Hotel Horror Stories, Recs, Wishlists

Places I've stayed that were good.

El Camino Inn in San Francisco. San Fran hotels can be pricey (although maybe not right now) but this one was far enough from downtown, and away from a lot of the nonsense and I saw they filmed the Will Smith movie the pursuit of happiness had a couple scenes here. I stayed it was pretty. Car was not broken into. It ain't upscale or anything.

Queens Hotel on Queens Blvd you guessed it in Queens. Favorite OTC spot in NYC. Anyway only $50 for 3 hours. And then $50 deposit which you get right back when your done. It is really nice upscale place for an OTC spot. Just incredible value there.

Bogart Hotel in Brooklyn- Same thing as above, real nice for an OTC spot by the hour. 2 or 3 hours is like 50. Ain't bad. Full recommendation if in Brooklyn. Used be hoodrat part of brooklyn but that part is hipster brooklyn.

Wishlist for the future

I saw the Marriot Marquis Hotel in Atlanta in the movie Manhunter and it's been in other movies as well. s3.amazonaws.com It looks pretty cool though I fully intend to stay at this place just one night next time I'm in Atlanta.

Days Inn just below the entrance to SeaTac. Hookers hanging in front on sidewalk & at door. Checked in to 2nd floor room & heard noise from outside. Looked out window to see 8 foot chain link fence with rolled barbwire along entire top. I see two druggies leaning against outside of the fence while taking a dump. Room was at least clean, so tried to grab a few hours sleep before heading to final WA destination. Was awakened at 2 am to yelling from room next door saying "We paid to fill all her holes at the same time". 20 minutes later red & blue lights flashing in window, so I look out to see 3 butt ass naked hookers on their knees giving blowjobs to guys outside the fence. lights & moaning next door quit around 3 am. I was then heard a knock on my door at 330 am. It was 2 white girls, so I cracked the door open with the security lock still engaged. Blonde girl asked if I ordered take out for $100 each. I declined, then packed up & was on the road at 4 am. As I left, a hooker was behind the front desk blowing the night clerk.

Sounds like she got a free room, or at least avoided call to LE.

Also for the bad. First time I'm in St. Louis. Didn't really know the area too well yet. I saw a hotel online for a good price I said fuck how bad could it be. I roll up and the parking lot is literraly swarming with crackheads. I got the fuck out of there.

@Muddy I thought you were a sleep in your car in the Walmart type of guy. I only stay in hotels or motels, run by the major chains, and every one of the places I have stayed in, that I can remember has security, if the place is in a seedy area I won't even stop

@25 yeah most nights I do. But after a few days you just feel grimy and you need a shower. Once in a blue moon I do it. Unless I have OTC then I try to do it every time I want to be comfortable

^ When I was your age I don't remember any Walmart parking lots, but I did occasionally stop in a truck stop, I remember they had hot clean showers used to be a few bucks, and if you ate in the diner, they never hassled you about parking overnight you could sleep safe in places like those, there were some large chain stops places were pretty clean and the food was pretty good, you could even find a truck stop whore, if that was was you wanted

Yeah sometimes I’ll shower at a gym like planet fitness or a YMCA. But at the end of the day if I want to travel as much as do I have make the $$$ side of it work and nightly hotels don’t fit into that budget. Mentally it nice when you can say hey let me put that saved $120 into something like gas or a VIP

Motel 6 in Roseville, MN. It was a cheap spot for a tryst some years back. Except for the drug dealers apparently figuring things out and pounding on the door. Fortunately the lock held and they eventually left. I’m glad I didn’t have to use my Shield and I learned to avoid cheap motels.

Use Priceline, you can usually get a decent discount which puts the 3 - 3.5 -4 star hotels not much more than the cheap hole in the wall places, especially if you use the Express Deal feature. Set it up to pay with PayPal, don't even have to enter your card to book and pay.

I’ve stayed at the Marriott Marquis in Atlanta. It’s listed as a 4 star on some booking sites, but it didn’t live up to the hype in my opinion. I enjoyed my stay at the nearby Westin Peachtree Plaza much more.

Since I've been traveling over 100 nights a year for about 25 years, I've probably got over 3000 hotel nights in my lifetime. I used to look for cheap places when I was young and poor but now won't stay at anything less than a Marriott or Hilton chain unless there is absolutely no other option in very rural areas.

