The Ritz Carlton in...

oh never mind..

Year: 1973 Hotel: "The Midway" at LGA

I had a 12 hour layover there and arrived 4 hours late. I was down to my 8 hour behind the door FAA crew rest. I was given the last room in the hotel. The ceiling leaked from the bathroom in the room above me, so I put the waste basket under the leak to catch the water. The flight attendant in the room next to mine complained to the night manager of the terrible smell in her room. The manager gave her a can of disinfectant. The next day the F.B.I. met our flight. Seems the bad smell was a three day old dead body under her bed......True story.

EA/AA/FA....

Yikes........what a story.

I stayed at a hotel (the name escapes me) in Zurich in Nov. 1993 on a complimentary Swissair pass during a layover on the way to Malaga, Spain. It was at this time that I received my first lesson is Swiss frugality and functionality. No offence meant to any of the Swiss posters here either....just an interesting observation.

The lobby and restaurant where very modern and obviously new....and the staff very friendly and attentive.

Upon entering my room....it was late, dark and the lights where out...I opened the door, took two steps in and promptly cracked my shin on the edge of the hardwood bed frame placed in my path. Screaming in pain and four letter words I collapsed forward on the bed. (The light switch was on the other side of the room....not by the door which is why I entered a dark room).

Upon turning on the lamp beside the bed I found the room to be the size of what some of us have as our walk-in closets. The space around the bed to the walls was about 3 feet in either direction. The place was very nice and clean and new...etc...no problems here....it was just made for obviously one thing....sleep.

The bruise took a week to disappear.

This was also the same hotel that served me a coffee, orange juice and two croissants for the princely sum of SF 29 at breakfast the next day.

This seemed like a fun topic to revive.

My worst stay must have been at beach hotel in Sipicate, Guatemala, on the Guatemalan Riviera. (ok, I made up that last part.)

The first hotel was really spooky. Our "room" was about 20 x 30 with no doors, furniture, or floor -- just a straw mattress in the corner of a barn. An old guy and a young girl (who apparently lived there) were napping on the bed when we arrived. How nice of them to warm up the sheets on a sultry 100 degree day. Oh wait, there were no sheets.

Needless to say, we moved on to some "upscale" accomodations on the other side of the road, which included such amenities as:

• no sheets on seriously stained mattresses
• wild pigs and cattle roaming around in front of the unit
• effluent from a nearby salt production plant creating an enticing foam layer on the ocean
• fine dining, including whole fish fried in very recycled cooking oil poured from an old coffee can
• a bizarre role-reversed couple running the place -- a large, old, effeminate man wearing a Caesar-like get-up and his wife, an all-business-all-the-time woman who barked orders at him (and customers)
• permanently clogged toilets, and non-functioning showers

I remember at the time, my Guatemalan friend was pissed - at $5 a night, he thought we'd be taken for a ride.

Of course, in the big picture, it was exciting -- while I've certainly traveled farther from home, I've never felt so far away in my life.

Ah, to be young again......



[This message has been edited by snorkmaster (edited Nov 25, 2003).]

The Hotel Pennsylvania in Midtown Manhattan comes to mind - I was booked there as part of a concert performance at Carnegie Hall by my choir. I assert, to this day, that the fact that this property has "hotel" in its title is false advertising. Ratty room, nonfunctional air conditioning (94 degrees at 11 p.m. - I love New York summers) slow elevators, nonexistent front desk, and, the best, a "concierge" who recommended Sbarro as a good place for an Italian meal.

Perhaps Dave Barry summed it up best...

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald...ry/3375167.htm

Since this thread was born 3+ years ago, I am proud to have sampled the charms of the IBIS/AMS for myself! Got stuck there on a 24-hour mechanical about one year ago.

Compared to many Stateside Days Inns, Comfort Inns, etc., I didn't think the IBIS was THAT bad... rooms small and basic but clean. OK bar. Noted no hard-core porn on the TV but didn't really go in search either. I was most impressed by the sloping travelators they have to move you between floors... the place is sprawling, just enormous.

A hotel I booked before I learned to choose a real hotel chain and think about the surroundings and look up other opinions.. I stayed at the Days Inn near the racetrack in Cleveland, OH once.

