Ask Lemmy

Late 1980s, the Ambassador Motel in Grand Forks, ND. My family spent a weekend there while vacationing. Dingy, dirty, fights broke out in the hallway.

Motel 6 in Seymour, IN. Saw serval roaches, smelled of cigarettes and stale curry, broken AC (in the middle of summer), the carpet had various stains, bathroom was as clean as an outhouse…

And we had to sleep next to a rotting petri dish of a jacuzzi. Here’s a pic

I pulled in late and tired to a random motel 6 in Illinois. Went in to the office with my wife and three small children, talked to the attendant through thick bulletproof glass to get a room. Attendant was very weirdly hesitant.

Went to the room, found the floor was linoleum tiles that were all peeling up at the edges, doors, doorframes, beds all in bad condition, some seriously weird and disturbing smell we didn’t recognize.

Came back down to the office and asked for our money back, which is the single solitary time I’ve ever done that at a hotel. The attendant seemed relieved and was very happy to return the money.

Our kids were really little but they’ve always remembered that and they call it the “nope-tel”

An Econo Lodge in San Antonio. The guy changing the bloody sheets wasn't very happy that I took pictures.

Copied from my website (I hate companies who don't give a fuck):

Hilton (2023): both HGI @ BWI and the Twitter representatives + upper management put money way before the safety and experiences of a disabled customer, and provided a pittance of redemption - but they are so happy that I'm a loyal diamond-level customer. Talk is cheap and Hilton loves to use it, but not much else. Hello, Marriott!

Details: https://goo.gl/maps/G4MpAd2heMcUqa9h8

Details copied here for simplicity

First and foremost: if you take nothing else from this review, do not stay here. I stayed here twice for a total of 4 nights and both stays were marred by incorrect room types and poor customer service. This extends to Hilton HQ as they were insultingly uninterested in making things right.

I'm a disabled individual who booked one king size bed with roll-in shower for both stays, and had booked several months in advance. When I arrived on day 1 of stay 1, I walked in to check-in as the mobile ability was unavailable, only to be told that check-in wouldn't be available for some time. After dragging my exhausted self back to the car and getting food, I was checked in automatically around an hour later, so I returned to the hotel, got keycards from the front desk, and headed to our room. I was greeted by an incorrect room - an accessible tub instead of a roll-in shower - but my +1 suggested that we try to make it work. Spoiler warning: when you are disabled and are given incorrect accommodations, you are going to have a bad time. It was both difficult and dangerous for me, even with assistance, to shower. But as we had dinner and decided to get some sleep, the two of us crawled into bed; and it collapsed.

So, after being confused and colorful language was exchanged, we decided to investigate what happened and attempt to mend it. Remember now that it's almost 1am, I haven't slept in 25 hours, I'm barely capable of basic daily functions and me and my +1 are trying to, non-destructively, mend a bed. We find that the support slats are woefully inadequate and in short supply, with only 6 on each side of the bed (my cheapo frame at home has double that, and they are better secured as to avoid this problem). After a few minutes we get the bed apart, shift and adjust and reinstall the slats, and reassemble the bed. At checkout I received a survey and detailed these issues, and received an email supposedly from the management apologizing for my troubles, thanking me for being a diamond member, but offering nothing but empty words.

On day 1 of stay 2 a week later, I was again unable to do mobile check-in and was presented with a message to 'simply come to the front desk'. Worried but with a day-long drive ahead of me, I started the road trip. When I arrived at midnight, I was told that they just needed to see my ID (why? I was just here without that requirement) and then they gave me the keycards and off we went. Except, the room I was given this time wasn't even an accessible room. It was a standard corner (read: ikea-tiny sized) and the air was ripe with weed. As a standard room used a shower-tub combo that I cannot get into, my +1 went down to the front desk while I stayed behind (as walking is difficult and slow). When they were gone I surveyed the other customers of the hotel, and while I don't want to make assumptions, I got the feeling that there was illegal adult activities occurring just two rooms away, with people coming and going and some individuals hanging around the door in the hallway.

When my +1 returned a few minutes later they had good news, we've been moved to a different room a few doors down. When we arrived and opened the door, we saw that it was a 'suite' (read: a living room space with couch and TV, alongside the standard basic bedroom and bath). Fine by me, and this room actually has the correct accessible bathroom. Both of us noted how the air was stale and smelled 'dusty', like it hadn't been used in quite some time. As I fell in bed, well past 1 in the morning, my +1 made an announcement.

