Tell us your hotel horror stories!

[jwsqrdplus2]

I have another temperature one!!

Dh and I had just driven from FL to NE in Apr while I was 10 weeks pregnant and puking about every 100 miles. Well, in April, FL is hot and NE is NOT. We left 80 degree weather for 40 degree weather. Yikes.

Well we get all checked in to our moderately nice hotel room, but it was cold. The first night we figured it was just us, but I slept in full sweats, wrapped in an extra blanket under all the covers. And I was still cold. The next day, we tried to change the temp by turning up the thermostat and nothing changed. Finally DH calls the front desk to ask for help.

We were pretty incredulous when the front desk said that on April 1st, they turn off the heating system and turn on the AC in the entire facility. So, DH asked for a space heater. The front desk hemmed andhawed and finally said they did not have one. DH then asked what he was supposed to tell his pregnant wife who was freezing in this room. Ten minutes later we had an electric space heater and some warmth for our FL-thinned blood!

 

[Beth E. (NJ)]

How about this...

I was robbed while sleeping in a motel room by myself. I was on business trip for my first real job after college. I was on the trip (to a trade show) with a few other people from the company. We were all staying in the same motel, but our rooms were on different floors. One night my two coworkers were going out to watch a game. I had a bit of a head cold so I said I would stay behind to read some of the materials I had picked up at the show.

I was in my PJ's in bed watching tv and reading. I had locked the room door, but I hadn't thrown the deadbolt because it was early and I wasn't planning on going to sleep yet. But I had taken some cold medicine. The medicine made me fall asleep. I woke up to see a man leaving my room. At first I thought I was dreaming because from the back he looked like a guy I worked with who wasn't on the trip. When my head cleared I decided to check my pocketbook which I put right next to the bed. It was still there and closed so I thought I was dreaming. I looked inside the purse and there was my wallet. It wasn't until I looked in my wallet that I realized my cash was gone. The guy had been right there, next to me while he took the money from my purse!!

I called the front desk and my boss. They called the police. When the police came they noticed that from outside my room, even with the drapes all the way closed, if you stood at the right angle you could see my bed. Since I had fallen asleep while reading the light was on in the room. The robber looked in a saw that I was asleep. The scary part was that the police found a square of damp hotel towel next to my bed. They asked me if it was mine, but it wasn't. I can't help but wonder what the guy had that for. Also, after the robbery the police noticed that the hotel room door nob was working funny. Usually hotel room door nobs only turn from the inside, unless you use your room key. After the robbery my doornob turned from the outside too. It wasn't like that before the robbery. The police suspected it was an inside job.

The management fixed the lock and I spent the rest of the trip in that same room.

That's my worst hotel/motel story. I know it could have been much worse. I could have been assaulted or killed so I do consider myself lucky. To this day I am much more nervous in a hotel. If a lock doesn't work I call the front dest immediately to get it fixed!

 

[shep]

Great stories..

 

[luvflorida]

These stories are hilarious, although I'm sure they weren't too funny when they happened! I have another "Bates Motel" story.

A couple of summers ago, my husband, two daughters, and I spent a week travelling around visiting various colleges that our oldest daughter was considering attending after high school. We left on a Friday evening and our first stop was Syracuse University, but we hit traffic and it was taking us longer than we had thought it would, so we decided to start looking for a motel to spend the night at. We kept looking and driving, but couldn't find anything. It was getting late and we were getting discouraged at the lack of lodging when finally we saw an exit with a sign announcing lodging.

We got off the exit and it put us on an old dirt road. There was nothing around, no stores, no houses, no lights, NOTHING. Finally we saw a light in the distance and we drove toward it. Sitting up on a hill was, you guessed it, "The Bates Motel". Now, this place wasn't really named The Bates Motel, but we sort of looked at each other and immediately all had the same thought. I can't remember the name of the joint, but it was one of those single strip one-story buildings built probably fifity years ago. It looked way too much like The Bates Motel! We were tired and there was NOTHING else around so my husband drove up the hill and parked in front of the office. We assumed it was the office since the other rooms all had doors on them and this one only had an old wooden screen door that didn't close all the way on it. I waited in the car with our daughters, (nobody wanted to get out), while my husband went in to inquire about a room.

