What's been your most disappointing hotel experience?

[QuintessentialQuokka]

This is inspired by the fact that I'm having a mildly but nigglingly disappointing hotel experience right now. The room is clean and has everything you'd expect - but it's a bit shabby and a bit small and the bath is half length and the kettle has exactly one free tea bag and one stick of coffee granules and one mini capsule of milk and the carpet looks like it came from a conference centre in 1991 and the lift is a claustrophobe's nightmare and takes a week and a half to arrive when summoned. In short, it feels like a 60 quid hotel room and I paid 200 for it as a rare treat, more fool me.

If you'd like to, please make me feel somewhat better by sharing your most disappointing/worst hotel experiences. Thanks.

First in Blackpool in the 70's I was called a 'posh bitch' because I wanted coffee.
Recommended by DHs boss.

Second was in Wales. Bed was not LONG enough. DH is 5ft 6in and I'm 5ft.
Shower was not wide enough. Also recommended by DHs boss.

Moral of the story is don't listen to the boss.

I used to love staying at the Park Plaza Westminster. Great location, pool
, funky vibe. So spent a huge amount of money to book a terraced room for us, DS and his friend as a teenage birthday present to spend the weekend in London.

The two bedroomed suite they gave us was tiny. Bedrooms were smaller than the normal rooms. The beds blocked the door to the terrace it was that cramped. It was very tired and shabby as well with stained and scratched furniture .I complained obviously and was shown a much nicer second but without a terrace. So back to the first room. It had a terrible view from said terrace but worse, lots of the decking was loose or just missing. Cigarette butts lodged in the decking. It looked like a building site. The restaurant and room service was chaos as there was also a massive wedding party booked in and basically it was nothing like the stays I had there before.
The worst bit was making it fun for DS and not spoiling his weekend by being cross. I only got a 10% discount which was more annoying seeing as I had stayed many times before and paid a lot for the room.

Shark Cabin at Thorpe Park, pubes all over the walls and duvet which looked intentionally placed as there were just so so many of them. And a weird dried (I hope yogurt) cream smeared near the foot of the bed. The bed also looked like it hadn't been changed or someone had just had a roll around in it before we got there. Just grim. And they seemed most put out when I complained and asked for it to be cleaned which took 2 hours for someone to come and clean it and replace the bedding for us.

The one where I turned up and there was no reception desk, just four rooms, and the person who was supposed to be checking me in had forgotten about me. I waited for an hour and then had to sort the situation out for myself.

An exceptionally stressful experience, which has cured me of booking the cheapest place I can find when travelling abroad.

I stay in London for conferences at a particular venue a few times year. I usually stay in a Premier Inn nearby which is cheap and decent. One year I was seduced by an event cheaper price at a Travel Lodge. It was such a dump! There was a huge dodgy stain on the carpet and many on the walls so that it felt unclean, it was really hot and stuffy with no ability to change the temp or even open a window and some bored businessman tried to chat me up whilst I was having dinner but the worst thing was it was right next to the train line and the whole room literally shook when trains went past which was very often and felt like all night. I hardly slept and was a complete wreck the next day. Premier Inn all the way after that.

I just remembered another one. A work trip to Frankfurt but I didn't know any of the others before the trip. The woman tasked with booking hotel rooms had messed up and there weren't enough so we all had to share double beds with people we'd met for the first time at 9am that morning. Harrowing. I spent a night in bed with Janice from Dewsbury and I never saw her before or since.

My current mildly disappointing hotel stay has just been enlivened by a fire alarm with resultant troop down three flights of stairs to wait round in strangers' cigarette smoke for 15 minutes. Could have been worse - I'd been considering having a shower.

@ThePure was that in Kings Cross? I once stayed in a Travelodge there that seemed surprised I didn't want to book the room by the hour IYSWIM.

When DS was a year old, I went away for a long-awaited solo spa day and night in a hotel (he was going through a sleep regression and I was knackered). It was only my third night away from him, and my first on my own. The hotel/spa was nice - not the fanciest but I had a king sized bed to myself, a massage, two swimming pools etc, so I was having a lovely time.

I started to feel a bit funny at dinner but powered through pudding and then went up to bed. Slept AWFULLY, feeling increasingly sick. When I properly woke up in the morning, I got up and was violently ill all over the bathroom. Tried my best to clean up with the towels, lay on the bed for a while until I thought maybe some breakfast would make me feel better. I managed half a bowl of muesli and a few sips of coffee in the dining room before realising it wasn't going to stay down.

I ended up half running down the corridor to my room, passing a chambermaid who asked if I was okay. As I tried to reply, I projectile vomited down the hall and fled in embarrassment.

Then I had to drive two hours home that afternoon. Relaxing and restful it was not!

Having to ask for a second loo roll.

@LindorDoubleChoc I think I’ve stayed in that hotel in Barcelona! We complained and got moved 😆

Oh, this is easy. About 30 years ago me and mum booked into a hotel in London that was advertised in a Sunday paper (as they were then). They contacted us a couple of weeks before we were due to stay and said their hotel (Sundene I think) was double booked so they had booked us into their Lodge. They sent us proper professional leaflets for the hotel and Lodge. I think it was in Kensington but first warning sign, even the taxi driver couldn't find it. Eventually we stumbled on an old, large house with people sitting on the steps. We asked them if this is Sundene Lodge and they just looked at us blankly. We rang the bell and a scruffy woman in bare feet answered the door. My god, it was a complete scam, it was student digs full of kids! The toilet was a old, shared one down a corridor. Our room was rotten and the door didn't lock so we wedged a chair against it! Slept on top of the covers and left v early next day. Thankfully, we were only staying one night. We laugh about it now but we both say that we wouldn't stand for it now or stay around now these days. We were just totally shocked and didn't know London well. We should totally have challenged the "owner" but just wanted to escape as fast as possible!