Plenty of funny experiences but nothing dangerous as you described. Funniest thing I did was at the Red Carpet Inn by the airport in Milwaukee. I was on a prolonged stay of over 2 weeks and had a room in a section that had paper thin walls. I happened to have a room next to a Popeye type snorer. The kind of snoring where the drawer and windows open and close with each breath. After a few nights I had enough and would call his room phone and wake him up and then hang up. It was funny to hear him cuss every time I did that.

Been propositioned by hookers in Vegas, been walked in by the maid while having sex because I forgot to use the secondary lock and heard plenty of sex going on in adjacent rooms. In New Orleans, my girlfriend and I had a running contest with the couple next door on who could make more noise. Plenty of laughs from both sides.

The one place I stayed at that was a disappointment was the Waldorf Astoria in NYC. For all the glamour in the lobby, the rooms were pretty bad. Best room was at the Cosmopolitan in Vegas. You hit one switch and every light in the room came on. Had a view of the Aria and all the windows it had. In the honor bar snack box, the Cosmopolitan included a pair of binoculars. My boss was propositioned by a black hooker in the lobby who used a clever line. She asked him if he had ever played human roulette. He said no, what is that. She said it's where you take me up to your room, put all of your money on black and hit the jackpot.

Worst place ever: The Village Motel in Fredonia NY. We were at our boat in Dunkirk and had company and only 4 berths on the boat. Normally, we would have gotten a room at the Sheraton Four Points in the harbor at the head of our dock. Cue the softball tournament sucking virtually every room within 20 miles. We found a room at this dump - the room smelled of mold, the cover of the iffy A/C unit had broken off, the bed linens had tears and there was only a black and white TV that looked like it had come from an ancient junkyard - it could only get antenna channels. Since I was the only male, I was forced to stay on the boat. I definitely got the better part of that deal!

Second worst was a place in Alexandria that was a relic from at last the 1940s before Alexandria became gentrified. A very tiny, cramped parking lot was the first thing that gave me pause. The kicker was when I was buzzed into the office and came face to face with a 2-inch thick wall of bulletproof glass! That said, the room was clean, if worn and the old black and white TV sort of worked. Why did I stay in a shithole like that? It was cherry blossom/school trip season and this was the only room our secretary could find.

In 2017 at the Hotel Benson in downtown Portland Oregon. This is an elegant old building and nothing wrong with the rooms. But in less than 2 days there they had 3 false fire alarms. The worst thing being I had stayed there 2 years previously and they had had the same problem. You'd have thought they would have fixed it in the meantime. Anyway I wrote a blistering review on one of the hotel rating sites and they spontaneously refunded my bill, around $500.

I’m not on the level of mike710 but close when it comes to number of stays.

Book my own hotels when traveling for work and for work or personal I never book below a 3.5 star hotel unless I have no other choice. For reference the max is 5 star and even most large cities have nothing higher than a 4 star. Many small to midsize cities have nothing higher than 3.5 star, sometimes 3 star is the max. Priceline and Hotwire have saved me tens of thousands of dollars over the years. I’ve stayed at many great hotels and years ago sometimes I only paid $65 but those days seems to be long gone.

Of course I’ve stayed in a 4 star that shouldn’t be a 4 star or a 3 that shouldn’t be a 3 etc. When in doubt I go to trip advisor which has often helped me avoid the crappy double tree and helped me choose the nice embassy suites instead which is down the road (as an example).

Three bad ones that come to mind are once I got a flight cancelled at 10:30 at night and they put me on the next flight at 5:00am. I made them give me a nearby hotel and it was a Microtel. Place was so shitty I slept on top of the bed cover with my clothes and shoes on.

Another time I was working in a small very bad city and stayed at what I thought was an okay no-tell motel. There was a lot of noise in the parking lot at night, every time I looked out there’s be two parked cars and people talking. Didn’t think much about it. Next day when I went to the business I was dealing with they asked me where I was staying and I told them and they flipped out saying 2 people were murdered there last week and one OD’d in one of the rooms. I then realized those were probably drug deals going on in the parking lot all night.