"There's a hole in the ceiling."

Let's recap: first stay, wrong room, bed collapsed upon sitting on it; second stay, wrong room, room not accessible, replacement room unusually stale, replacement room has hole in the ceiling. We aren't done yet, by the way. Morning came and when we checked out, we alerted the front desk clerk about the (now apparent) water damage, hole, and sagging ceiling, who acted like we were just bothering her lunch break. She also had a tone with a customer who called in.

Never again.

Resolution: I was given 10k Hilton points - a value of roughly $40 at the location this all occurred at - which is unacceptably low (I was looking for a 1-night refund) given what happened. I plan on downgrading or outright canceling my Hilton credit card with American Express, as after I use my accumulated points I will cease to be a customer due to the lack of empathy and compassion, at all levels at this property as well as HQ; not just for a loyal customer, but a disabled one.

Motel 6, absolute shithole. There was no water. They knew the water was out but didn't tell me until after I checked in.

I haven't stayed in that many hotels so I'm not sure what to pick as worst. It's either the one that was very stingy with the breakfast and I had to order everything individually and request 3 doses of milk for my coffee, or the hotel where right in front of the entrance I got robbed at gunpoint and punched for being too slow to hand over the money.

The second one I was 20 and trying to get the cheapest option I could find. The first one I was 36 and paying premium for comfort.

I have a long list of really bad hotels,but some weren't responsible for their own badness (if you are in an "almost warzone" area priorities shift), some were known to be bad (and didn't try to look like they weren't - and were at least priced like that...so I am okay with that).

The worst one therefore would be one with a formerly fairly posh German chain that is now mostly run down. First they didn't have my room ready. Then when it was ready, the carpet (ugh,I hate old 80ies carpet) felt squishy...and smelled...turns out the toilet leaked into the carpet. Which housekeeping surely would have noticed if they had cleaned the toilet....which still had the shit stains of whoever was in it before me. So I've got another room. It wasn't much cleaner and had twin beds. Not what I ordered but I didn't care at this point.. extra points: There was a hole in the wall behind the closet which woul allow someone to look into the bathroom of another room. Again I didn't care,especially as the other room seemed not to be occupied. And I was dead tired. (And yes,i always look behind closets, not for holes, but for bugs and cameras...had encounters with both)

Later the same night a hooker knocked on the door. Which is kind of strange as the elevators required key cards and the stairs were "alarm locked". So she likely worked with someone on the inside. Which is kind of a security problem.

Now, at around 3 o'clock in the morning the door swings open and a very drunk lady walks in with her baggage. She screams I scream, she needs to puke before I can explain. At least she makes it to the toilet. So here I am, holding the hair of a total stranger puking her soul out. (Hey, as an original Oktoberfest trainer paramedic I am a professional at that!) It later turns out they simply gave her the shit stained room an hour after me, when she complained they promised to give her another room by the time she would come back from her stag night. I really would like to tell you know how this was a big love story, but it's not. After she had a few more bodily functions and I was sure she would be okay I packed my stuff, screamed at the night desk staff a bit after they accused me of bilking the bill and went to the other side of the street into another (big EU chain) hotel. .... whose night staffmember looked at me, asked me if I was also a "refugee from that other hotel" and laughed. Told me I was already the fourth one the same night.

Funny enough they really had the audacity to charge my company for the whole stay, even for things they wouldn't be able to charge if I left after a full day. (Taxes, breakfast,etc., parking) The company lawyer had their fun with them.

I just looked them up and while the chain still operates the hotel has been closed long ago. And funny enough I even found a newspaper article of the staff complaining that "no other hotel would employ them because they knew we were above their level". Yeah,no.

Myself and two friends went to Seattle to race (sailboats) and one had booked us a hotel on Aurora, I don’t remember the name unfortunately. When we got there they were both kinda iffy on the place but I didn’t notice anything too weird. It was your average cheap ish hotel. I had also had a few drinks by this point so that might have had something to do with it. Anyhoo, we went out drinking and had a lovely night, came back and passed out. In the morning I went to use the bathroom and as I’m sitting there everything started to come into focus, and yeah, it was pretty gross. I wandered back out and laid on the bed. As I reached my arms behind the pillow to stretch, my hand hit something, I grabbed it and pulled out a meth pipe. Nice. We packed up and headed to the front desk. They really didn’t want to refund us the money for the next two nights but when I put the meth pipe on the counter they suddenly decided they’d be able to do that for us. Ended up sleeping on the floor at a friend’s house and had a grand time.