Now, this is the honest to goodness truth, but when my husband opened the screen door all the way, I could see in the room and Norman Bates was behind the counter! Well, he looked exactly like him! A few minutes later, my husband came out to the car and proceeded to drive around to the back of the motel. I said, you've got to be kidding. Our room was in the back of the motel and we were the only car in the parking lot. It was very dark and very creepy. We entered our room and quickly put on the lights. Everything in the room looked like the original furnishings and bedding that was there when the motel was first built. We decided the best thing to do was to go right to bed, (we slept on the beds, nobody was brave enough to look under the covers), and then leave early in the morning. There were no lamps by the beds, so I was nominated to stand by the light switch by the door and as soon as everyone jumped onto a bed, I was to turn off the light and run to my bed. I turned off the light and I felt my way to the bed. On the way, I muttered something about not being able to see anything, and my husband chimed in with, "That's probably a good thing!"

Well, somehow we made it through the night and Norman Bates didn't come after us. Nobody dared to take a shower the night before, so we took turns in the morning. The bathroom was old and grubby. We tried to touch as few things as possible. The water from the shower was nice and warm, but the problem was that it didn't hit you. The water sprayed everything else in the bathroom except the person taking the shower. It would have been possible to sit on the toilet and get your shower in at the same time. No matter what we did, we could not adjust the water direction. We found this to be absolutely hysterical! By the time we had all taken our showers, the bathroom was drenched, but the shower stall was dry as could be!

Needless to say, we couldn't wait to return our room key to Norman and get out of there!

 

[dclwdwlover]

On the way to WDW one year we stopped at - believe it or not - "South of the Border" (NC/SC line) - just for a kick. What a crummy, dirty, smelly,scary place. Needless to say, I didn't sleep all night (in the recliner chair I was in!) When I see it now I drive as fast as I can past it.

 

[Mad4Mickey]

My DBF and I go to WDW every year ( sometimes 2 times if we are good ) We always stay at the DL ,in 2002 I thought we should try the CSR . When we got there it was behind a bus from the Disney Cruise Line....Long wait.... only to be told when we got to the front we had no room...then to be told that yes we had a room but that my travel agent (the same one I have used for 14 years) never sent the final payment . We needed to pay them more $..They called and got it all straight , then they sent us to a room that had someone already staying in it. I would not let my DBF close the door and I called the front desk.They wanted me to find out who was already in the room , I told them no one was there for me to ask . They asked us to look at the stuitcases and tell them the name if we could find it ( my DBF is still standing in the door holding it open LOL) We told them we only wanted to get out of there and get our own room .After 30 min we got a room ...The air in our room would turn itself off if there was no movement ...so the whole night I was moving my leg up and down in the air to keep it on.My DBF woke up and asked me what I was doing exercising in my bed at 3 a.m.The next morning we called the desk only to be told that it should stay on only when we were in the room , we were IN the room. They over rode it and it stayed on no matter where we were!They deceided they would give us a "Free" breakfast in the Pepper Market for all our trouble. When we went to leave after enjoying our breakfast they told us we would have to pay ! We told them the whole story from the "sorry no room for you" to the air that would not stay on . The nice lady told us that she was sorry about all that but that she knew nothing of a free breakfast and told my DBF that she would have to stay behind while I went to the front desk to "Prove" that we had a free breakfast coming. Not many people can say they were held hostage for sausage at WDW !