Galtres Lodge Hotel in Petergate York

Room above a bar, broken door slammed all night, every few seconds all night, then was woken at 6am by beer men dropping off kegs. Stayed 2 nights then had to go to my sisters for some sleep. Never stayed again.

Yes it was! Definitely an experience not to be repeated

Also the Albergo Alex in Venice back in 2009 (although Tripadvisor suggests it hasn't changed). To be fair, it was very cheap, but my then boyfriend and I had booked a double room and actually ended up with a single bed and a camp bed 😂

Grant Hotel in Scarborough

Stayed in a hotel on Rhodes about 20 years ago and woke one morning to find a handyman having a wank under our balcony. When I complained to reception they shrugged and said yes, he does that sometimes. Apparently they would speak to him about it. Actually really bloody upset me and ruined the holiday for me and my friend.

Kings Cross Travelodge was my first thought too. We stayed there for one night with our DCs years ago as we were booked on the early Eurostar the next day. It was filthy, and the noise from the trains was horrendous all through the night. As we were about to leave about 5am I was stopped by a policeman who told me that there was a body outside on the pavement (fallen from the roof) which had just been discovered and hadn’t been covered up yet. We had to blindfold the kids and walk them past it.

A hostel in South Africa that was ultimately someone's house with a couple of rooms converted into bunk rooms. All the carpets and furniture in communal areas were covered in thick plastic sheeting, and they spent the first 45 minutes we were there knocking on the door trying to sell us excursions, despite repeatedly asking them to leave us alone as I had sunstroke and a banging headache.

In the end we called another hostel nearby and the owner, God bless him, came and picked us up.

Not the point of the thread, but Hotels had / have exceptions to the smoking ban OP.

I treated myself to a night at a 5 star hotel after a week’s course. The walls in the en-suite were tissue paper thin. You could hear absolutely everything from the room next door’s bathroom. That was not nice.

Stayed in a hostel near Sydney, run by an old drunk who was rude and sneery when checking us in.
Had a key card system which failed to get us into our room, couldn't get hold of him to help. Sat outside our room on the floor with a couple of other travellers keeping us company watching cockroaches scuttling to and fro and doors.
One of the travellers eventually claimed the outside wall, went through the window in our room and opened the door from the inside so we could get some sleep.
Checked out first thing and never went back...

Oh how we could have done with trip advisor back then

The second time I stayed in the Europa in Belfast. First time was great - upgraded to a recently renovated room with a view of The Crown. Second time got one of the old rooms - mouldy grouting, false eyelash on the carpet, rusted and half hanging off shower caddy. Worst of all, no duck! Hastings hotels always have rubber ducks to take home. I emailed to complain after we got home (it had been a birthday gift and didn’t want to cause upset at the time) and then never responded!

Used to stay there for work and loved breakfast pretty much in the Winter Gardens. This was years ago though

Also remembering the time my Dsis and I went to Budapest for a mini break in our 20s.

We stayed at a hotel that was 'a stones throw' from the city centre. Well I have no idea who can throw a stone a couple of kilometres! I remember we enthusiastically set off walking in the general direction of town and soon realised we'd need a taxi if we wanted to get there the same week.
The place was like something out of the Shining: Long corridors and a 1970s vibe. There was an outdoor pool that had no water in and was full of broken chairs and sun loungers
The breakfast buffet was absolutely vile and featured lots of very smelly cold meats and cabbage
They had super shit 'entertainment' every night that might have delighted some pensioners (Elvis impersonators and ballroom dancing displays)
But the weirdest thing was that nothing in the room fitted: the shower curtain was too short and all the water came out the bottom and flooded the bathroom and the sheets were too short for the beds leaving bare uncovered mattress at the bottom.

Well it was cheap and we enjoyed our holiday as Budapest is a lovely place but if I ever go again I'll get a proper nice hotel.

Suppose not technically a 'hotel' but worst holiday ever was Pontins.

We booked a week and stayed less than 12 hours, it was utterly horrific. Ive never seen such filth in my life, their was a massive blood stain on the mattress like someone had been murdered (in between all the other stains, you couldn't see 1 inch of unstained mattress), there way about an inch or dirt/grime on everything, food smeared on the walls and EVERYTHING was broken. There where kids screaming, swearing and fighting everywhere while their parents where pissed in the middle of the day ignoring them.

My mam recommended it, she swore down we went as kids and it was lovely... I'm pretty certain she was mixing up Pontins and Butlins, I even questioned it before booking as I specifically remember going to Butlins as a kid but she insisted it was Pontin's. She was wrong.

People mentioning Scarborough grand, they are apparently owned by the same people. They are apparently well known for bed bugs too although luckily we didn't encounter that. They also are known to be a racist company (although anyone whose bookings where cancelled due to their race likely had a lucky escape).

Tarbet Hotel in Luss. Beautiful building at the side of Loch Lomond, but it wasn't well looked after. Dirty bathroom and there was an actual hole in the ceiling with the laths poking through! Incredibly creaky floors in the hallways, so other guests going to their rooms made a right old racket.

We were booked for 3 nights, but made our excuses and only stayed and paid for the one. The staff were lovely (apart from the owner) and the cooked breakfast was amazing.
Just looked on Trip Advisor, and doesn't look as things have improved much since 2005!