Tell me your worst hotel or caravan stay experience?

[CoolPlayer]

What was your worst EVER hotel or caravan stay? (Don’t need to name the place) what happened? Did you stay or go home? Just had my first really bad stay so interested in hearing about others

Trecco Bay in Wales. Feral families letting their kids run riot and a caravan covered in black mould. They insisted they didn't have another one so we said we were driving back home and asked for a refund. They miraculously found us another one and it was the flimsiest thing ever but not mouldy.

Another was an all inclusive in Cuba. Walked into a room an inch deep in water and were told to just put our bags on the bed! Finally got moved but there were no towels in the rooms. A housekeeper knocked with some and when we opened the door to her she had about 6 mosquitoes sat on her face. The next day we came to realise that Cayo Coco is a tiny strip with water either side meaning the mosquitoes were plague like. Horrific holiday.

Grand Hotel Torquay. We had gone for my mum's 60th birthday us, my brother, his partner & her parents. The rooms were freezing, despite complaining we didn't get any additional heaters or the radiators working, I slept in my coat & went out & bought a couple of hot water bottles. The food was awful despite it being a 4 star hotel, my brother & his partner decided that they were going to split up & never spoke to each other all week. I got so fed up I even investigated train times to get home.

Butlins Skegness, we had gone on one of those The Sun £20 holidays, the apartment was scruffy, 2 days in to the week ds started with an horrific stomach bug which we thought came from the Burger King outlet as that was the only place we ate out at, we packed up & left, he passed the bug onto me & exh, I ended up having to have a week off work sick because I couldn't shake off the bug.

The "Bostel" in Amsterdam Bos. Run by the Dutch Basil Fawlty.
Everything has an extra cost:
Had to pay extra for sheets and blankets (apparently this is common in European youth hostels so fine, they get a pass for that).
Had to put coins in the heater
Had to put a euro in the filthy showers to make them work.
No toilet paper in the filthy toilets. You had to buy that from the site shop. From our chalet we could watch a stream of furious campers waddling from the toilet block, to the shop and back again, to finish their poos.
Once at the shop you were able to buy a tiny little packet of toilet paper sheets for a euro. They were made by the owner. By pulling 5 sheets off of a normal roll and putting them into a paper bag. We watched him do this.
He has weird pernickity rules about things. Like you could only return your blankets at a specific time of day, at a specific counter. Even though it was just him in there and he was there all the time.
He seemed bemused that anyone would be annoyed at all this (a lot of people were) and turned to aggrieved anger very quickly.
We watched him have many arguments while we were there.
Genuinely not sure if I would go again. It was funny in a "so bad it's good" kind of way. And the location is quite nice.

Thirty six years ago, my dc and I had one of our best holidays.
Sun every day, clean accommodation, food must've been fine, else I would remember.
Sounds like it all went downhill in later years.
I wonder if it's still going?

Hotel Lhodi in Mumbai. I had dysentery and as I leant over the toilet to be sick a big black rat came up the toilet and stared me in the face

I’ve had a few choice overnight stays in my time. Three stick in my mind from when I went on a solo road trip across America about 15 years ago:
> The Palms at Indian Head in Borrego Springs, Southern California, actually an amazing mid century resort hotel in the middle of nowhere that still has a strong 50s vibe about it. I’d had a fairly scary drive there when I’d miscalculated the distance and nearly ran out of petrol on a lonely desert road, but managed to get to the petrol station in the nearest town on fumes. I arrived mid afternoon, checked in to be told I was the only guest there, the single staff member clocked off just after I checked in. So I had the entire hotel to myself to wander round in, constant piped 1950s crooner music on in the lounge areas, Weird and a bit spooky. And then I got bitten on my arm by a spider and my arm began to swell, no contact number for anyone, no mobile phone reception, thought my number was up. luckily the swelling went down after a long sleepless night but it was a weird experience all in.
> Hotel I can’t recall the name of in Arizona right next to a train route than kept me up with the ding-ding-ding-ding of the freighter train when it passed through every twenty minutes all night.
> The Oatman Hotel in Arizona, a proper ghost town relic from gold rush times, off Route 66. You can’t stay there anymore as it’s now just a museum but back then you could stay in the historic bedroom (where Clark Gable and Carole Lombard honeymooned) and it was unchanged since the 1940s, ancient furniture and bedding, no bathroom facilities, felt just a bit ‘off’ and was reputedly haunted. Not the most comfortable night I’ve ever had and I couldn’t wait to get out tbh.

