually ensued...

First room they gave my family keys to we went to unlock it but it wasn't working, eventually we saw the lights turn on and found out someone else was occupying it. Went back to the front desk to let them know and Apu (that's what we all referred to him as by the end of the week) gets on the phone and calls the room up and asks them if they still had the room for the night! HA, about this time another family comes to the front desk with the same problem as well. So Apu puts us in another room, this time it was not occupied but it had a musty smell and there was ceiling plaster that had fallen off the ceiling so once again we go back to the front desk and tell him there is no way we're staying in that room. He then tells us he is all out of non-smoking rooms, it's getting close to 6am at this point and we have been up all night so we say F it just give us any room that is not occupied or falling apart. Finally get settled in and fall asleep and not much past 8am the phone rings. It's the front desk saying sorry for the issues last night we'll have a non-smoking room for you after 10am which at that point we're so tired we said thanks but no thanks the room is not that smokey and everything else is OK with it so we aren't taking any more chances and we're exhausted so thanks for the unwanted wake up call.

It gets better... so we find out the next day all the problems everyone else had and the guy that booked the block of rooms has it out with the manager in the morning as they did not have this bad of expirience there just 6 months earlier but since every hotel is booked up in the area we had no choice but to endure the crappy place for the week. It's hot as hell while we are there so the pool is a popular spot at night and then they closed that down in the middle of the week on us. WTF, it's Texas in July and you closed the pool for cleaning when the hotel is sold out? So we had to sneak over next door that night to use their pool but a few of the guys decided to throw some of the pool furniture in the deep end before the night is over. The sad thing is the next night the pool looks so much better than before and we wondered exactly what digusting stuff we had been swimming in peviously. Another night Apu tried to close the pool early on us and we just stayed in the pool and moved from end to end when he was trying to get us out, eventually he gave up and one of the parents told him "for as much crap as your hotel has put us through this week I think you can let the kids have the pool a little longer tonight to make up for it."

The last night there we planned to head out around 2am to non-stop it back to Iowa and Apu is litterally asleep at the front desk when everyone shows up to check out but he looks happy as can be when we all leave. Everyone made sure to call and write Days Inn about our expirience when we got back but we all got the same canned responses that each location is privately owned and we would have to take it up with the local management there which we obviously had already done. You'd think that even thought it was privately owned that in order to keep their franchise rights that the corporate office would have the authority to do something right?
 
Sorry, 2nd story but this one is much shorter and has a funny twist to it.

Stayed at the American Inn in Boone one year when we were younger, my grandparents also were in town staying there too. I guess the band playing at the attached bar got drunk and decided to shoot bottle rockets and firecrackers under random doors after their gig, we just happened to be one of the rooms they got and it scared the crap out of us (including my mom screaming at the top of her lungs) in the middle of the night as you can imagine you wondered if a gun had just shot at your door with the loud pops. In the morning the hotel manager who happened to look just like my grandpa was appologizing to everyone, my grandpa not knowing what had happened overnight or seen the manager was walking down the hall and someone stopped him and started asking him about what happened overnight and he was confused as hell. "I don't know what in the hell you are talking about ma'am" he says "aren't you the guy I just talked to at the front desk?" she says. "hell no! are you crazy lady?" my brother and I are just cracking up laughing at this point at his reaction because he had no clue he looked just like the manager.
 
First college I went to had a J-Term and decided to go on a marketing/management trip to Phoenix for 2 weeks. The middle weekend a group of us decided to drive up to Las Vegas. We all were 18-19 years old, naive as hell, never been to Vegas before and had no idea what we were going to do since we were only going to be there for about 18 hours. Finally late- around 3 am we decided to find a room for the night. Found some place off the strip to the east. Figured it would be good enough- looked at the marquee outside after we checked in and noticed that the place was rented by the week, day, or hour- went inside room- had two double beds and off in the corner was a single bed. Stains all over the comforters and just total disrepair. That night I sat up in the corner of the room with my backpack I brought a few things in as a pillow. Next day we went to leave and there was a ******** of panhandlers/homeless people everywhere. I'm really surprised we didn't get mugged the night before.
 
CYdTracked said:
This story was back from sometime in the 1990's probably and I can't recall ever stayed at a place this bad since then. Growing up we used to show cattle and usually went to a national show with our state junior association. One year it was in Fort Worth, TX so instead of a dozen or so familes all taking truck and trailers that far someone lined up a semi which we loaded all the cattle and supplies in and everyone just took a vehicle and followed the semi load to Texas. Went non-stop and arrived in Fort Worth about 2am, unloaded the cattle and got to the hotel around 4am. Someone who had stayed at this hotel earlier in the year had booked us a block of rooms in advance. We basically had Apu from the Simpsons running the front desk when we pulled in and chaos eventually ensued...