Now, I've been through Times Square many a times before it was 'cleaned up' but I've never seen so many hookers in my life. I think I was the only guest there for a whole, very uncomfortable, night, and after taking a shower you felt more dirty than when you started.

Still sends shivers down my spine. My wife was there with me, and to this day I always tell her "well, at least it's not the Days Inn in Cleveland"

I have three choices.

In Toronto, while caddying on the LPGA tour back in 1982, I stayed in some dump, for $15 a night, that was located in the most depressing areas one could ever imagine. Between the sirens, cochroaches, filthy sheets and my ex-convict roomate, it was easily the worst night ever spent in a hotel. During the night, I never closed both eyes at the same time. I was too afraid. One night was all this 22 year old could take and I checked into some "upscale" joint near the airport by myself. At the time I was making $200 a week and if my memory serves me correctly, that's what I spent for room at this real hotel for the rest of the week.

In 1987, I spent a night at the "Hotel Midnight Express" in Kathmandu, Nepal. Upon check in they gave me a padlock and a light bulb. Use your imagination to fill in the blanks. I think I paid $3 for this once in a lifetime experience.

And finally, 1988, somewhere in the inner city section of Detroit, Michigan. Drive thru only check in with a bulletproof glass window,steel bars on the windows and doors of the rooms and the posted rates were based on the hour. And no, they didn't have room service.





[This message has been edited by Elite Nomore (edited Nov 25, 2003).]

Skopje, Macedonia - 1981 Then part of Yugoslavia.

MrsOpus, our friend Chris, and I were driving from Munich to Athens. The reason had to do with a jilted bride, a cancelled wedding, non-refundable tickets, a car purchase, a mis-appropriated AMEX and an urge for revenge. But that is another tale.

We had over-nighted the previous night just outside of Bar. Somehow, we got lost and discovered eventually that the friendly people along the route were trying to tell us that a bridge was out. Waving and yelling "brucke kaput" just did not register. Therefore we were very delayed after driving thru Kosovo. Upon arriving into Skopje (We had hoped to make it to Thessaloniki). Our guidebook indicated that there were only two hotels in town. I think one was the Intercontinental and the other's name I cannot recall. The former obviously was more than our maximum budget of $5.00 per night each. The later fit the budget and there was no other choice.

We checked in. Actually asked to see the room which was difficult as there was only one approximately 15 watt bulb hanging from the ceiling. There were 3 single beds and a bath. No restaurant in the hotel nor any apparantly in town expect perhaps at the expensive hotel. So we dodged the locals drinking slivovitz and smoking on the street and bought some pastries - that was dinner.

We bedded down since we were exhausted from dodging pot-holes and Russian-built trucks all day. During the night, the need to use the facilities arose. I walked to the facilities and the floor felt spongy, in fact it bowed about 1 foot.

In the morning under sunlight, we discovered that the spongy part of the floor was a threadbare carpet suspended over a large hole in the floor. The walls were a dingy grey which was not paint, the bath was less than marginal and had cold warm water. But think of the memories.

the name and exact location escapes me, but it was in one of those tiny, dusty Mojave Desert towns, I was the only "guest," it was maybe $15, and in the dead of winter there was no heat and no hot water. but I was exhausted and slept like the dead.

not the worst but certainly the most, um, eclectic was the former Gobbler Inn/Motel/whatever in Johnson Creek WI. red shag carpet on the walls, saggy squeaky beds, a roaring through-the-wall heater (which at least worked but sounded like a spare DC-9 engine), and a "Continental" breakfast of old doughnuts and nasty coffee. it burned down a few years ago. it was probably a fun place when new in the 60s but time was not kind to this style.

there's a Gobbler homage page here as well. I know that Likeks twit has the definitive Gobbler site, but I can't stand him.

I can confirm this property is a dog and it infuriates me that they charge 4* rates for a noisy sub-motel 6 room. But I can top that.

During my first trip to Europe when I was travelling in starving student mode, I stayed at the Henri IV on the Ile de la Cite in the heart of Paris. At 100F/nt ($2 extra for each hot water shower), it was the cheapest hotel in my Let's Go guide. My single came with a mattress sank about 2 feet in the middle. But that was not the worst. The communal toilet consisted of a pit hole. No seat, no TP, no flush. Since this was my first visit to France, I just assumed they had not upgraded to indoor plumbing in Paris.