sorry that was a long post 😬

Haven Burnham on Sea . I think I was lured into thinking that the place would be like I remembered from my late childhood, how wrong I was. The caravan smelt of fish and mould . It obviously hadn’t been cleaned properly and the floors were sticky , the week we went was so hot it was like trying to sleep in a baked bean tin . Combined with boy racers using the seafront as a race track every night we only stayed 3 nights just awful .

Holiday hotels we've always been lucky really. Apart from one hotel in Majorca, where the legs on the metal bed frames stuck out further than the mattresses and were also covered with valance sheets. Bloody stunned our toes on them every single time we walked past the foot of the bed to the balcony. You'd think we'd learn to give it more space, but no.

In the UK, the Trecarn Hotel in Torquay on a girls weekend. Didn't realise it was a Britannia hotel otherwise wouldn't have booked it as they're notorious for being shite. Anyway, the foyer was nice enough as had been recently refurbished. Our room however was down a dark corridor that stank of weed mixed with damp. The actual room had peeling painted over wallpaper, no bathroom light (no window in the bathroom either so it was shower by phone torch) and no heating (in January) until very late at night. When we went to leave the room to get dinner, we closed the door and it was a Yale lock so should have just locked as the latch wasn't on. I closed it and then bent down to tighten my shoelace and leaned against the door for balance but the door just gave way. Wouldn't lock at all and reception wouldn't move us, couldn't get anyone to fix it and just said "your stuff should be fine there's no one else on the corridor"..... we locked our stuff in the cars when we went out for the evening. Breakfast was great though Tbf. We did complain but never heard a thing back.

The Bimini, in Aberdeen - work booked it for me. Surly woman receptionist, who flung the key at me. The rooms were tiny, they'd divided up other bedrooms into ones which were just wide enough for a single bed and they were minging. There was a little table, with a kettle which stank.

A B&B owned by a woman associated with the Danish Seamen's Mission in Hull, again, by work. I arrived at 8:30 pm and was told by the battle axe, "Door is locked at 9, lights out at 9:30. No alcohol." I enquired about something to eat and got a curt "No." I rushed out and found a chip shop and took them back, along with a small bottle of brandy, getting back about 8:59.

The room was Spartan and there was a Gideon Bible in Danish on the desk. Settling down to eat and read a book and the lights went out at 9:30. I tried the switch, to no avail! Next day, work told me I couldn't move, as it was a pain in the arse and it was cheaper than everywhere else. I told them I'd be getting the train home, rather than stay there again, they did re-book.

Stayed in a hotel in Spain which in itself was nice enough but the family next to us had a baby, around 15 months old, and they let her cry every single night/middle of the night and then would scream at her to shut the fuck up. I felt so sorry for that baby. Obviously this kept waking us up too.

Then from 8am every day for 4 days we had the joy of listening to a chain saw for hours as a massive tree was being removed from the grounds or the hotel next door.

Pontins- should have stayed for 3 nights for a long weekend stayed 1 and went home. Never been somewhere so grim

I've been really lucky with my stays.

I guess the worst was when I was on my own, top floor, in London and the fire alarm went off at 1am.

It wasn't busy and I appeared to be on my own on this floor as I navigated my way to the external fire exit stairs. I met one lady popping her head out of the room door and asked if it was for real and she wasn't leaving the room "because her baby was asleep". I offered to help her, but she wouldn't have it. She was staying put!

I went down the fire exit stairs, seemed like forever on my own, and at the bottom it led to a sort of external concrete parking area where the Oxford Steet fire brigade had just arrived.

I was luckily able to tell them, and later someone more formal, that there was a lady in room x with a baby appearing to not be evacuating.

Then we waited for about 2 hours in the cold for them to do their stuff.

