Ever picked the wrong hotel?

[Shirbutt]

We’re just at the end of a week stay at a hotel with outstanding reviews, but we can’t help feel we’ve messed up and booked the wrong one.

It’s a boutique hotel with 14 rooms. It’s meant to be the kind of place where people have dinner together or go for hikes with the owner in a group. However, we have been the only people staying here all week. So we have been the only people at breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. So there is zero atmosphere.

It’s very secluded, or so we thought. The beach is strewn with rubbish because an enormous all inclusive hotel is being built next door. So there is constant building noise.

The sea was meant to be a gorgeous clear blue. But because of run off, it’s a dirty brown colour.

In our case, that would be perfect! We totally don't care about other guests, as long as they leave us alone. What would be hell would be dozens of other Brits.

Usually I’d agree about that, but it’s a ‘naice’ hotel that was recommended to us. It’s meant to attract a good interesting mix of people. But just us this week it seems!

Maybe we use hotels differently then. We just spent a week at the Albert Premier in Toulouse, just room and buffet breakfast. 3 stars but that was fine, it was clean and comfortable. We use a hotel as a base for mooching around town and day trips. Pre-Covid we went twice a year to the Hotel Ciutat de Girona in Catalonia, that's 4 stars, a bit boutiquey, but we're back to France, our first love.

I'd be disappointed with that too, if I'd booked a holiday expecting a social experience to be part of the package.

I've booked the "wrong" hotel several times, most recently a package holiday with a major operator to a cheap hotel in Tenerife which turned out to be used mainly as a hostel for Spanish school trips. The dining room was full of teenagers shoving and shouting and the food was beige. But we hadn't planned to hang around the hotel anyway so it was something to laugh at ourselves about rather than a problem.

The impact of the building work sounds shit. I'd complain about that if they misled you into thinking it was a quiet secluded haven.

However I wouldn't book a hotel on the basis of other potential guests. That's quite a risk.

Unless they're actively dangerous or unpleasant I never get that bothered by hotels. They are just places to sleep. My kids have been taken to some extremely naice hotels and yet the one they always talk about fondly is the Formula 1 hotel in the south of France with communal shower/toilets and the lorry drivers shouting at each other all night.

I'm reminded of the thread some years ago where one MNetter was booked into a horrid hotel and came in here to complain. Turned out another MNetter was there with similar issues, they met up and had a ball! Very entertaining, must be in Classics.

Was one of them called Patsy?

The trouble is, you don't know until it's too late!
A pleasant hotel in Seville ran out of eggs & any form of protein for breakfast every day. Pastries are not a good idea for many medical conditions.

A 5* (allegedly) in Kyrenia had aircon that didn't work - complaints were ignored.

Worst was a place in Whitby; website was a bundle of lies, entirely unsuitable for anyone with a disability & the Manager couldn't give a shit.

I booked a spa hotel for a night in Spain. Turned out to be a place where the over 70s went for health reasons, piped classical music in the corridors, and everywhere smelt of sulphur. DS ate too many of the eggs at breakfast and was given the evils by the OAPs. I was a bit mortified but the rest of the family thought it was quite the experience.

I'd say leave a review so other people don't end up making the same mistake you did. Maybe other people are staying away because they read reviews that said about the building works?

only ever disapointed once in Marmaris the hotel was cheap and i should have known the room looked nothing like the pictures it was quite tatty clean but needed updating, and further from the main part than we thought it would be it wasnt awful but it wasnt brilliant the company i booked through went bust the next year i wonder why, stayed in an F1 in france overnight and found for the price it was fine

We once went to the municipal office in the Champs-Élysées to find a hotel for one night. I don't know if it is still there; it was run by the city of Paris and they would find you a hotel in your price range by ringing up until they got you a room, for a small fixed fee. That was in francs so it must have been pre-2002. They found us one, jotted down the address and what Métro station to go to. When we got there the receptionist said they had filled the last room just before, but his mate's hotel round the corner might have a room free. He rang and said it was OK. He walked us to it. The receptionist was a ragged woman with one eye. The room was tiny, and looked like it had last been decorated some time around 1960. The curtains were weirdly stiff. There was a communal toilet in the corridor, which was filthy (a brown smear on the wall) and you had to buy a token thing (a 'jeton') for 5 francs (about 50p) if you wanted hot water in the communal shower, which wasn't much better. Still, it was late at night and £25 wasn't too bad. We were off to Gare de Lyon at 6 AM the next day.