First room they gave my family keys to we went to unlock it but it wasn't working, eventually we saw the lights turn on and found out someone else was occupying it. Went back to the front desk to let them know and Apu (that's what we all referred to him as by the end of the week) gets on the phone and calls the room up and asks them if they still had the room for the night! HA, about this time another family comes to the front desk with the same problem as well. So Apu puts us in another room, this time it was not occupied but it had a musty smell and there was ceiling plaster that had fallen off the ceiling so once again we go back to the front desk and tell him there is no way we're staying in that room. He then tells us he is all out of non-smoking rooms, it's getting close to 6am at this point and we have been up all night so we say F it just give us any room that is not occupied or falling apart. Finally get settled in and fall asleep and not much past 8am the phone rings. It's the front desk saying sorry for the issues last night we'll have a non-smoking room for you after 10am which at that point we're so tired we said thanks but no thanks the room is not that smokey and everything else is OK with it so we aren't taking any more chances and we're exhausted so thanks for the unwanted wake up call.

It gets better... so we find out the next day all the problems everyone else had and the guy that booked the block of rooms has it out with the manager in the morning as they did not have this bad of expirience there just 6 months earlier but since every hotel is booked up in the area we had no choice but to endure the crappy place for the week. It's hot as hell while we are there so the pool is a popular spot at night and then they closed that down in the middle of the week on us. WTF, it's Texas in July and you closed the pool for cleaning when the hotel is sold out? So we had to sneak over next door that night to use their pool but a few of the guys decided to throw some of the pool furniture in the deep end before the night is over. The sad thing is the next night the pool looks so much better than before and we wondered exactly what digusting stuff we had been swimming in peviously. Another night Apu tried to close the pool early on us and we just stayed in the pool and moved from end to end when he was trying to get us out, eventually he gave up and one of the parents told him "for as much crap as your hotel has put us through this week I think you can let the kids have the pool a little longer tonight to make up for it."

The last night there we planned to head out around 2am to non-stop it back to Iowa and Apu is litterally asleep at the front desk when everyone shows up to check out but he looks happy as can be when we all leave. Everyone made sure to call and write Days Inn about our expirience when we got back but we all got the same canned responses that each location is privately owned and we would have to take it up with the local management there which we obviously had already done. You'd think that even thought it was privately owned that in order to keep their franchise rights that the corporate office would have the authority to do something right?
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The racism part of the story seemed a bit unnecessary.
 
Agree with all the positive reviews on Hampton Inn. You can't go wrong with Hampton Inn. The one is Ames is old but I have always had great experiences. It actually looks like they are building a brand new 4 story Hampton Inn in Ames.
 
CysRage said:
Agree with all the positive reviews on Hampton Inn. You can't go wrong with Hampton Inn. The one is Ames is old but I have always had great experiences. It actually looks like they are building a brand new 4 story Hampton Inn in Ames.
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If you ever book a Hampton Inn through hotels.com, best if you call the hotel to make sure the booking went through to their system successfully. A couple of years ago we booked the Hampton in KC through hotels.com for my wife and I, and a couple of friends, needing a 2 BR. We get there at about midnight, dead tired after being at Worlds of Fun all day, only to find that the booking never came through. After some plying we were able to get another room, but it only had one bed....my wife and I ended up having to sleep on a cot. Turrible.

Anyway, chalked it up to a one-time f up by hotels.com. Booked the Hampton Inn in Lawrence about 6 months later for a friend's wedding down there. Get there and again, the booking never made it to Hampton's system, but this time the hotel was completely sold out. So was damn near every hotel in Lawrence, it was springtime at KU and the dude working the desk at Hampton says they're always completely packed every weekend that time of year. Hotels.com finally found a room for us at the Baymont Inn, and it reeked of smoke (though it was non-smoking), but it was literally the last available room that could be found in the area so we had no choice.

I've booked dozens of times through hotels.com and those are the only 2 issues I've ever had, and they were both Hampton Inns. Lessons learned, call to confirm.
 
clonetone said:
I have never heard a louder fire alarm than the one in my room in Friley Hall. The phrase "So loud I can't think" never made sense to me until I was jarred awake by that sound for the first time and, literally, took 10 full seconds to sit up and try to make sense of what was going on because my brain couldn't process anything other than "This is loud as f***!"
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the first VEISHEA I was helping out, I had to be on central campus at like 6am to guard a money box. Some goddamn ****** pulled the alarm THREE ******* TIMES that night. The last time, at like 4am, it was snowing outside.

