Cyprus and our guests
My boyfriend and I tootled off in October for our first holiday together. Everything was wonderful, the apartment clean, the sun warm, the pool splashy, the food good and the holiday romantic.

However to keep us on our toes the land of the insects decided they'd come visit.

Every morning at half seven I would be woken without fail by a strange red buzzing fly. He would boink off our window and fly away happy that his job as an alarm was going well.

Then there was the tiny green beetle who would pop out of a crach in the bathroom to say hello everytime I went for a pee, and happily crawl back in when I left the room.

Or the little ant who perhaps fancied himself a plumber and investigated the shower with great gusto.

Or the leaf shaped one who felt that he had never had a comfier bed than our curtains.

Or the centipede who came doddling in, and was prompty thrown down the stairs, only to appear tearing across our floor determined to atleast reach the chair as I was telling my sister about his first visit.

Not to mention the wasp who thought he was a dog and pretended to play dead when we caught him in a glass on the floor. Upon lifting it off, up he got and crawled about only to be removed by my mister.

It was very thoughtful of them all to visit and check in on us like that. So Cyprus... Even the insects are friendly to you.
( vix0r was not Matthew on, Thu 24 Jan 2008, 1:39, 1 reply)

Amsterdam last year
Me and two friends were touring Europe and our first port of call was the fine city in Holland. We got to a tourist infomation who proceeded to tell us that most hotels were booked for the night and that we'd probably have trouble finding somewhere to sleep. Most hotels bar, the fantastic "lucky travellers paradise". I can't be too critical, the owners were friendly, although didn't ask any questions who we were, why we were there or if we were going to embark on beastiality. The rooms were very interesting to say the least; it looked like a child had decorated the room, for themself. Still it wasn't a bad nights sleep, unless you add that my friend is prone to sleepwalk and in the middle of the night told me to turn the light on because our bags were made of chewing gum.

The wonderful lucky travellers paradise hotel!
(Hagbard MacDougal, Thu 24 Jan 2008, 0:12, Reply)

cardboard
in a bush.
(Richard Pryor setting himself on fire while freebasing crack cocaine in the 80's I ONLY USE PAINT!!?!?!?!!, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 23:56, Reply)

Guns n Wankers
Stayed in hostel in suburbs of New Orleans.

At check in the guy said "When you go out, head South - it is safe - but don't go North - it is dangerous"

Sure enough the sound of nearby gunfire soon split the air from the North. Slightly disconcerting but not as downright ugly as waking up the next morning to the unmistakeable fwapp-wank noises from the bloke in the other bunk.

Bright spot was the 24-hour bar round the corner to escape such madness.
(chas diamond All the way?, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 23:41, Reply)

Since other people are talking about student houses...
I'll chuck in my experiences.

My block in my halls of residence was built on a spring (clever builders!). Damp all along the hallway and in most bedrooms, worst affected one was slowly turning black and the guy left as soon as he could after less than 2 terms.

Student house no.1 was actually alright. Furniture and décor pretty shabby and the bathroom was out the back on the ground floor so cold and a bit mildewy but nothing that a bit of elbow grease couldn't shift. Then the cooker broke. The landlord investigated the strong gas smell emanating from the back of it with a lighter, whilst casually explaining to my housemate that it was a silly thing to do and she shouldn't try it. Err... yeah. I didn't return from work to the scent of exploded landlord so that was ok.

House no. 2 was alright except for the housemate with NO concept of personal hygiene, but you can't blame the landlord for that. Often wish we'd just evicted stinky guy and stayed there.

House no. 3 was better decorated and with better furniture but 2 of the bedrooms suffered quite badly from mildew which we later found out the landlady just painted over between tenants, so we wouldn't have seen it before living there a while. The bathroom had quite a chronic woodlouse problem, even in the summer you'd find the ugly little buggers all over the floor and bath. Then it got broken into and we moved out as soon as the contract expired.