Definitely the one in China where a breaker box in the stairwell exploded. We were very lucky the whole place didn't burn down.

Entered the hotel room, looked around and noticed that the door to the bathroom was roting and the shower had mold.

Decided to stay cause it was in a tourist town during busy season (no rooms anywhere else) and we were only staying for a night.

Husband woke up at 3am cause he felt something crawling up his arm. The bed was full of bedbugs.

Put all the lugagge in the moldy bathtub and slept (tried to) with the light on cause again, no choice.

It's been more than 3 years and we have not recovered from the trauma.

Some crack den in Coalinga, CA when a friend and I were trying to meet halfway between Sacramento and Los Angeles on the 5 Fwy. His car had broken down so we were forced to stay there one night; it happened to be Halloween so the town was a little wild but our hotel was full of bugs, drugs and other fun surprises.

The one that looked like a horror movie was filmed in it.

Picture a dim room with one light bulb, light brown colored walls, a gap below the room door where you can see a bit of the sidewalk outside. The floors were tile-like, but also laminate, and green.

It wasn't as bad as I described, but that's how it felt.

My wife and I had booked a hotel with "shower en suite". We assumed that this meant that the hotel rooms bathroom had a shower instead e.g. a tub.

Nope. In the middle of the room, there was a plastic booth not unlike those portable toilets you can find at festivals. This was the shower. You had to drop in coins to get warm water in the shower.

There was no bathroom as such. A common toilet was half the stairs down from the room, and it ran out of toilet paper on the weekend.

The breakfast was rather spartan, a lot of "either this or that, but not both" selections.

This was very emberrasing for our friends who had recommended that place (and helped us with a roll of toilet paper). They had been in that hotel some 30 or 40 years before, when it still had style...

Was at a suite hotel in Schaumburg, IL on a business trip.

My glasses fell off while I was asleep and in the morning, reached behind the bed to find them and came up with used hair curlers.

I replaced them with a dated note reading "I don't think they clean here often."

I bet it's still there...

Another trip, same hotel (booked by my company, I had no choice), the room smelled like something died. They did move us to a different room.

I cant remember the name but it was a hotel in Bruges. The lobby looked lovely, but everything else was strange or run down.

Honestly thinking back I feel like it was a fever dream. They had a lift that was incredibly small. The stairs were steep and covered in this really cheap thin red carpet that did not muffle the sound of people walking. To get to my room I had to go up two sets of stairs, and then down a set of stairs.

The room required me to then go down another set of stairs, open the door for it to hit the end of the bed. The mattress was all spring, uncomfortable and had me waking up with backache. The windows were on the ceiling, but difficult to open and the room was stuffy.

The shower seemed to have been put in what used to be a closet. No proper ventilation, and a skanky shower curtain. When turning the shower on it was equivalent to someone pouring water from a watering can on me.

I complain, but it was booked and paid for by someone else. Bruges was lovely and I was only sleeping in the room for a couple of nights.

I don't remember the name. My mother asked me to help her clean out the house of a deceased friends some fair distance away so we had to hotel for the night.

The door would not lock. We shoved a desk in front of it.

I then spent the entire night on a rock hard bed next to my mother slowly melting from the heat, staring at the ribs of the ceiling as though I was inside the great whale before passing out. I woke up slick with sweat and vomitous. The table was fine though. Held the door shut.

Guy had already found a new woman to move in and wanted his dead wife's stuff gone. Miserable trip.

Place in Las Vegas. They had a coin operated shower. You could pay by the night or by the hour.

I had a bird living in the AC unit during winter in one hotel. I didn't sleep under the covers for fear of bedbugs.

There was one in Athens, Greece where I shoved furniture up against the door because I was sure I was going to be robbed or worse in the middle of the night. However, the worst was probably this “hotel” in Ensenada, Mexico where there was no way I was going to sleep in the bed, not going into detail there. There was a hole in the drywall where it looked like somebody got slammed into it and blood all over the bathroom (horror movie levels). I don’t think I stayed in the room and just went out drinking all night.

I'm going to say a Marriott in Manhattan, roughly in August 2007. I forget exactly where, but it was close to the WTC site.

I was on a business trip, and I wasn't paying for it. The room wasn't dirty or anything, but its just felt delapidated. There was wallpaper peeling in a couple of spots.

