Took my now ex wife to a fancy hotel to have some time alone. We had just arrived and gotten settled in, she forgot her phone in the car so I ran down to get it. While I was looking at it to pick it up, a text came through and I saw enough of it from the notification popup on the lock screen to see she was planning on having another guy come for sex when I left for work in the morning. I of course open the phone and check the entire message history to confirm that’s what she was planning. I got pissed, threw her phone in the gutter, checked out of the hotel asking for a refund and went home, leaving her there.

I yanked the room door open from the inside, forgetting that the latch was still on.

The door frame moulding pulled right off of the wall. The latch was only attached to the moulding and not the wall behind it.

I was making my way over-land from Vietnam to China and there was only one train a day from this town and the border crossing took too long.

So here I am stuck in this tiny border town and I go to the only “hotel” in town.

The “bathroom” did not have a toilet, just a 3 inch sewer opening where a toilet should have been. I had to aim as best I could. The bed was obviously rough, I did not trust the sheets at all that looked dirty. Luckily I brought my own little sarong I could put down. Too hot for any blankets luckily.

Later that evening the hotel keepers son kept bringing girls to the room to try to sell, and his parents were cussing him out over it at the top of their lungs while he was trying to present them.

The “hotel” was not approved for foreigners and the hotel keeper was adamant I get out of there early in the morning before the police came by.

That was quite the welcome to China, and the next two very long days in “hard seat” class on a meter gauge rail line winding through China, while beautiful, about broke my spirit.

Every other hotel I’ve been to in Japan was excellent, but this one was… not.

We walk in, the clerk didn’t speak any English. That’s fine, I don’t expect any different, and my travelling companion grew up in Yokohama and is fluent. (But is relevant in a second.)

Got to the room, sat down on the futon (a mat on the floor, very common in Japanese hotels that don’t cater to foreigners), and I look at the pretty spotted pattern on the wallpaper.

Then I realized that the spots were moving.

Then my companion noticed the same moving spots on the blankets we were sitting on, it was some type of small round beetle.

We immediately marched down to the front desk to demand a refund and leave. Except that my companion can’t do that, Japanese is too polite to demand. So I had to start yelling in English (a great language for yelling, even (especially?) if the listener doesn’t speak it). We finally got a refund and headed out to find a place that wasn’t crawling with bugs.

there was this hotel we always used to go to with my family during vacation, nothing exceptional but it was pretty cool. Then one year, for whatever reason, our two rooms were full of worms, on the floor, walls, curtains…they were everywhere. I don’t think we’ve ever went back after that year

Got bedbugs at a Comfort Inn near Columbia, MD. That was actually the second room they gave me. First one’s fridge was broken. They offered me a free future stay at that hotel. Needless to say they got the shittiest review I’ve ever left a hotel.

I was planning a long road trip that I could have done all at once, but decided to break into two days with a hotel stay somewhere near the middle. I was on a bit of a budget, so when I found a room for ~$60, I was thrilled.

When I got there, the shower handle was plumbed backwards (so the “Cold” direction was hot), the first towel on the rack had brown splatters that were very clearly old blood stains, and while I was showering a big roach wandered up onto the lip of the shower like “S’up, bro,” then meandered off like he did this sort of thing every day.

The bed was about as cushy as a gym floor mat, the pillows were bricks, and when I sat down on the desk chair to put on my shoes, the whole thing just about collapsed under me.

The review I left said: “The best $10 hotel room that $60 can buy,” and since then I just make all my road trips in one go if I can’t afford to spend at least $100 for a hotel room.

We should have asked for a different room but the thermostat wasn’t working right so all night the room was something like 27 or 28C. We opened the window only to discover our room was above the entrance to the hotel. We didn’t sleep well that night.

We found a frog in our room once. That’s the one and only time I’ve gone back to the front desk and said “get me another room”.

Side note: I’m British so it was a lot more polite than that. Conflict is not our jam.

Funny that this thread hit my feed last night. I don’t have a special story to tell, but every summer my buddy and I go to Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin to Road America to watch some racing. We used to camp but we’re in our mid thirties now so I’m a bit over sleeping outside in the summer. We’ve stayed in some cheap hotels before because that’s really all my buddy can afford. No big deal, don’t wanna break the bank for him so I’m down staying in a subpar hotel.

Cue me reading this thread last night and remembering I booked at the Super 8 Motel in Sheboygan. I go back to my booking and look at the reviews. Reports of bed bugs, holes in the walls, broken AC, ground level windows without locks, all that. Also reports of sketchy people hanging out in the parking lot all hours of the night, drinking and yelling. I find a slightly better place nearby but not that much better. Then I decided to expand my search radius to include Fond Du Loc. I find a place that looks fancy as fuck with an average review score of 9.4/10 on Hotels.com called the Hotel Retlaw. It’s $20 more each per night (4 night stay).

At this point I have 3 hours left to cancel my Super 8 Motel reservation before I can’t get a refund. I call my buddy, send him a link to the Hotel Retlaw, and said dude, I will cover the difference for you ($80 extra each if you are down for me to switch it up). He agrees immediately, I cancel the reservations at the shit box motel and book these. I’m out an extra $160 total but that’s SO worth it for a nice place to stay, especially when we’re outside sweating all day. The whole weekend ticket is only $160 so it’s not an expensive vacation.

I leave tomorrow morning so I’ll report back about it if I remember, but if you read all this, look up those two places and tell me how different they look for an insignificant price increase. I have a feeling if I didn’t read this thread and go search again, I’d be posting here after this weekend about getting bed bugs or some shit.