Which brings us up to the current house. We are no longer students, but we are still poor so used student websites to find this place. We knew it was shabby but requested that a lot of repairs be done before we moved in to which the landlord agreed and wrote into the contract.
6 months in, one bathroom has been so badly affected by mould that it literally stunk out the whole house and because the ceiling is so high only the tallest housemate could clean it with a mop and standing on a stepladder. The other bathroom, which has been flooding on and off since we moved in, flooded really badly and we finally managed to get the landlord to look at it. He was horrified. There was 2 inches of black, scummy, sewagey water built up under the bath. The framework of the bath is like sponge it has rotted so much. The smell was indescribable. Did he clean it? Did he feck. There went my Friday night. He did get a drain man to sort out the overflowing drain outside which had caused the problem though.
Every bedroom bar one (there are 6 altogether) has damp one way or the other, but my housemate noticed last weekend that there seemed to be something weird going on with the back of his wardrobe. It felt damp and was dark and a bit whiffy. He pulled it away to reveal the worst damp imaginable. There was a part near the bottom of the wardrobe that was so thick and white that it looked like bubble bath. As he pulled the wardrobe apart, one of those little screw cover thingies flew off and embedded itself in the mouldy wall and sat there, held in place horizontally. We took photos of that so we have evidence for Environmetal Health if the landlord doesn't pull his finger out.

There are plenty of other minor things but I could write a novel if I kept on.

I'm female so no length jokes here.
(sanity challenged, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 22:31, Reply)

Final Story of my long and frankly terrible list
I have mentioned my escapades in this Great Kingdom of ours, and now I feel that I should mention our dirty cousins on the continent.

Greece - I have yet to stay in a place that didn't make me feel dull throbbing disappointment. I am aware that accomodation is "basic" but I do believe that every shower head deserves a place to rest, (and I am NOT talking about between my knees as I lather up my hair) Toilet paper should go INTO the toilet and not in an icky bin, and scratchy blankets should be ruled as "against basic human rights" in the EU constitution.

Spain - Every tourist entering Spain should be required to sign an oath promising not to:
a) Sing Viva Espagna at all. Not once. Not even when drink has been taken
b) Moan about the sausages
c) Say "Oh, I can't wait to get home and have a nice cup of tea"
d) Embarrass us as a nation by being complete fuckwits

On top of this they should also be aware that people quite like to go to sleep AT SOME POINT IN THEIR HOLIDAY. I'm always exhausted when I come home from Spain. Not because I've been out spanking it hard, but because some British fools have got over excited, drank too much and sang footie songs all night long.

Portugal - I stayed in a half built hotel complex. The best kip I got was when I ate some goat, drank 2 bottles of Mateus Rose, got poisoned threw up for 2 days and then fell into an exhausted slumber.

I have decided. I'm sleeping in my own bed forever from now on.
( my_cat_has_no_shoes meh meh meh MEH MEH, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 21:25, 1 reply)

Holiday in OCD
74

Thats how many little laminated notes were left around the house we stayed in on a happy family holiday

It also included a large book with photocopied versions of all 74 post it notes.

"Please close cupboard after using it. Thank you"
"No ball games in the garden"
"Do not step on the grass"
"Do not leave the tap running"
"Do not touch the ornaments"
"Do not have fun"

We decided to leave when the paranoid twat actually came into the house during the day (while we were out) to make sure we hadn't stolen anything.
(Ellytots Last thought of chocolate on, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 21:13, Reply)

Travelodge
i stayed in a travelodge once and the manager was serving behind the bar, blind drunk. as in, totally sodding legless. she gave me 2 free pints because i said they were flat after drinking them. said 'black russian please' and got a white rum, dark rum and (diet - ick) coke?? wasnt nice but drank anyway. she started crying after a while after saying she wasnt even supposed to be working(?) and had been for two days. complete farce. room was nice tho.
(rollerdisco, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 20:42, Reply)

Travelodge. Christ.
I'd just checked into a Travelodge somewhere near Cardiff. As the less fortunate of you may know, they have a "Good Night Guarantee". The receptionist on this occasion was a 16-year-old fat goth bird who exuded surliness like the Daily Mail exudes conceited bigotry.

Receptionist - Have you stayed before sir?
Me - Yes, many times.
R - So you've heard about our Good Night Guarantee?
M - Yes, I have.
R - So you know that if there's any problem with your room you're entitled to a full refund?
M - Yes, I do.