Well yes, but in totally different circumstances.
We went to Australia for a month, starting in Perth. I booked us a hotel for our first two nights, decent reviews, with a pool.
Red flags as soon as we showed up. They said to try and put our hire car at the back, due to safety (there was a small lot out front). Then our room had an outer metal grate, and an inner door. They told us to be sure to lock both of them.
It was the kind of hotel for people travelling for business who just wanted a bed and not spend too much, in a convenient location, not at all suited for a family with young kids on holiday. Not at all like it seemed in the website. Afraid it coloured our whole experience of Perth.
We went to Margaret River next and stayed in a lovely hotel thank goodness!

I would be really disappointed with this OP, I’d hate to stay in an empty hotel. I love to people watch and the fact that it’s so small and meant to be a social experience makes this even worse.
I know the sea and litter would really upset me too.

SabrinaThwaite
Quite similar experience. Mid twenties a friend and I booked a winter week in Portugal. Turned out all the other guest were OPs on long stay deals and nothing nearby was open. We spend the evenings playing cards with old men.

What hotel was that? I live in Perth, if it was Seasons you're right its a dump. Glad you got a nice hotel in Margs though, but Perth does have nice hotels too, honest!

My worst hotel was when I was eighteen and went abroad with my boyfriend for the first time. We booked the cheapest hotel in the brochure, it was an 18-30 in Benidorm. 18-30 hotels are NOT designed for couples. we were shunned for not buying all the excursions and my bloody boring boyfriend was not impressed at all with all the poolside shenanigans! And then he got heat stroke so was ill for half of the holiday. We broke up not long after getting home (blessing in disguise really) as I was off to uni. Thank god for the internet now where you can check out reviews, in the old days you just had a few photos in the brochure to go on.

I can think of loads of disappointing, dodgy or judge plain odd places I’ve stayed (trucker motel in Brazil with no locks on the doors springs to mind) but the Champs-Élysées story reminded me of a funny one.

I was in Venice for one night with friends and we went to the tourist desk at the main train station to find a room. We were pleased to find somewhere for about ten euros each. Turned out to be a convent that accepted women travellers for the night. No problem.

We explored Venice for the day and then after dinner we returned to the hostel-convent at something like ten o’clock to find it completely silent and locked. After banging on the door with increasing desperation, it finally opened. We were taken to a room and given a real scolding for not meeting the 9pm curfew. We were then led to the dormitory, which turned out to be a vast hall filled with lines of beds, each occupied by a silent woman. Looked like a WWI hospital. Some combination of relief, shame at being told off and the unexpected sight of rows of women already sleeping in their beds like the good girls we were not tipped me over the edge and I couldn’t stop laughing, which spread to my friends. We were very lucky to be allowed to stay at all after that and left as soon as possible the next morning!

I'm at one now. Until 10 am it's really peaceful in a beautiful setting on a lovely beach. As soon as the pool bar opens the europop music blasts out all day, overlaid in the afternoons by the heavy base music from a neighbouring party bar. No one has mentioned this in any reviews but had I known about it I wouldn't have booked this hotel. The website said the hotel was a calm and relaxing environment (which it's not). I don't want to be in a hotel where I'm forced to listen to everyone else's awful music. The hotel has a mix of ages and I can't believe I'm the only one who would prefer some more tranquility.

I’m in one right now. It’s ok but was disappointed when we got here. AI buffet is like a canteen (very different to a previous experience of AI), hotel is quite tired, not the 5* I was expecting. Oh well back to villas for us, they’ve always been fab