 

[Yzma and Kronk]

I have two....
Stayed at one of those nice old hotels in Vancouver, Canada. Let's just say a couple was on their honeymoon in a room nearby and it went on for hours (!) You couldn't really pinpoint where the "noise" was coming from with the paperthin walls, but I figured it couldn't last all night. I was just nodding off to sleep, when my phone rang and an irate guest started yelling at me to quiet down, and threatened to call security. I tried to explain it wasn't me (I was alone!), but he called me and yelled at least 3 times more until the honeymoon was over!!
Second - arrived late at a "nice" airport hotel for a layover. I just wanted to get in bed and go to sleep. Unpacked, got my PJ's on, etc., threw back the covers and low and behold a picnic was waiting for me between the sheets!!! Someone had a wonderful meal/snack, was very sloppy and it wasn't cleaned up - it was disgusting! It was like the minibar was in the bed!! Gross!

 

[Regina]

We lived in GA for two years, and would come back home to the Northeast to visit friends and family.

During one of the trips, we stayed at a Hilton in NJ. We had arrived late at night, with three very tired kids in tow. The bellman took us to a room, opened the door, and it was obviously occupied.

We went back to the desk with him. First, the manager was POed that we didn't wait at the occupied room. (Why yes, mind if we sit on your bed? ).

The next room they gave us was disgusting. It had two sets of curtains, one on the windows, one in an archway. The dust was so thick on the top of them that you couldn't see the pattern.

My favorite, there was blood on the bathroom walls. At that point, the kids were already in their PJ's, so we spent the night.

The next morning, I told them about the problems. When we returned, they hadn't done a thing. When I asked why it hadn't been cleaned, the girl at the desk said "Oh, you were staying more than one night?" I made sure that we were moved pronto, and the room was fine.

Another trip, the hotel was fine, but we had no idea that they were hosting the New England Clown Convention. There were clowns everywhere. Clowns in the elevators, clowns in the hallways, clowns in the restaurant, clowns by the pool.

Did I mention that I hate clowns?

 

[philaround]

I have a couple from over 30 years ago.

Fresh out of the Army me and a buddy went to WDW at the end of August 1971. We stayed at a very nice Holiday Inn in Orlando and had a great time. Well 3 years later my new DW and I went to WDW for our honeymoon. I said I know a great Holiday Inn in Orlando, lets get reservations there. Well we had been in our room less then 2 hours when there was a knock at the door. It was someone from the front desk with a special request. It seems there was a family at the front desk with 4 children that had a serious problem. They had checked out that day and were driving home. Seemed they didn't even make it to the city limits when their car broke down. After a couple of hours at a garage they were informed that it would be at least 2 days before their car would be road worthy again. Since our room was one of the larger rooms, and we had not been in it very long, would be kind enough to change to a smaller room for the night and allow this famoly to have our room. Being the kind and generous New Englanders that we our we said of course [did I mention that this large family was standing behind the desk clerk with all their bags?]. Well we quickly packed our stuff up and moved a few rooms down the balcony[so far so good]. Went out to diner came back to the room for the night. About 2AM the next morning we are awakened by a loud crash. Jumping out of the bed we first rush to the window and look outside and see nothing but the quiet & closed pool area. We look at each other with a "What the hell just happened look on our faces." So we decide to go back to bed, but first I make a trip to the bathroom, where I find the entire ceiling ON THE FLOOR.

 

[mum4jenn]

WOW!!!! These are great stories. I thought I had forgotten one hotel until I read about blood on the walls and it all came crashing back to me.

A LONG time ago when I was with my teen church group in Atlanta we arrived at a hotel (think it was Days Inn but it was about 25 years ago) we went ito our rooms and they were horrible. Holes in the walls, smelled really bad, dirty,then we noticed the unmatched scraps of peeling wallpaper covering(barely) blood on the walls!!!!!!!! We asked to be moved to other rooms and we were placed on the second floor which was just about as bad. There was carpet in the hallway but there was there sunk-in place in the middle of the hall. Turns out there was this big hole in the whole floor that was just covered with carpet and a little hole where you could peep through down to see the first floor!!! I think there was a large stain on the carpet in the room that we figured was also a blood stain. We were a bunch of girls and scared chaperones in a bad part of Atlanta. We were only staying one night so we all pushed furniture up against the doors and slept in our clothes.