But this time I *did* have a problem with the room. I'd booked the last room, a disabled room. Instead of a chair there was a handy blank space in front of the table to park one's wheelchair (because all disabiliies expressly imply dependence upon a wheelchair, don't they.) I needed that chair for wanking so I went back to the deserted reception, where I'd seen three lined against a wall.

Me - Excuse me, there's no chair in my room.
Receptionist - Yeah, it's a disabled room.
M - Can I borrow one of these ones then? I'll bring it back first thing.
R - No. Health and safety.

And at the merest shadow of a chance that I might invoke the dreaded Good Night Guarantee she promptly stood up and locked herself in the office.
(Whizzer, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 17:00, 2 replies)

Let the train take the strain
Cple of A gay mates decided to 'do India', but do it in style. Moderately deterred by the stories of delhi belly etc, they decided to pay top whack and go 1st Class sleeper train to their various destinations.
They had their own chef, carriage etc, and yet were still getting ill, and couldn't understand it... till they poked their heads round the kitchen/prep area door...and found the chef doing the washing up... by flushing the plates in the toilet...
(Countryslicker, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 16:48, Reply)

Victoria (I think) Hotel Glasgow
Now this is a story about the idiocy of a uni, not the hotel (which was very nice but up the side of a very fucking tall hill which was a lot of fun walking up after a night on the ale)
We had a field trip out to Glasgow as part of our course and the uni, in it's infinite wisdom, decided to book a whole hotel for the deluge of students who would be going.

1st mistake: Rooms were assigned on an arbitrary basis with no consideration for friendships and the like, so we just swapped and changed rooms as required
2nd mistake: As they had decided to rent the whole hotel they got double and single rooms.

Anyways, 2 of the guys (who really didn't know each other that well) end up sharing a double bed (I was lucky to be assigned a twin room so got my mate out of his double room quick).
Back to our 2 heroes, they decide all will be ok as long as both of them pick a side and stay there. One wakes up in the middle of the night to find the other guy has moved over in his sleep and now has his arm over him!
That was pretty funny the next day at breakfast!
(Fuckarma was masturbating into your handbag, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 16:32, 2 replies)

Don't use the kettle!
Not so much a bad experience with a hotel but a mate has told me something which has meant I can never use a hotel kettle again!

He was once told by someone who worked in a hotel that people shit in the room kettles. This has raised several questions. Firstly, why? Secondly, how? I'm not sure I could aim that accurately. Anyway, the flipside is I can never use a hotel kettle now as I'm worried that there might be some extra fibre in my cuppa.
(FiatPanda, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 16:27, 1 reply)

Wulfrun Hotel
Stayed in the Wulfrun Hotel, Wolverhampton (natch) in June 2005, in order to see Half Man Half Biscuit at the Wulfrun Hall.

Hotel was a dump, as expected, beds barely a foot from the floor, narrow and rock hard, with all sorts of dust and dead spiders and toenails and shite undearneath, toilets/shower rudimentary, etc. Didn't really bother me.

Breakfast, served at the cafe next door, was a nightmare of grease, with pale pink hardly-cooked sausages and a sliver of bacon attached to a thick margin of rind awash in the ruins of several fried plum tomatoes that looked like ruptured internal organs. Still ate it, though - the toast helped soak up the greasy fluids.

When we checked out I took out my debit card to pay, and the scrawny old bint behind the counter gasped, and said, "Oooh, I knew you'd do this to me."

In 2005... sorry, dear, for using a system of payment which is more or less universal. Well, it was the West Midlands.

[To any Brummies out there I lived in Dudley for 3 years so I am more than qualified to diss the place. As well as love it.]

Length? The rind was 4 inches long, 2 wide and a quarter of an inch thick.
(Dr Skagra glorious glargzhem, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 16:21, 4 replies)

Thanks everyone
Have just booked 4 nights in Florence and Rome in March for me and the missus.

Am very glad that I stuck to my guns and didn't read this week's QOTW until after I'd made the reservations.

