What's the worst thing a hotel has got wrong for you?

[Serendipetty]

I've been quite lucky I think.

I once had booked a late check-out and the staff knocker and woke me up. I was so annoyed as I don't sleep well anyway and had been to a festival that didn't end until about 02:00 the previous night hence paying for the late check-out in the first place!

Another time went away with a new ish partner and the loo didn't flush. Rather embarrassing. It did after several attempts but not great.

Kept awake all night by a generator of some kind. Nobody around to complain to at all as it was a b and b with a key safe type affair. Not particularly cheap , nice room but so noisy! Left at 6am to get away from the noise. Never did find out what it was and only offered 50 percent refund , eventually , after they accused us of being ‘ hostile ‘ with our complaint and not having breakfast ( nobody else was staying there anyway !)
Trip advisor did mention the noisy room , but from a year before so I didn’t see it when booking it up and other rooms were fine apparently.

Arrived at our hotel in Niagara Falls to find building works going on and the outside of the hotel was a sea of wet mud. Not impressed! Thankfully, they upgraded us to their 'sister hotel' which was much posher, right on the edge of the river. We were shown to our rooms on an upper floor, opened the door and gasped in disbelief that we were directly overlooking the American Falls and could also clearly see the Horseshoe Falls! In the space of an hour we'd gone from crashing disappointment to being totally thrilled.

I hate a hotel room that smells of stale smoke

Gave away our room because we arrived late and lied about ringing me to check. It was a pre-paid chain hotel, so it didn’t occur to me to ring to say our train had broken down.

A hostel so obviously much lower standards but they failed to assemble the bunkbeds properly so one night the slats, mattress and myself fell through the frame onto the poor chap underneath - he took it very well considering it was the middle of the night!

Closing the hotel restaurant and bar at 9pm on a Friday (advertised time is 10pm for restaurant, 11pm for bar) when we were returning late from an event, knackered and hungry with no other dining options nearby and wanting to have a drink together. Then getting shirty with us for ordering takeaway pizzas to reception.

It wasn't like the whole place was shut up and quiet either, there was a wedding reception going on in the function room.

Telling me if I didn't turn up with cash for a late check in they would lock the door and not let me in. When I asked if I could pay by card or in the morning they said "check in is closed at X time, we'll see you in the morning at 8 am when the receptionist comes back on duty".
This was last week after a family funeral.

I booked a Premier Inn which I should have done all along and am pursuing it through my credit card company.

Oh @drspouse that's an awful thing to happen at a time when you really don't need it!

My dad once booked an apartment for him, mum and me. Technically, it did have room for us all, but my bed was a (tiny) futon pressed against a partial partition wall in the living area, with the main bedroom the other side of the partial partition, the only bathroom the other side of the bedroom and mirrored wardrobes all over the bedroom.

I'm sure this would have been fine if I was 5, but I was in my 30s, so it was a bit awkward!

Premier Inn.
Woken up by staff banging on the door at 8am wanting to come in and do maintenance. We had been at a wedding the night / day before and check out was 10am, so we had no desire to be up and ready to vacate at 8am. We complained when checking out and got our money back.

Put me in a room next to a kids club. The noise was so loud that when I rang down to reception they told me they could not hear me asked me to turn down the tv. Got my stay refunded and a voucher .

I have a couple of times been given keycards to room that already had people stay in them. I got a fab upgrade in a country house hotel when this happened once. I now always keep the door locked inside and put a do not disturb sign out.

Also had a hotel cancel my booking as they though that I was a guest attending an event that was cancelled. Thankfully, they could accommodate me but could not explain why they assumed I was attending the event.

When we went to SIL wedding, very posh hotel for wedding and reception.
We all got told to mention said wedding when booking for a special rate and we were all on same corridors. £150 per room. We booked.
Got to hotel, room not ready good job we were ready for the wedding because we couldn't get in until 6pm (4 hours after check in time. No apology).
When we got to room, everyone else had beautiful huge rooms on two corridors as we had to stash our stuff in one of their rooms.

We had a cupboard. Not joking, it was a small double shoved in the corner, and they'd put up two camp beds for the DCs. The bed was ancient. The loo was so old. We were over the other side of the hotel nowhere near everyone else.
At 5am, we got woken up by the cleaners using their cupboard to collect supplies. One then managed to walk in our room, ask why we were there as it was for staff.

Went down at 8am for breakfast, asked for room number, told we didn't get breakfast. Everyone else did.

We called a taxi and left and went home to bed! We had nothing to eat after 3pm at the wedding so the DCs were starving! They were 4 and 2 back then. No tea or coffee facilities in the room either.

We left a review and SIL went mad but the family rooms were lovely and we got short changed
We did manage to get a refund though and quite right too! Apparently they double booked so some random ended up with a nice room with the rest of the wedding guests whilst we got relegated to a temp room not usually used! And it turned out we had paid for breakfast as well. It wasn't like we turned up late so random got our room, apparently that was what caused the 4 hour delay to get into a room because staff panicked! Why they then decided to give a random a nice room on their own and a family of four the staff cupboard is anyone's guess.