It was all OK in the end, but quite a scary experience that I'll never forget.

Well done @CoolPlayer for the can't be at£sed attitude - let others do your so called work - for your online 100 word editorial submission.

Wales.

I feel like this wins

I used to waitress there back in the 90's. It was fine at that time - mainly OAP coach trip holidays, taking day trips over the France on the ferry and visiting the sites on the south coast. Really sad to hear it has had such a decline.

Ibis Budget Marseille Airport. Was put on the fouth floor with no lift, so had to bump my suitcase behind me up the stairs. The floor plan was a bit erratic and I got lost. Luckily I got helped out by a member of staff. Unluckily he was a deaf mute and could only give me sign language. Still, I liked him. He was friendly.

Or was he too friendly? Somebody kept knocking on my door and trying the handle during the night. Was it him?

The only food on offer was from two vending machines in the lobby for either chocolate/soda or hot drinks. I dined like a queen on a Kinder Bueno and a half squashed cheese sandwich from the airport, sitting on a green plastic stool with cigarette burns on it, taking in the view of the bins. I ate alone, declining the constant offers of company from Door Handle Turner.

There was some complicated arrangement where you could have a takeaway delivered from a touchscreen thingy but I didn't trust it.

I was reluctant to undress because I didn't feel that safe but when I tried the shower the door fell off its runners. Doors seemed to be a kind of recurring nightmare theme at this joint.

I would describe the ambiance as psychiatric hospital in Mogadishu.

Very good value for €54 a night.

A cheap place in Dublin. Had a shared bathroom, no TV or tea and coffee. Internet was rubbish too.

I walked past the bathroom and caught a glimpse of someone's arse.

Tell us yours then?

@KnopkaPixie I stayed at the Toulouse Ibis Budget recently. Third floor. Someone had got rid of the window cables which meant you could open the window completely. A relief as it was hotter than the sun in there, but what if you had kids? Terrifying. It was one of the less lovely places I’ve stayed, but at least it was clean.

I believe Ibis are a franchise so differ quite a bit from place to place and to be fair, I would have been alright with this one for the price had it not been for Door Handle Turner and the general ambiance of impending menace.

When I slogged down to the lobby for the chocolate machine in the afternoon all the housekeeping staff were sitting around chatting, smoking and blocking my way to the machine. It only took card and although they were probably nice enough girls I got that odd feeling you get when somebody is too close at the ATM.

I mean, what were they going to do? Rob my Kinder Bueno?

I'd just like to add here, that I've travelled all across Marseille in taxis, on the metro, buses and even through the Quatiers Nord where you are supposed to either get shot on sight or recruited into an edgy French rap music video as some kind of local colour, filmed at a 45 degree angle in black and white and nothing untoward has ever happened to me. It was just that dump.

Rented a caravan privately at Flamingo Land a while back and the previous user/owner had smoked in it so heavily, the whole place smelled like they had peed over every surface. Privately educated ex husband was in hell. Good times.

Just very worn and grubby caravan, most dirty covers / bed I’ve ever seen. We did get moved the next morning after a night on the sofa been put off going away for a while now though my trust has gone! Lol x

Turkey in 1994 2 weeks of total grief. We were close a place called Bar Street and the apartments were over run by teenage drunks that came home at 4 am and started jumping from their room balcony's into the swimming pool making a most horrendous noise.

The block had only just been finished and there was no fresh water the majority of the time.

There was an armed robbery opposite the apartments.

The heat was 90 degrees plus and we found we were not suited to that sort of heat.

We both developed severe dehydration and Diahorrea after week one and asked if we could return to the UK. this was denied.

A thoroughly dreadful holiday

You do know that Camber Sands Pontins has been closed down so no one can stay there ever again.

One family holiday to Seattle where my dad was left to book the hotel without my mum’s input. Of course he just went for the cheapest option - a dingy motel by the city’s red light district, frequented by sex workers renting rooms by the hour. Room was dirty and stank of smoke. The advertised “continental breakfast” was a box of Dunkin Donuts and thermos of coffee on the reception desk. We checked out after one night and went elsewhere. Holiday-booking was always a joint venture after that.