Wish me luck...
(Milo Minderbinder, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 16:05, 1 reply)

Hungary can be quite interesting...
I went to Szombathely (near the border with Austria) a few years ago to take part in a contemporary composition symposium. Despite us being the cream of the world's young composers (apparently), we were given weird accomodation. I think it was a boarding house, or a uni halls of residence, but we had to share rooms (I was in with two guys, but fortunately we knew each other anyway, so wasn't as bad as it potentially could have been). There were mice everywhere, peeling linoleum and wallpaper, the shelves were barely attached to the walls, and the showers were among the filthiest I've ever seen.

Also, the loos were of those funny "shelved" variety, which meant we had to be very wary of doing a long poo (this story by wingphil explains why: www.b3ta.com/questions/shitstories/post9269. I wouldn't have the shitty bollocks problem, but an overlong turd coming into contact with ladybits would still be unpleasant).

And every single meal consisted of: fruit soup, mystery meat with liberal lashings of cheese and potatos, and potato-meat-tasting chocolate stuff (we suspected that everything was cooked in the same pan, with no washing up between courses). A truly bizarre fortnight, that was.
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 15:15, 2 replies)

Travelodge in Cardiff
The TV didn't work (well, two channels did, but they were showing welsh soaps), there was no soap or towels in the bathroom, the wireless internet didn't work, the shower didn't run hot and the room was freezing.

Normally Travelodges are quite good, so this one must have been the exception.
(Half of Stephen Fry's right buttock pissed on your dog on, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 14:33, 2 replies)

Hotel Porn
As said in and earlier posting, I do a lot of travel in my job.
I have to pay for all the hotels and meals etc, myself and then claim back the expenses from the company.
Obviously, having the pay per view porno movies on the hotel bill would not qualify as a valid expense. I recall staying in a really nice hotel in Warsaw a few months back. My job involves heavy use of the internet, in order to connect through to our main data centre and then through to the remote offices, and while away on business we are expected to work through the night.
I noticed on the list of internet charges, that there was a choice of paying by the hour, or paying for 24hours (usually 24hrs charge is about 3X 1 hr charge), but this time there was a 3rd option, 24hours internet with all movie channels on the TV, it also stated that it would be shown on the bill as "Full internet communications package".
The next three nights was a major wankathon, I hardly slept at all, but watched every porno film listed, and shrek 3.
My cock was so sore, that for a week after that it hurt to pee.
( turb0t, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 14:14, 4 replies)

Chocolate Onken mousse walls
This isn't so much about the quality of hotel, more about the rubbishness of the night.

Last year I was living with my (now ex)missus and in the last year of my degree. It was the anniversary of us getting together and I things had been a bit ropey recently so I thought I'd treat her to a night away in a hotel (we both worked in bars and couldnt get a full weekend off).

Now, as a student I couldn't afford much so went on LateRooms.com opted for a quaint looking hotel in Melton Mowbray (cute little market town famous for pork pies? perfect, i thought) and booked a room with a four poster bed. Bang on.

Got there, and Melton in the rain seemed even more of a chav ridden dump even than Nottingham. Its a small town afterall. The hotel was little more than a town pub with some rooms upstairs. You know the type with the red flowery carpets and more fruit machines than varieties of beer.

Well, they never recieved a booking for the poster bed room and so had to make do with a regular double room that wasn't too bad but it did have a big lump on the ceiling and the floor slanted loads.

I wasn't too happy but thought we should make the most of it and proceeded to get wasted on the pubs drinks and some silly powder. Later in the night as nature (and substances) took its course we retired to our room for some fun an frolics, no sooner did we get in the room a than the bird complained of 'feeling funny' and then barfed up a previously eaten snack of Onken chocolate mousse all over the walls in quite spectacular fashion.

I must of thought i might still get some action out of the evening so i helped to clean it up and was quite sympathetic. That was until I went downstairs for a cigerrette and had a bit of a chuckle to myself.

Upon returning to the room I found i had taked the car keys and not the room keys and there was no answer from my (now wasted and unconcious) girlfriend. The hotel by this time was completely empty of guests and staff and I spent the next four hours wandering the halls looking for a staff member whilst still off my tits on said substances.

Eventually got let back in the room at 7am when the staff got in to make breakfast. We left sharpish and didn't exchange a word on the drive home.

We broke up the week after.