It's a very posh place so it was inexcusable really. SIL still moans about our review but they ripped her off for her wedding as well so she probably should've joined us. Staff were useless, bar was closed early, food wasn't provided she paid for for reception. Photographer they insisted on fell asleep drunk before they even cut the cake and the DJ had to be provided a usb stick of music by us! I took more photos than the photographer. You wouldn't know DH, DS and I were even at the wedding because we barely appear in any of the official photos.

Left a power tool in the bathroom.

Not take a theft seriously in the slightest (to be fair this was a hostel in South America)

Another time, the owner of a hostel got into a really heated exchange with us because we complained about something. We were literally in the middle of the jungle and I remember thinking if he kicks us out we’re fucked. Luckily it didn’t come to that.

My hostel days are behind me now, thankfully (as fun as they were).

I went to a hote in Bahrain, checked in & left my case with the concierge. Returned to hotel after a few hours. Bag nowhere to be seen. It was found 2 days later in Saudi Arabia. It had been loaded onto a coach then on to a plane with a group of tourists. I got a whole new wardrobe out of it.

Failed to log our taxi request for the morning properly.

Woke up to snow on our ground and a shrugging receptionist telling us the nearest bus stop for the airport was a mile away.

Arriving at midnight; had rung to tell them my train was late. They said no worries, ring the bell, someone on duty to answer it. It was freezing freezing cold when I arrived. I rang the bell. I rang them on the phone. I was out in the cold for 20 minutes before someone let me in!

It wasn't in Germany was it?? I've noticed that German hotels on booking.com frequently offer an adult, a teenager and a child a room with just a double bed 🤔

Montenegro.
But I have learned my lesson and either check specifically number of beds or just call them. DS was not amused.

Losing a booking for an entire tour group of people (about 45 of them). I was the tour director, and it was my job to sort it out. Over the Easter weekend, in London, with the company's main office mostly closed. There were, apparently, no rooms available anywhere else in London. They told me this as we were leaving for our tour in the morning- "Oh sorry, we've got no rooms for you tonight!", and I spent a long long day hiding the news from the group and being all jolly, whilst clandestinely telephoning EVERYBODY trying to sort it out. There was about an hour remaining before I was going to have to break the news to the group that they had nowhere to sleep that night, when the hotel phoned me back. "Panic over, looks like we've found the booking after all!" Fuckers.

Told me the hotel was wheelchair accessible and there was a lift up to the entrance. This was true but unfortunately, the lift only worked from inside the hotel. I had no way of getting into the hotel other than phoning the hotel reception and waiting for someone to pick up the phone and then operate the lift. Luckily, a kind guest helped out when they saw me waiting outside for 20 minutes.

Another wheelchair accessible hotel put me into an ‘accessible’ room complete with a very high bathtub that I had no hope of getting into. I didn’t shower for a few days 😬

Last year I stayed in a hotel where the lift had broken down. It hadn’t occurred to the receptionist that I couldn’t use the stairs to get to my room instead. I moved to a hotel across the road in the same seaside town and the staff said I wasn’t the first guest to have done that!

I’ve got 8 different hotels booked over the next 12 days so I may be back to this thread

in the meantime my gripe was Disneyland Paris - Newport bay hotel, room obviously hadn’t been cleaned properly for weeks think deep dust and hair in corners, hair in shower, only one damp towel (family room for 4 booked), and I swear the sheets had been slept in but couldn’t prove that one. Give them their due, went to the park and was the cleanest room in the park when we returned at 11pm that night with a bottle of wine and two Fanta lemons plus a sorry

Apartment hotel in Corfu. My son went to plug his phone in to charge and got an electric shock. Luckily not bad one. There was a broken off part of plug jammed in the socket. I informed the manager straight away. He shrugged and said he'd send someone to put a bit of tape over it. Tape arrived 2 days later.

Read some reviews on it a few years later and it emerged they were one of the places that cashed in on the "return to Europe" holiday surge in 2022 and cancelled loads of bookings so they could readvertise for double the price. Shysters!

Hotel in Scotland informed us there was a night porter who would let us in once the doors were closed in the evening, so we didn't need an external door key or code. When we got back, about 1am (not crazy late) he didn't respond to the night bell or repeated phone calls. We were stood there shivering for the best part of an hour! I was furious and tore several strips off him when he finally appeared.

Husband & i went to Greece, on a weeks holiday! There had been a very bad storm. We went to check in, we were advised that there was no water, the hotel was using generators for lighting. We had been travelling 0ver 10 hours + we had missed the evening meal by minutes. The manager said that they would send up some food. They gave us two Ham & salad rolls, between us. My husband had to go to reception to get water in bottles.
The next morning, guests were filling up buckets from the pool, to flush toilets. We did not make any demands, we were so tired. When we woke, we had mosquito's in our room. The screen was not closed in the night. Still no water, could not wash our teeth or use the toilet. Not a holiday that i would like to repeat!

Gave me a key to a room but when I opened the door I woke a very confused French man!

Given key to a room to find it was the incorrect room and already occupied! No people thankfully but just their luggage.
booked a spa weekend at a fancy hotel to be told no spa treatments available when we arrived. Treatments were in the booking price and no communication from the hotel that we needed to book beforehand! We got our treatments refunded which helped pay for wine…. They also offered us another break, which we did take up despite other gripes… really really slow dinner service we gave up on pudding.
ordered room service and it never arrived… we went down to the bar in the end and cancelled it.