Another time was just after DH and I were married. We were trying to save a buck and we had one of thse entertainment books where you could get the hotels for 1/2 price. We wanted to go to New Orleans. We found a great price at HOJO for $28 a night. We had never been there so really did not know anything about what area to stay in. Most cities you do not want to stay near the airport so we did not get a place there. This place was really run down and it was so dirty!!! The manager said it was dirty because Jazz Fest had just ended and they were working on it. The first room we went to was HORRIBLE. Nothing worked in the room,bullet hole in the bathroom,smelled real bad,mold,you name it it was wrong. We asked to move to another room and they admitted they were getting ready for refurbishing. They moved us to another wing and we finally got a TV that worked after going through 3 of them.The toilet was broken but they did come and fix that. When we went to bed that night the springs in the bed were broken so both of us would slide to the middle of the bed.We kept trying to get to the edge of the bed but it was so bad we just kept sliding to the middle. It had a crevise so big we probably could have put a liner in there and made a pool out of it!! We were driving around town and it turns out the nicer looking hotels WERE at the Airport!!! WE can laugh about it now but it was awful back then!!! Oh... also the day we were checking out we walked out of the room and scared a bunch of workers because they did not know anyone was even staying at the entire hotel!!! They were working on the refurbishing of the entire hotel and we were the only ones even staying there!!! The hallway was filled with beds and furniture.

 

[philaround]

mum4jenn...........You reminded me of another bad hotel. Just after our 1st anniversary we decided to take a weekend in Vermont and New Hampshire. We decided this on a Thursday and left Friday night right after work. Since it was such short notice we decided to just play it by ear and made no attempt to check out any motels or hotels or to make any reservations. About 8PM that night we were somewhere in southern Vermont looking for a place to stay. We coild find only 2 places with rooms available. One was a large resort type motel high on a ridge with a gorgeous view, but the only room they had was a suite at 350.00, an awful lot of money back in 1975. So down from the ridge we drove to a fairly nice looking place in the valley. The room was clean, the bathroom was clean, everything looked good so we registered [I think it was about 40.00 for the night]. Well shortly after we went to bed we found ourselves rolling to the center of the bed since the springs were sprung, but we were still kind of newlyweds so that didn't bother us too much. But no matter what we did we just could not get comfortable, then we realized that not only did these springs sag towards the middle from side to side but also from head to toe. Can you say pretzel?

 

[mum4jenn]

philaround...sounds like the place you stayed at must have sold that mattress to the HOJO we stayed at. This was in 1989 I think and it sounds like the same exact mattress!!!!!!

 

[Lynn CC]

It was in the year 2000 when we were going to Disney for 10 nights. DH had surgery 2 days before we left and I was all frazzled. Trying to take care of him and get ready for our trip.
To make a long story short I forgot the credit card that I booked everything with. They almost didn't let us on the plane because your supposed to have that card and then I forgot my license on top of it They said we would never get away with it on the return flight.
The car rental let us take the car because it was prepaid but they weren't happy about it...Thanks National!
By the time we got to the resort I was in tears.....
The Resort not only let us stay, they let me call back home to have someone mail our credit cards and license's to us. (I had only given them a deposit on the room for one nights stay).
They also gave us a $500 room credit on our room keys along with our hopper passes for the entire stay! We only had a small amount of cash to offer them,and they said don't worry about it, just enjoy yourself and come to the desk when your package comes.
Talk about Disney Hospitality!

I'll NEVER forget that stuff again.

 

[Ted and Holly]

Its interesting to see so many Days Inns mentioned on this thread.

On a trip to WDW in November 2001, Ted and I flew into Tampa. The flight home left at 7am, so we decided to spend our last night in Tampa near the airport, so we could get up and get right to the airport. We picked Days Inn because it was off airport, but considered an airport hotel because it was 3 minutes away. We checked in early afternoon.