Length? (53 weeks)
(greasedupdeafguy broke something, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 13:54, Reply)

Inter-railing again.
Arriving at München Hauptbahnhof with large backpacks, we went to the tourist office to find somewhere to stay. We were told to walk up a particular street, where there were lots of pensions. True enough.

We went into one, the Monopol, as I remember. It was cheap, reception was smart enough, and so we asked to see a room, and were shown to a decent enough place. Three beds, clean, nice carpet, little pictures on the walls. Would this do? Oh yes, here's our Deutschmarks. And so we were left alone.

For 5 minutes. Then the reception-Frau came in and said sorry, there had been a mistake and this room was already booked. Could we move? No problem.

Except there was a problem. We were shown up to a dingy room with a depression in the middle of the floor, a fridge which sounded like a diesel locomotive and a window which didn't close properly, and led onto an external fire escape. Realising we'd been fleeced, we decided to grin and bear it, given that we had stayed in worse places during the trip for more money.

The most bizarre thing though was the pile of clothes on the fire escape. It was a full set - shirt, trousers, underpants and socks, and was lying there like its wearer had suddenly evaporated. I got my penknife out and fashioned some sort of means by which the window could be at least semi-secured in a closed position, just in case the chap rematerialised and wanted in during the night!

In order to get some sleep, we turned the fridge off during the night. This of course resulted in the freezer compartment defrosting and leaking a puddle of water which collected in the depression in the floor, and into which my mate Simmy's rucksack fell in the early hours. When we got up, we found a soggy rucksack having no obvious cause for its wetness, which had us confused for a while!

Oh, and the place was in the red light district. So when we went out for a pint that night, we had to walk a fair way before we found a pub which we deemed 'safe'. We were a bit naïve in those days...
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 13:03, 2 replies)

Vancouver
On my tour of Canada, I stayed in some pretty decent hostels. One of these was not the Combie. Look it up on tinternet, it looks really nice, loads of character. It's also overun by mice. The first night I stayed there, the rustling from the bin turned to pattering on my sleeping bag. I counted 4 in all just in my room. Next night I got moved to another room, this must have been the safety complainers room, because every hole in the wall that was chewed through had been filled with expanding foam. Great. Except that the local mouse population used the ceiling above my head as a local thoroughfare. Sounded like the mouse version of Oxford Street. When I asked for my money back at 3.30 in the morning, they looked at me gone out, like no-one had ever complained before of the mice. It wasn't a youth hostel, it was a mouse hostel, and the humans were strongly outnumbered.
(RickGrimes Quite frankly, disappointed on, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 12:45, Reply)

Having travelled a fair bit with my job I've stayed in quite a few hotels
The worst has to be in Hungary.
Fortunately I only stayed one night, and even more fortunately, the job I was doing in our office in Hungary didn't finish until after 4am, and I got to the hotel just before 5am.
I checked in, and they asked me if I wanted an alarm call, and I asked for one at 7am (yes I checked in at 5am), and he looked at me odly, knowing that this would be only 2 hours sleep, "I have to get to the airport for a flight" I said.
In the room, there was a single bed. Facing the bed up against the wall was wardrobe, it was a really cheap shitty thing, made of chip board, and the sort you would buy from a charity shop, split wood and coming off the hinges slightly.
The doors wouldn't fully open because it was too close to the bed, barely enough room to stand between the wardrobe and the bed. The bed didn't look as if it had been changed since the last person had slept in it, sheets all ruffled and dirty looking.
The cost of the taxi fare from the office to the 'hotel' was more than the cost of the hotel. I think after the exchange rate it worked out to about £25-£30 for the one night 2 hours that I stayed there.
( turb0t, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 11:44, 1 reply)

Griffin Close
I've noticed a couple of mentions of Bunglingham University's gulag student accommodation at Griffin Close. I've mentioned before that I used to be a supervisor there, and that meant that, for three years, I was one of the people handing out keys at the start of Freshers' week. (If you were a resident between 1998 and 2001, you'll know me.)

Arrivals day was horrible. Not just because of the numbers of people who'd descend on us wanting to get into their rooms NOW! - though their consistent inability to understand the notion of the queue and that we were going flat-out already was bad enough - but because we knew what was in store for the eager kids and their vile helicopter parents. Many was the occasion when we'd let someone into their new flat and scarper as quickly as possible, because we knew what the response'd be. There was a number of occasions when we had to tell arrivees that they wouldn't have any heating or hot water for their first week or so, for example, or that the oven had just been condemned, or something like that.