It was still snowing when I got to campus. Bout froze my *** off sitting there til 9am cause the chick he was supposed to take over for me showed up about 90 minutes late all "oh I didn't figure anyone would be here yet! teehee!"
 
cyrocksmypants said:
The racism part of the story seemed a bit unnecessary.
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612+Lighten+Up+Francis.jpg
 
I travel most of the year for my job so I've had some doozies. Grossest place by far was the Quality Inn in Ogallala, NE. The room had an outdoor entrance and the door had about a full two inch gap between the bottom of the door and the ground. The outside of the building also had blazing security lights right next to my door. So I walk in and there are bugs everywhere. Mostly dead, some living but just littering the floor. I call the front desk and ***** at them about getting someone to come vacuum up all the bugs. Eventually someone did vacuum them up and I jammed a towel in the door gap to try and keep more of them out. The next couple of days were ok, a few bugs would get in during the day but nothing crazy. Then one day I turn on the light very quickly in the bathroom and a cockroach falls from the ceiling, blinded by the sudden burst of light and writhing on it's back. I flush the little ****** and repeat the test with the light every 10 minutes or so. 4 ******* times in a row that dropped a roach off the ceiling. At that point I checked out, called Quality Inn's corporate line and was given a few free nights.

Other worst experience was at an Econolodge (that should've been a warning sign right there) in Portland. I chose this place because it looked decent, was close to restaurants and I had a very early start time for my job and this place was close. I check in and within an hour I have someone come to my door to proposition me and another person very aggressively try and sell me coccaine. I grabbed my **** and found a place closer to the airport and ponied up the extra cash.
 
Mr Janny said:
At a previous job at a software company, I was newly promoted to the sales team, and was learning the ropes. I was assigned to tag along with one of the other sales reps on a trip to the Chicago area, and sort of watch the process. The other rep, "Jerry" told me not to worry about anything, and that he'd take care of all the reservations, so I didn't pay much attention to the details. First mistake. Upon leaving, I discovered that Jerry hadn't booked separate rooms for us, and just planned on us sharing to keep costs down. That's not a huge deal, but at the time I was in my late 20's and married. I didn't really need to be sharing a room anymore. But, whatever, I went along with it. We drove to Chicago and made a few stops at potential clients. As evening set, we decided to find our hotel.

I can't remember the name of it, but it was in one of the Southern suburbs, and it was kind of out in the boonies. I remember thinking that I didn't remember there being so much forest near Chicago. Anyway, we pull up to the place, and see that instead of it being a single building, this hotel had several cabins surrounding a central office. no big deal, but it was just something I noted. So, we walked in the front door of the central office, and up to the person at the desk. Now, Jerry had booked the room on hotels.com and pre-paid for it, so armed with his printed confirmation sheet, he asked for our room. The person behind the desk was pleasant enough. She asked if we found the place alright, and made us feel welcome. But things started to go poorly when she confirmed our room as a single, King bed.
"No," Jerry replied, "We'll need two doubles."
"I'm sorry, we only have King beds in our rooms," she responded.
"Only Kings? Does the couch pull out? Or could we get a cot?" Jerry asked
"No, we don't have any cots, and the there are no couches in the rooms. We're a specialty hotel."
She emphasized her last sentence, but it went right over Jerry's head. "What do you mean you don't have couches?" he asked, confused.
"We're a specialty hotel," she said again, really pausing on the word specialty, "I'm not sure we can meet your needs."
I was fairly sure of what was going on, at this point, but it was still flying past Jerry. "Look, we already paid, can you give us two rooms?"
"How about I give you a key to one of our cabins, and you can go check it out and see if it's what you're looking for?" she said. A very reasonable woman.
"Yeah, okay" said Jerry, who was not quite annoyed, but clearly not understanding why we couldn't just get a room.

So, she gave us the key, and told us to check out the first cabin to the right of the office. We walked over, and put the key in the lock. I was pretty sure I knew what we were going to find behind that door, but I wasn't prepared for the extent of it. It was pretty much a sex dungeon. The first thing I noticed was the giant heart shaped bed, covered in leopard print sheets. Then, it was the mirrored ceiling. Then it was the complete lack of carpet anywhere on the floor. (for easy cleaning, I suppose) There was a hot tub in the corner. There was a glass-walled shower in the very center of the room, complete with a conveniently heighted bench inside. There was a dial on the wall by the bed that illuminated the room in any number of colors, when you turned it. There wasn't really any furniture, other than the bed, but there were several "surfaces" on which a person could recline, kneel, and/or hang upside down from. It was ludicrous and awesome.

Jerry just started laughing uncontrollably, as did I. He exclaimed "I need to get a picture of this! I'm going to go get my camera." We took some pictures of the room, and then went back to the office. The gal behind the desk barely said "Hello" when Jerry laughingly shouted "Yeah, that's not going to suit our needs! I'd love to bring my wife here, but it's not going to work for the two of us."

She smiled and said that's what she had assumed. So, end of story, right? Not exactly. The hardest part was convincing hotels.com to refund the money. They just couldn't understand why we couldn't use the room. The desk clerk had them on the phone and was trying to explain why it wouldn't work, and they just wouldn't accept it. She kept saying "We're a specialty hotel" over and over again. Finally, Jerry got on the line and said, "it's a sex hotel!" and they finally relented.