Needless to say, I checked out the following day and upgraded to a 180F room that was 5 stories up a narrow winding stairwell but an even larger jump in quality. And I learned to never ever take the cheapest hotel listed in Let's Go.

On a very costly trip to see the USA, we spent a night at a roadside motel in Paw Paw, MI. Why Paw Paw? Well, every lodging option between Battle Creek and Paw Paw was full to the brim with crazy car enthusiasts. THe hotel room swe had was noisy, cold and smokey. I would have a better night's sleep in the truck than in the nasty motel. At the time, my Taller half was ready to take me to ORD and put me on the next flight home.

The rest of the trip had its ups and downs, but we'll never go to Paw Paw again.

As for the Henri IV, I have friends who swear by that hotel. It seems like quite the dump, but the place dauphine is quite lovely.

lala

I must say the Washington Jefferson NYC. This hotel is really nice outside and inside (lobby) but the rooms are tiny (I mean maybe 12ft by 12ft) and the hallways on our side (one has nice hallways, the other is like a hostle/a few hotel rooms) were dirty and shabby looking. I think a few rooms on each floor are rental apartments and only the hotel rooms have bathrooms (the "renters" use the communal washroom). The rooms were ok and renovated but the size was horrible.

On the way in at around 9pm I saw the El-Al crew sitting loading up their bus to JFK for the flight to TLV. I could not believe EL AL makes them stay in such a small and crappy place. I thought about it for a while.

About 7 years ago I was backpacking through copper canyons, mexico with a small group of friends. We spent New Year's Eve in Urique, a tiny village at the bottom of the canyon, about a 3-your ride in the back of a pickup down a winding, dusty, rocky road. Normally there was only electricity in this village from dusk to 10PM while the generator was fired up but this being a holiday and all they kept the plaza lit up until 1AM. At midnight 100 or so drunk men fired their guns in the air to ring in the new year.

We piled out of the pickup in front of what I believe was called Hotel Mision about 11:30. A crumbling stucco building, my room was on the 2nd (and top) floor in the back, very close to "the" bathroom.

The 2 twin beds were made from sticks and held together with twine. The mattress was a piece of burlap stretched across the sticks.

The roof/ceiling was made of flattened cardboard boxes with a piece of plastic drop cloth thrown over the top. I am not making this up. You could see daylight in places.

The bathroom consisted of a toilet, sink and shower head with a hole in the floor. The toilet had no wax seal so when it flushed, ...matter...would seep out from under it and run down the shower-hole. There was hot water, provided you found some wood and built a fire under the boiler about half an hour before you wanted to shower. This bathroom served 6 double rooms.

Being the only hotel in town, we stayed there for 6 nights. Each morning at about 4AM, a thousand roosters welcomed the day.

I think we payed about $12/night for the double we were in. It was one of the best times of my life.



------------------
-alan in sitges, home of the new, improved Si-Re-Do

My 12-year-old daughter had a very small private room at a hostel in Victoria, BC. I think it probably used to be a walk-in closet, or possibly a bathroom. She had a twin futon that was just slightly less wide than the room. There was maybe two feet at the end of the futon. So maybe this is about 4' x 8'? It also had a sink, refrigerator, and window. It really was not bad, just small.

The funny thing was that I had reserved this thinking we could both sleep there. However, when I saw the room I decided she would get it and I would sleep in the adjoining dorm. That worked fine.

An Ibis hotel room my son and I had in Gothenburg, Sweden was maybe 8 x 10, plus the bathroom and a bit of a lead-in hallway. I had a double bed, and he had a bunk that jutted out of the wall. But it was beautifully done up, and the hotel was a moored boat, and there were gorgeous views of the river.

We had a hostel room in Aarhus that had two twin beds, just enough space to walk between them, and not much space at either end of the bed. So maybe that would be 8 x 10 also? There was the short lead-in hallway and a bathroom, though. This place had the feature of loud horns going off in the middle of the night (it was near the railroad tracks and the harbor). I can't say my sleep was seriously affected, though, as I had jet lag. It did not wake me up.

These are the smallest rooms I've seen, and I don't consider small rooms bad. Actually if I get out alive in the morning without insect or rodent contact and without my sleep being disturbed, I consider that a victory. So far, I am batting 100% in this category, despite my cheap tendencies.