The lobby was nice enough, and the location on the Courtney Campbell Causeway was great. I specifically asked for a non-smoking room and double checked when we checked in. They assured me it was a non-smoking room, gave us our room key, and we went to the room. The carpets in the hall were stained, and filthy and grungy. They used to be redish, now they were black. LITERALLY. We walked into the room into a haze of cigarette smoke... No kidding... it looked like someone had just put out a cigarette!!! I went back and demanded another room.

They gave us a new room. It smelled considerably better, but had an ashtray on the table. The windows were filthy, you could barely see out of them, the curtains dusty, and didn't slide all the way closed. The place was dingy, and there was mildew on the grout in the bathroom. ICK! I covered the room with the Clorox spray I brought.

We dumped our stuff and headed to Clearwater/St. Pete's for the rest of the day. When we got back, it was dark. That is when we discovered that out of the 5 lights/lamps in the room, only ONE light was working, all the rest of the bulbs were burnt out!! We went to bed early, and I didn't sleep well all night knowing how filthy the room was. There were people in the hall at all hours of the night, coming in from the bars and strip joints down the street.

The alarm we had set went off at 4am, and this is the icing on the cake. I got in the shower and noticed BLOOD smeared on the shower wall. Ted confirmed... it was blood! That was the end of my shower, and we left that room as fast as we could. Ted got the car while I checked out. The car clock said "4:07" am when the clock in our room had said "5:00" THE STUPID CLOCK WAS WRONG!

I was just so happy to get out of that dump, so we went to the airport and the counters weren't even open!

ICK!!!! Stay away from Days Inn Tampa!!! Ewwwwwwww!

Holly

By this time

 

[Blondie]

Originally posted by Mad4Mickey
Not many people can say they were held hostage for sausage at WDW !

ROFLOL!

I guess I'm pretty lucky in that I've never (yet anyway) had any experiences like the ones mentioned in this thread!

 

[Ted and Holly]

HOW could I forget about my other story!!!!

In September, we went to Montreal with another couple for the weekend. They picked the hotel and booked for all of us on short notice. There were slim pickings as many hotels were booked for the weekend.... It was a Travellodge and I couldn't find much about it on the internet before we left. We got there and tried to get into the parking garage ("FRee parking for guests" the website said") This hotel was 8 stories high, and there were about 20-30 parking spaces FOR THE WHOLE HOTEL!!! Needless to say, we had to drive around the neighborhood... The hotel was in Montreal's "Chinatown" and a block away from the red-light section of St. Catherine Street. We parked in a run down parking lot where the guy didn't speak English... The cars were being parked three deep, so we tried to ask him if we could get OUT if we needed to.... We reluctantly left the car, not knowing if we'd ever get out of that lot!

We checked in to Travelodge and found our room to be TINY! I know we're spoiled by WDW hotels, but this room was EXCESSIVELY small....Ted and I could barely stand together in the room. The bed was a mattress, no box spring, about 2 feet off the floor. The pillows were about 1/2 inch thick, no exaggeration. The bathroom was a toilet, and sink, touching each other, and a stand up shower stall. There was no place to even set my toothbrush! Luckily, the place was spotless, and we stayed.

The next morning, Ted and I tripped over each other trying to get dressed and ready to check out and meet our friends for breakfast. We were in the elevator on the way to the lobby, when we realized we were both wearing tan shorts and the same color T-shirts. I went to check out, while Ted brought our bags to the car, and to change his shirt. He got a shirt out of the bag, and decided to change IN the car. He shut the trunk and then realized he shut his KEYS in the trunk and was completely locked out of the car!

AAA came and let him in his car, and that's when Ted realized that he couldnt get into the trunk from inside his car because its a convertible. He had to rip up the carpeting and climb through the hole where the top goes when its down and he got STUCK! Here is a picture from that horrible morning and that INTERESTING hotel! As Ted grabbed his keys and popped the trunk, there were three cameras ready to get his picture! His Sebring LITERALLY gave birth to Ted as he had to squeeze himself through the hole and out through the trunk to get unstuck!

