What was your worst hotel or motel stay experience?

I'm glad Motel 6 responded to your complaint - how a company handles dissatisfied customers is a real measure of their management and corporate leadership. And no, it doesn't matter if it's a one-star or five-star - those stars are supposed to reflect amenities available, not an excuse for incompetence or shoddiness.

I've travelled my whole life and stayed in countless hotels, motels, b&bs, guest homes... even the odd youth hostel. And the two that stand out in my memory (for the wrong reasons) are the HoJo in Monroe Michigan and the airport Westin in L.A. Sure there were less-than-stellar experiences in smaller independent properties, but at least those usually made for a good story and had some local flavor.

The Hojo was pure twilight zone with scary locals. The karaoke bar was taken over by a handful of angry villagers who threatened to beat my husband up because he put his name on the list to sing. (Ever been threatened by a musical theatre dude? It's both hilarious and terrifyingly insane.) Literally, there were four local weirdos who were the only ones "allowed" to sing and would kill anyone who came on their "turf". We left and had to pass by the indoor pool en route to the elevators and two people were screwing right out in the open. They saw us and just kept humping like it was completely normal. Given that it was visible from the lobby we can only assume the front desk people were okay with it. We couldn't sleep because of mayhem in the parking lot. Then when we tried to check out... we couldn't!!!! Their computer system was down and they expected us to wait over an hour for a tech guy to show up. Meanwhile, some guys right out of "Deliverance" were using the lobby as a meeting place. "Welcome to the hotel California - you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave." Never so glad to leave a place in my life. Getting detained in Peru was better than getting stuck in Monroe, Michigan.

The Westin in L.A. was just horrible, incompetent service all the way around with lazy staff who simply did not give a crap. We weren't the only ones who couldn't believe we were at a Westin. That was one for Anthony to go in and fix. The HoJo just needed to be burned to the ground - this was in the late 90s so maybe it's not there anymore.

















"Everybody could stand a hundred chest x-rays a year."

Don't mean to belittle you tbirdman, but your worst hotel experience was a place that didn't have a working pop machine? Really? I wish I could go a year with that being my worst hotel experience.

I've dealt with parties going on in a meeting area right outside my room door--I mean inside the place. I've had beds with short sheets, pillows about as this as a pair of socks, bugs and rodents in the room, showers that fill the bathroom floor with water due to inadequate shower curtains, TVs that get about 3 channels--in the 21st Century, and desk clerks that forgot to give my a wake-up call.

I’d say my worst experience was years ago in New Orleans. Arriving on a Sunday afternoon, we were going to the New Orleans Zephyrs baseball game that evening, and wanted to eat before. But the hotel dining room closed at 2 p.m.—just moments before we arrived.

That evening, we enjoyed the pool, but lamented that the jets on the hot tub were broken. Back in the room, it seemed like it was taking the air conditioner that we had turned on hours ago to cool things off properly. It was one of those units high on the wall. It blew cool air, but never cooled the room off. All night long I kept waking up in a sweat.

I learned that the water coming out of the faucet never got cold either. It stayed right about room temperature—75-80°--no matter how long I let it run. Just to be fair, we also found that you couldn’t get hot water either. Just warm.

In the morning, we were told the shuttle driver would be there in just a few minutes to take us to the French Quarter. It took until 40 minutes after we were supposed to leave. During the five-minute ride he spoke not at all to us, but to plenty of friends on his cell phone. There was a stretch an entire block long where he drove with no hands on the steering wheel.

On the ride back, he never spoke to us, made more phone calls, crossed three lanes of traffic at once, ran red lights, and came to a screeching halt almost ramming a stopped car, forcing us to slide forward on our seats—his van had no seat belts.

Back at the hotel, we were again told there was no manager on duty, but given a card with a phone number. We tried several times over the next several days before realizing he was ducking our calls. The most we could get was 10% off on the almost-sleepless night due to no decent air conditioning, no cold water, and the scariest ride I’ve ever been on in the hotel shuttle bus.

Dude, I wouldn't even call that a negative experience, as the outcome was (yes what people deserve but) very rare to come by. Also, anytime I hear Florida in the convo...I just Know it is going to be awful or nasty etc. Haha. I know it's ignorant, but can't Florida just detach and float off already?the ß

I stayed at a few Motel 6's back in the days when they were $9.95 and later $12.95 nationwide. Mostly avoided them because of no phones in the rooms and .75-1.00 a day charge for TV. They were always clean and cheap.

I ended up having my 2 worst experiences the same day. I went to Nashville for Fan Fair 25 years ago. The motel I usually stayed at was booked solid when I tried to book them 6 months in advance. After calling around for a couple of hours, I found one with a vacancy 25 miles north of town. When Fan Fair week came and I drove down and pulled into the motel, it was a u-shaped building. Half looked like a nice, new place, half looked like a dump. Guess which side my room was in.

I asked to look at the room first before I did anything. I poked my head in the door and turned on the light. It was dark, dingy, threadbare furniture and bedding. The worst thing was an almost overwhelming stench of ammonia. I didn't bother looking at the bathroom. I literally said to the owners, "Are you serious?". They didn't ask me what I meant. They said they had another motel 5 miles away that had just been completely renovated and I could have a room there. Good, but why didn't they tell me that in the first place. I drove to the other motel. Looked like a new place, again I ask to look at the room first. It was really nice. I check in. Since I had been driving all night, I wanted to take a shower, change clothes and get something to eat. The shower was nice and clean, plenty of hot water. I finish showering and pull back the curtain......to see what looked like hundreds of not so little bugs skittering around and up the bathroom floor and walls. I throw my clothes back on, grab my suitcase and guitars, make sure there were no bugs in or on them and put them in the car. I go to the office and told them they had a little problem. "Oh, I thought we had gotten rid of those things". They said they would call an exterminator.

I drove down to the motel in Nashville I usually stayed at and begged them to throw someone out and give me their room. After telling them what I had just experienced and when they had decided they had strung me along long enough, they said they figured I wasn't going to get something decent or close even on 6 months notice, so they saved me the first cancelled room they had knowing I would probably be stopping in. Service like that is why I always try to stay at the same place in any town I go to regularly. Since I had everything out of the other motel and in my car, I called them to say I wouldn't be back after calling the credit card company first to tell them about my experience and to block any charges they may try to make and cancel any they did.

Unfortunately, that motel sold and no one I knew was there anymore. On another trip I wound up getting a deal through the airline for a car and room at a mid-level chain hotel that was located across the street from a 24 hour a day steel mill, in the middle of summer. But that's another horror story.....

Years ago my husband and I stayed at the Resorts Casino in Atlantic City. It may have been renovated but not before we were there. The room was average but there was no noise buffers at all. When the people in the next room talked it was like they were in the room, which would have been fine but about 3am they couldn't find their gambling money and loudly opened all the drawers, doors and of course gave a blow by blow report of what they were doing. We were just to tired to change rooms. They finally settled down about an hour later, then at 5am we hear "Look I found the money!" By six am we were out of there!!!!!!

I've been to 33 counties on 6 continents, and hands down the worst hotel was the Kensington Hilton in London: room smaller than a postage stamp, stark, single bed shoved against a wall, shower water spilled onto the bathroom floor, the elevator the size of a coffin, the hallways stank, no one to help take luggage up, and the foreign-born staff was stunningly indifferent, unhelpful, and even hostile. Mind-numbingly horrible experience.

I thought I'd blocked this one out of my mind...evidently not. A murder that was the result of a drug deal gone bad in a room down the hall and around the corner from my room. If that wasn't bad enough, they thought the murderer was still in the hotel 12 hours later. I don't think they ever caught him/her.