On the top of my list is IBIS at AMS Amsterdam Airport.
I had an "red eye" flight very early in the morning out of AMS. I was looking for a reasonable priced Hotel on the Internet, found this IBIS, nice pictures etc. I did not expect anything fancy, just sleep a couple of hours. This Hotel feels like a well organized jail. They used the cheapest stuff you can find on the market. Very small rooms, old and shabby. I really felt bad.

Clear winner: The Regent Palace.

Right on Picadilly Circus in London. Total dump. I was on a very tight budget with three friends several years ago. We got a triple room for one night. Puke from drunk guests in the community bathrooms. The smell in the halls was either industrial strength cleaner or beer/vomit, etc. depending on the time of day or night.

And, when it came time for us to draw straws to see which one of us was going to sleep on the floor...

Geo1004:

Holy cow, this Regent seems to be really bad. It looks to me that I was "lucky" with IBIS.
BTW I payed NLF 199 (= $ 80) for IBIS and only BF 3,200 (= $ 70) in Brussels (WWW/Weekend special) for the first class Le Plaza (steigenberger Group) in Brussels.

The Radisson Edwardian Savoy Court Hotel GRANVILLE PLACE LONDON, GB W1H 0EH 44-20-74080130

This place barked at the moon. The sleight of hand performed with their promotional literature is incredible. There is industrial property across the street which is noisy until 10 p.m. No air conditioning. The bathroom (loo ) was the tiniest imaginable. It was perfect for a hangover....never mind. No bargain, either. We moved out and went to the Churchhill Inter Continental on Portman Square. A stunning contrast. We stayed there in August of 1999.

Radisson refunded our money and provided a free one-night stay anywhere in Europe. I took the stay in Basel, Switzerland.

Gotta say that it was this total dump in Valencia, Spain in 1992. My friend and I were backpacking on a very, very tight budget (less than US$15 a day) in December.

Found this hotel in a slum, no heat (the window wouldn't close), only 1 thin blanket per bed, gross bathroom down the hall, showers cost extra - we couldn't afford to pay that day - went without

And, just 1 more thing, right next to a church whose bells went off every 1/2 hour

But must say, even though at the end of 1 month on the road with very few showers - remember that budget - it was an awesome time!

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I wish I were 1,000 miles away

[This message has been edited by Redhead (edited 09-20-2000).]

It was my first time in Malaysia. I had just gotten off the train in Kuala Lumpur (coming from Singapore.) It was just past midnight. I threw my backpack on and wandered around the "Chinatown" close to the train station. Found the "Lee Mun Travelers Inn." For 12 ringgit (about $3 US) I got a mattress full of bedbugs and a hotel full of hookers. Finally fell asleep and woke up with reddish bug bites all over my body. Next morning I felt so sorry for myself that I treated myself to a big breakfast at McDonalds!

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Travel is a powerful antidote to contemporary American arrogance.

Whoa. EastWest's hotel probably takes the cake, albeit the nocturnal activities of the working gals would have provided entertainment.

My worst hotel stay was at the Motel 6 in Douglas, AZ. Pretty shabby room with a one inch gap under the door. But, since it was a staging area for the illegals who just entered Los Estados Unidos, it was entertaining.

Unfortunately, the county lockup was next door and "sqwuack! Prisoner Valdez (etc.) report to the office" was heard throughout the evening and into the early A.M. Absent some excellent Mexican food, the best place to eat in town was the Texaco gas station (also next door) which offered amazingly good fried chicken.

Lima, Peru, quite a few years ago. We spent about $2 U.S. We were on the 4th floor. The room did have a shower (cold water only), but you had to step over the toilet to get to it. After taking a shower the floor was muddy. At about 4 a.m., everything started to shake - terremoto (earthquake). We sit up in bed and hear glass smashing. We pull something on and run downstairs (We didn't know if this dump would collapse on us or around us). When we got to the lobby, the shaking had stopped. Apparently, the maid was a drinker and had stored a bottle on top of the amoire (sp?) and it had fallen when the shaking began. Very funny later, not so when it was happening.

Worst business hotel was the Toyu Inn in Maebashi, Japan, where the room was 5% larger than the bed. Nice lobby, however.

Maui Palms.

It shouldaa been a tip-off when the first thing we saw upon opening the door was an industrial-size can of bug spray.

Undescribable something clogging the shower drain.

Pubic hairs all over the bed.

Lifetime-membership for the wife in the "Yank-Harry's Chain" club. (worst of all!) ANY argument, ANY difference of opinion, I now get, "Remember the Maui Palms, dear? You booked us in that, I believe."

The worst has to be the Comfort Inn Downtown New Orleans. The room is huge, but damp, mud in the tub,the door locks never worked correctly for the entire night. Actually had a fancy lobby,but got to be the worst.

25 years ago, still a college student, drove from toronto to new york city... really late, and really sleepy, in the middle of nowhere, i checked in this little motel by the roadside... it was cheap, $5.00

was handed one bath and 1/2 roll paper towel... never mind room was tiny, smelly, sheets were soiled, i opened the cupboard in the bathroom, an army of huge, brown, plump, long antannaed(?)asian cockroaches came charging towards me... screaming, i rushed out and kept driving...
(would actually rather be stabbed to death in the shower than be crawled all over by these creatures during the night!)

Interesting thread, USA.

Two of the real disasters were of my own making:

Many years ago, when I was young and foolish, I showed up ah ... inebriated ... at the Sherry Netherland in NYC at 3 a.m. They checked me into a room that matched my condition; the surroundings the next morning were more ferociously awful than my hangover.

Drove Orlando-Miami one night in the early '80s ... ignorantly, I tried Route 1 after Canaveral as a `scenic' experiment. Reached the city fall-down exhausted around 2 a.m. & checked into a seedy LaQuinta ... a dirty, noisy and miserable little spot that provided me precious little rest.


Otherwise, a derelict-haven Best Western in Chicago, a cheesy Suisse Chalet in Connecticut (complete with mangy maid *walking in* at 7 a.m. shrieking `HOUSEKEEEEEEEPING'), and a cramped, sauna-like fleabag in Fortuna, Costa Rica are the worst of my particularly unpleasant recollections.
(and not to forget the supposedly elegant old Sands in Vegas; found a parade of ants along a wall, and the maintenance department arrived with Raid. Later, I looked under a bureau and found a mousetrap .... with a deceased victim. The front desk seemed annoyed when I asked them to remove it.)

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When we first got married, my wife and I flew to Houston ( on mileage of course)to pick up my dream car, a 911 Turbo, and drive it back to NY. We figured we would drive until we got tired, or arrested for speeding We were on I10 near New Orleans when we first tried to get a room. It seems there was a bowling convention in town, and every room for a million miles was booked. the desk clerk at some chain hotel recommended the "Magnolia Motel" somewhere down the road. In retrospect, it think it was the local crack motel. We checked in, and got a really dumpy room. My wife wouldn't even undress, she sat on the bed fully clothed, refusing to take even her shoes off. While I was in the shower, we had a visit from a small rodent ! Need less to say, we left in a hurry. We ended up driving all the way to Mobile, AL before we got a room, A Holiday Inn never looked so good. To this day, I think we were in real danger there, and not from the rodents !



[This message has been edited by Schutzee (edited 09-20-2000).]