It certainly wasn't horrible, but I just remember thinking about the fact that this just-adequate room in a major chain hotel was costing five hundred dollars a night.

I shudder to think what it would cost now.

When I moved out west with my mom and sister, the road trip took around 5 days. Most stops were good. The Red Roof Inn in Oklahoma was a total shithole. Lock on room didn't work. Flickering broken lights in hall out of horror film. Super suss guests... Slept with a knife under my pillow.

I stayed at a random roadside motel in Amarillo, Texas recently that was not nice but it was $30 a night and I was driving to Santa Fe so I was just glad to be past Dallas and all the traffic. There were no bugs, I’ll give it that. But there were no amenities.

So, I don’t know how to rate it. It had a bed and bathroom and was $30. But it wasn’t like they had an ice machine or breakfast or coffee or anything like that. You got a bed, shower, and toilet though. Can’t be too picky with roadside motels.

Was on a road trip to South Dakota with my (now) wife's family, and her father had just planned on stopping wherever on the trip rather than planning stops (which is probably better considering there were 3 adults taking care of 5 kids from 8 to 16 and we were an....interesting set (all ADHD, most with (un)diagnosed autism). We stopped at some motel 8 style place kinda late and just wanted to get some sleep so we could get on the road and to our cabin destination. We ended up having to stay there, but it sketch as all hell.

Man, those rooms were awful. The room was musty AF, and I remember not taking my shoes off because the carpet felt spongy. The beds were rock hard and the sheets under the duvet were polka dot look white sheets. I didn't even undress and made sure to change my clothes before getting back in the van the next day.

Other than that, it was a lovely trip. It even led to a moment that my wife will never be able to live down with her family, and still comes up pretty regularly when we talk to her family.

An old convent in Venice. It had a single exit, which we found out when the fire alarm went off. It was a very large and high spiral staircase in the middle of the building.

It was 40C with 90 percent humidity. Of course, it did not have AC. Everyone had their window and door open at night and just hoped they wouldn't get mugged.

Cheap, though.

the breakfast buffet at Circus Circus in Las Vegas was a surreal experience.

If you were to look at it or photograph the food it all looked completely normal. But I have never encountered a situation where everything was utterly devoid of flavor. It was like encountering the literary device of eating food in hell where all looked fantastic but was like ashes in the mouth.

It extended to every dish. Sausages, eggs, biscuits, pastries. Nothing was edible! Lest you think me some picky eater my guilty pleasure used to be the Big AZ burger at 7-11. The food at Circus Circus was simply inedible to a degree that i'll never forget it.

The sliding closet door fell off and nearly hit me. The chair had, um, what I assume were fresh bodily fluids based on the ... glisten. The sink was clogged.

One time we stayed at a motel 6 in San Diego to visit a family member. The motel allowed pets and we had a dog and cat.

Turns out crack heads in the parking lot had to start the engine on their van every 2 hours and rev the fuck out of the engine ALL NIGHT long. 30 minutes of revving every 2 hours. Omg wtf.

2 nights in a hotel in Sydney. Arrived at about 10pm straight from the airport. Unmanned entry to had to call someone from reception to come and give me the key despite arranging all this in advance.

Got in the room and the AC was broken so as a Brit arriving in Australia for the first time it was unbearably hot and the room stank of damp.

About the worst way to start jetlag recovery and I got out after the first night despite paying in advance.

Edit, oh and the fire alarm went off at 3AM!

Jan 1995 I stayed three nights at The Manor House in Aurora, CO.

I was solo and am male, so I doubt the creeper spent much time watching me. Still, damn. It's hard to place, but I think the Panera across from Children's Hospital on Colfax is where it sat.

Tame compared to some of the other stories here but the Motel 6 across from Disney World in Florida when I was visiting for a high school trip. I noticed that the soles of my feet were all black and assumed it was because I'd been walking around in the parking lot in bare feet. Turns out it was actually the carpet in the room. I wore my shoes in the room for the rest of my stay.

The hotel itself was nice, and the balcony had a great view. The problem was the mattress. It was so soft that it provided zero back support. No other options were available.

The net result was both my wife and I ended up with month long back muscle spasms. It taught us a lot about how to resolve back issues, but it's not a lesson I wanted from a relatively expensive hotel in Leavenworth, Washington.

Shittiest one on paper would be the American Inn in Denver but I actually like that place. I think the one I ended up hating was rural Nebraska for plumbing problems and you could hear a divorce going on in the next room.

The barracks at Camp Humphreys count? 🤣