I once passed out at the Palace Station in Vegas (bought the room at 7am) after a long night at Sapphires and my buddy who lived in Vegas said “go there it will be cheaper than a cab to my house and I’ll pick you up at noon.” I had picked up a stripper with me and we were so tired we just fell asleep.” The room was horrible but oddly enough it has this nice freshly remodeled bathroom. My buddy picked me up, we dropped the stripper off at a Wendy’s and went to a pool party (we couldn’t drop her off at her boyfriends house who she was living with). That night the stripper agreed to meet me again at the room (so I actually went back since technically I checked in the same day) but she was a no show so I spent another entire night in the same shitty room by myself waiting for her. Turns out police were scanning the parking lot license plates at Sapphires that night and were giving her a hard time since she was driving her boyfriends car who had a warrant that she claims she didn’t know about. She said she actually took a cab to the Palace Station but couldn’t ask them to call my room since she couldn’t remember my last name (which I never gave her) and the room number I had txtd her and when she went to plug in her dead cellphone into an outlet to call me security came and harassed her (probably thinking she was a hooker) she got scared and left. That story could be all bullshit but I believed her because I went back to Vegas a month later and had a long , wonderful relationship with her, and crazy stuff like that always happened to this girl - just like many other strippers we all know as well.

My favorite hotel of all time (based on the hotel itself and not its location) Henry Autograph in Detroit. Right down the road from the Flight Club.

Interesting stories up there

Just a quick correction it was actually South Hill not South Boston VA for the above.

Back in the 90's I spent 1 night at the Memphis Inn in Memphis TN. Good thing I used the chain lock on my door. In the middle of the night some one tried to enter my room using a key. The had tried to rent out my room that I was already using.

The best was The Captain Cook hotel in Anchorage Alaska. My company had made my reservation and they acknowledged it but didn't have a room available for me. So they upgraded me to a suite.

^ oh I’ve been assigned a room somebody else was in so many times I’ve lost count. Luckily someone attempting to come in on me (for the same reason) has only happened a few times.

One time a couple and I checked in at the same time and were assigned rooms on the same floor. We go up in the elevator at the same time and go to our rooms and neither of our keycards worked. It wasp late 11pm and I could tell they were as exhausted as I was. They guy starts to head down to the front desk and I said “hold on, trade me keys.” Sure enough his unlocked mine and mine unlocked his.

BTW if you’re checking into a hotel after 8pm no matter the quality of the hotel the front desk attendants are almost always idiots. Night shift at a hotel is a job very few people want.

I have a handful of stories like this, including bullet holes in the door, pieces of wall missing, unsavory characters lurking around, places with shared bathrooms housing mostly what I'm sure were recent prison parolees, etc. I just don't want to post all the details because I don't want to re-live these adventures, lol.

But I won't do that shit to myself anymore. I'd rather travel or - gasp - even club a little less if it means being comfortable. A Choice Hotel is about the lowest I'll go now, but more often than not I'm looking for something a bit better.

I was thrifty in my younger days and stayed in some (literally) fleabag motels. Had some close calls with un-desirables.

No more. Stay pretty much exclusively at Marriott, IHG, and Hilton properties. Enjoy the perks and higher standards. Retired a couple years ago. I'm in spend it while still healthy mode.

I was recently in Spokane. And while I didn't stay there I was filling up at a gas station, but the whole hotel, it was a La Quinta looked nice btw but was surronding area was completely teeming with junkies. I felt bad for any family that might have booked what otherwise looked like a nice spot to have to deal with that bullshit.

And I had an OTC a couple years back at a hotel in the Northeast of Philadelphia (which is probably the only good part of Philly, it's where all city workers live) I think it was the motel 6 next to the Philly skateplex. Any way even in the daytime, courtyard was completely taken over by methheads. No family should be near that, it was Kensington North. I hooked up with the girl and gtfo.

You know I grapple with myself in my head sometimes, a 2 google rating place vs a 3ish rating place sometimes that difference is like 20 bucks. Sometimes it's just better to pay up a little, it ends up being money well spent. Stop being such a cheap fuck I gotta tell myself that. And Never in the hood. I just venture out to the suburbs, even if takes an extra 30, 45 minutes, well worth it. And for me not Marriots or Hiltons but you know like a nice Holiday Inn is super uspcale for somebody like me. Super 8, Best western have been fine for me too.

Years ago, I was traveling through Washington and made reservations at Motel 6 locations. No complaints or concerns until I checked in at a Motel 6 somewhere in Tacoma. There was a huge sign behind the front desk about photocopying (that's what is was called back then) driver's licenses and guest identifications. The clerk said it's a requirement of the police department. They come around like 3:00 AM and collect all the information from the motel. I replied that I feel like I'm in a jail.