There are 3 morals to our story:

1. Never let your friends pick the hotel

2. Always check your outfits before leaving the hotel room.

3. Never, EVER lock your keys in the trunk of a convertible!!!

 

[Poohbear123]

LOL! Good one!

 

[Disney Doll]

Mine's not a horror story, but a funny story.

We were staying at the Parker House in Boston several years ago with another couple, for a long weekend. It was about 430-5AM, and I am awakened by the sound of our friend POUNDING on our room door(they had the room next door) yelling,"Wake up, there's a fire!!! You're going to be toast!!!" Well, it seems as if Liz had fallen out of bed, which of course woke her up which is when she heard the announcement of the fire going over the loudspeaker in the hallway, saying "This is a fire emergency.Please proceed to the lobby via the stairs." She wakes up Dave, they quickly dress, come to wake up DH and I, who are VERY heavy sleepers. It took them a full 5 minutes to awaken us. I told Dave to go down to the lobby, we'd get dressed quickly and meet them there. I wake up DH, who's not happy with me until he looks out the window and sees a cherry picker with a fireman in it going past the window as DH is looking out. Well, I had never before, nor haveI ever since, seen DH move so fast!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just as we were starting down the stairs,they made an announcement that it was under control, and we could go back to our rooms.

Well, since it was around 5AM at this point, none of use could sleep, so we got dressed and went for a very early morning walk around Boston(whichwas actually quite nice!) and then back to the hotel for breakfast, where we learned that there was indeed a kitchen fire. Why the fireman was going by our window in a cherry picker I don't know.

I must say though, other than that, the hotel was lovely...very old world style, with a beautiful lounge, our room was nice, and it was not terribly expensive.

 

[BarryHom]

This is more funny than a horror story. Once, I stayed at a Cross Country Inn in Columbus near the airport. I did my business in the toliet and the flush lever broke! I tried to fix it, but to no avail. I called the front desk and the front desk clerk came. Apparently, the fix-it guy left for the night. She tried to fix it, but to no avail. I had to wait until the morning to get it fixed, but I was staying there for 1 night. The front desk clerk asked, "Are you going to use the toliet anytime tonight?" I don't know, but when nature calls, I'm not stopping! Anyway, I left the toliet cover down when I left so the maintenance guy would have a nice suprise! Oh, poop! The hotel was nice. Their banner said, "The clean...est place you'll ever stay!" I don't know if it was the cleanest place, but the rooms were pretty darned clean!

My worst hotel experience was with the Continental Hotel on I-192 in Kissimmee. I've been up and down I-192 before and I noticed all these cheap hotels by the Wal-Mart. I've been curious on how they were, so I decided to try one a few years ago. It was $25 a night, plus a $5 deposit for the key. Anyway, where do I start the list? First, the door was paper thin and had a big gap between the floor and the door. The socket had four different things in one of those cheap, plastic 4 way things the Superfriends warned you not to plug things into.

The room had a fridge, but it wasn't worth storing stuff in. I opened it up and it let out a stink worse than a bean burrito fart! The air had some strange invisible particles in it because I could taste something foul in my mouth all night. It took me two weeks to get the fowl taste out of my mouth. The bathroom had no towels, but it had a shower. How can you shower but not wipe yourself off without towels? Good thing I brought my own. From that day on, I vowed to myself to never stay in one of these cheap hotels by Wal-Mart. If I'm going to do a $25 hotel, I'm going to Priceline or Hotwire!

 

[BarryHom]

I've got another one...I was staying in a Motel 6 in Tampa that was by I-275. It was a decent room, but it was really close to the I-275 onramp, so you could hear the sounds of cars racing on the Interstate. It was worse when a truck revved up the onramp! Closing the doors did not help any. It was like pitching a tent and sleeping right on the edge of the onramp. Mind you, I can sleep through a lot -- fire alarms, nuclear attacks, etc. -- but this kind of distrubed my sleep.