Dirt was a frequent complaint: hadn't the place been cleaned since the last occupant left three months ago? The answer was that it had. But in accommodation of a certain age, there comes a time when "thoroughly cleaned" does not imply "thoroughly clean". A level of general grime becomes pervasive: sometimes, a carpet just won't become spotless. The solution, of course, is to redecorate every few years. But Bunglingham never did that.

The thing is, though, that no matter how bad the arrivees' accommodation was, the supervisors' was guaranteed to be worse. This was because undergrads left for the summer, which meant that cleaning and maintenance at least stood a chance of being done. One or two blocks were renovated, in fairness, and weren't too bad. But when a supervisor left, it was invariably to be replaced by his successor on the same day, or the following one: there was never a fallow period in which the flat could be gone over.

Want to know what student accommodation looks like after 30 years with no maintenance to speak of?

No. No, you don't.

Length? I've had a thousand years knocked off my time in purgatory as compensation.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 11:36, 4 replies)

Banana Bungalow hostel 69th & Broadway New York
Dont. Just don't.

After spending the summer backpacking the USA this hell hole was the most expensive and yet the worst place I stayed.

I ended up in a grotty dark bunk room with similar properties to a boiler room and certainly the heat.

Fresh air was provided by the permanently open window which opened onto a central light well in which the noisy air con units (supplying where I don't know!) spew their fowl fumes, further tainted by about 6 inches of pidgeon poo.

You'll be treated to the noise of plumbing anytime someone on the 20 something floors flushes a toilet, the snoring of lucked out travellers or poorer residents of the big crapple. I lay there awake... for hours every night for a week. Literally wondering why I didn't just leave the room and sleep on the street outside.

I could start on the decor and overall lack of maintenance but I'd be wasting my time, seriously who in a right mind would pay to stay somewhere so bad you cannot get any sleep anyway???

Amazingly I would then spend the days sleeping in central park where the cool breeze, sunshine and grass made for a far more relaxing experience, despite the risk of mugging.
(golddust QOTW now revolves around being a cunt, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 11:34, 1 reply)

Milford Plaza on Broadway in New York
Cant be arsed to retype my review of the hotel i stayed in when i went to NY to work so ill just shamelessly copy and paste what i put up on tripadvisor.

“Danger Will Robinson BED BUGS APPROACHING!”

"This hotel might LOOK nice from the outside but don't be fooled. The room is a claustrophobic nightmare, the TV was old, the view was of a brick wall and the air con was like having a jet engine on....ALL THE TIME. Yup, it never turns off.

They are the good parts.

The real horror of this place lies under the bed, in the cracks of the walls (which i can assure you there are many) or behind the rank PEELING wallpaper. YES the enemy are bedbugs.

The first couple of nights i thought i was itching because maybe they used freaky detergent on the sheets. Well any civilised person would!

I woke up every day with fresh bits and the nice "3 in a row" bites bed bugs leave. I had itching sore spots my whole stay.

They moved me to another room when i complained. BONUS this room had a plasma TV....um but the bathroom was a mould fest and in the corners of the bathroom you could see DRIED BLOOD from the bedbugs previous feasts.

Seriously consider wether paying a few bucks less or being right in Broadway is so important. This hotel was awful, the worst i've ever had the misfortune to stay in. Dont be fooled by their glitzy website."
(Hoppkins, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 11:10, 1 reply)

Hotel de Vie
I stayed at a Hotel in Farnham whilst attending the wedding of one of my wife's friend. The place was called Hotel de Vie, we managed to get a discount on the best room in the hotel because my wife knows the owner.

Wedding was lovely by the way with a free bar and cheesy disco, you couldn't drag me away from either…

The hotel's décor is probably best described as burlesque. With arty pictures of ladies wearing very little.
And our room. The French room.
Lovely big bed in the room and erotic literature in the bedside cabinets, I didn't even have to search for grot a it was on display. A bath that had 2 showers and could hold 4 people comfortably or even 2 people thrashing about with vigour in the morning and a eye bolt hooked into the ceiling.
For the sex swing in the wardrobe.