And the worst part, is that wasn't our only bad hotel experience of the night. It was nearly 10PM at this point, and we couldn't find any more hotels with vacancies. We ended up driving another 45 minutes until we landed at a Best Western, but the room we got there was full of bugs. Like infested. And Jerry was so grossed out that he refused to stay there at all. We ended up at a Holiday Inn by roughly midnight, and it was fine.
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I know of the hotel that you are speaking of. They used to have commercials in the Chicago area when I was growing up. Calling it a dungeon is a little over the top as it was just a romantic place.

One of my neighbors growing up knew someone that had met a women older then him and took her there. This was when they were a junior/senior in high school and I was in 8th grade/freshmen.
 
SCNCY said:
I know of the hotel that you are speaking of. They used to have commercials in the Chicago area when I was growing up. Calling it a dungeon is a little over the top as it was just a romantic place.

One of my neighbors growing up knew someone that had met a women older then him and took her there. This was when they were a junior/senior in high school and I was in 8th grade/freshmen.
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Romance is one thing. This was significantly past romance. Romance is coy. Romance leaves something to the imagination. These rooms only had one intended purpose, and it was as subtle as a kick in the face. Perhaps "dungeon" isn't quite the right word, but "Romantic" isn't quite right either.
 
Mr Janny said:
Romance is one thing. This was significantly past romance. Romance is coy. Romance leaves something to the imagination. These rooms only had one intended purpose, and it was as subtle as a kick in the face. Perhaps "dungeon" isn't quite the right word, but "Romantic" isn't quite right either.
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Sybris hotel is the one i am thinking of.
 
Folks, after reading some of these stories let me remind you, ALWAYS throw the dead bolt and chain lock on your doors after you enter, all the time, every time. That prevents someone walking in.

I am a huge fan of Hampton Ins and Hilton Garden Inns. They are mostly great everywhere. Exceptions may be in Wilkes Barre, PA, Sandusky, OH and Ocean City, MD. They may have remodeled since my last visit.

A couple other funny stories. I stayed at a small hotel in Adel, OR. The place had 3 rooms that were small and plain but clean. We were there on a hunting trip so our expectations were a little lower. We were there during the "Civil War" football game weekend. We were back at the room after a Saturday morning hunt watching the game on our little tv. All the sudden in the middle of the game the channel starts to change. Come to find out, all of the rooms were running off of the same receiver as the owner's house. The place just erupts as the people in all the rooms start yelling and screaming to turn the game on. The little old lady in the office quickly turned it back to the game.

Another experience was at the connected hotel to a lumber convention in Dallas, TX. A bunch of us were at the bar until late in the evening. The bar was in the open air area in the middle of the lobby. You had to walk by to get to your room. At close to midnight some guys from a lumber distributor in WI walk by with some hot and noticeably younger women on their arms. A bunch of the guys in my group also knew the Wisconsin guys. As they walked by someone said, "Was that Joe and Don from XYZ Lumber?" and we all said yes followed by "Are those their wives?" to which I responded "Nope." Come to find out, these guys were sort of known for having an "escort" join them for dinner when traveling to these sorts of shows. Kind of funny.
 
Three summers ago my whole family went to Disney World. So that meant my parents, my sister, my older brother, his wife, his son, me, and my two boys all took a 20 hour car ride, in two SUVs, down to Orlando and back.

On the trip down my parents had planned it out and made reservations in a decent hotel so we could get some sleep and then get back on the road. And the resort was pretty nice.
On the way back was when everything went to heck. We left later than planned and it was getting pretty dark when we got around Nashville.
Well my mom found a hotel and decided to stop. Unfortunately this was not a nice neighborhood and we should have kept driving for another hour and stayed in the middle of nowhere.
The rooms just smelled dank and the decor was straight out of the 80s. The air conditioners barely worked and they made it smell worse, if that was possible. I refused to leave any of our stuff in the SUV because I thought there was a good chance the car would get broken into if it looked like it was full of stuff.
Luckily the beds were "ok" and I wasn't in fear of infectious diseases. And we had bottled water so we didn't have to taste the water which smelled like dirt.
The boys were so tired they passed out pretty quickly, but the adults weren't so lucky. At about 1:45 am the biker bar next door started to clear out. And of course the bikers had to sit and rev their hogs for more than an hour after closing. Just horrendous.

The next day we packed up first thing and hit the road. Stopped for food a little ways down the road. Every exit after that seemed like it had a nice cozy little hotel that would have been much better than that nasty pit of hell.
 
after staying in so many questionable hotels as a student on event trips, I'm all about the reviews now. And always throw the deadbolt.
 
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