Best hotel ever.
Not strictly in keeping with the QotW I know but any excuse to reminisce taken.
( Weejock, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 10:28, 5 replies)

Dinard, France
My school ran an annual trip to France for the second-year pupils who were learning French, and my parents allowed me to go - hurrah! Dinard was to be our destination, and we set off on the long coach journey from Manchester, during which there was much vomiting and similar such emissions from a group of children full of pop and crisps.

Anyway, we reached the hotel and the teacher told me that I was sharing my room with two other lads - Glen and Jason. Glen and I both had suitcases, whereas Jason had crammed his few belongings into a small carrier bag. As soon as we were handed the key to our room Jason grabbed it and sprinted to the hotel, wanting to bagsie the best bed. Glen and I followed slowly behind.

When we reached the room we found Jason bouncing up and down on a single bed by the door, laughing wildly. As we looked into the room we saw that there was Jason's bed, a double bed, and a bidet - nothing else. Glen and I looked at each other, exchanged friendly "don't you dare bum me in the night" remarks, and then chose sides of the double bed.

I naturally expected somebody to end up using the bidet as a toilet, and of course that happened. What I didn't expect however was to find Glen tapping me on the shoulder during the first night, pointing to the gap between the pillows. I looked, bleary-eyed, and saw that the entire gap was filled with vomit where he had been sick in the night.
(nasalhair The Twix guy!, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 10:23, Reply)

Suprise bitch, unexpected sheep!
My dad has a number of mates who, like him, like to hurl heavy objects as far as they can. Some of these guys can be slightly mad. Our hero today is called Hamish (as I recall. He's definately scottish, so it'll do.)

Hamish turns up for a competition, drops his stuff off in a room, and goes for some practice. When he gets back, he discovers that some official has stolen his room. Hamish is unimpressed.
"Ya took ma fookin' room."
"I am an official, this is my room now."
"We'll fookin' see about that."

So Hamish wanders outside, picks up a sheep (remember, he's a big lad) and hurls it through the window of said room.

Official scarpers, Hamish wanders back inside, throws the somewhat bewildered sheep back out of the window, and lies down for a kip.


He was not charged for the window.

With apologies to whoever did that rather brilliant christmas card for stealing the title.
(Bearded Whumpus In chav Britain, schoolgirl offers sweets to YOU!, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 10:12, 1 reply)

Floody French
A few years ago I went on a cheap camping holiday with some friends in France. The first few days were excellent as we basked in the sun and drank numerous beers.

However, one morning we awoke to find our camp site had turned into a lake during the previous evening’s thunderstorm. To this day I have no idea how none of us woke up on what must have been a howling night. We were all sleeping on those camp beds that are about 1-2 ft off the ground and this is where the water had risen. Everything was sodden… absolutely everything. We abandoned the tent and set off through the water in no particular direction. It was an absolute nightmare and we didn’t know where to go. The local town was in a complete mess as the river had burst its banks and poured into the streets. All local transport had shut down so we headed off to higher ground.

It took us a good few hours but we eventually stumbled upon a small town. It felt like we had been transported from a comfortable/modern European/internationalised 21st century/ cultural exchange trip into rural medieval France. The sky was a dark grey and the summer heat had been replaced by a harsh wind. As we trekked along the cobble streets we noticed that everything was bolted closed. Eventually we came across a small hotel… and here comes the relevant part.

Did you ever see ‘Allo’Allo? No, me neither. Anyway, do you remember the old grandmother that used to live upstairs? (If not, imagine an 85 year old bat shit crazy French woman). This was the owner of the hotel… which was basically her very old house. Most people in the world would have looked at us with moderate sympathy… like four young kittens that had just escaped drowning. The old woman took an immediate dislike to these dirty English youths and sneered at us. I tried to explain to her in French that we weren’t English (we were Scottish – auld alliance my arse) but she ignored us.

“Only 1 room.” (in French)
“Err ok we’ll take it “
“Only double”
“Err ok we’ll take it”
“No men together”
“…”
“Only 1 person can have the room”
“Bollocks”

Two people had lost all their money so we were going to need to share anyway. This wasn’t a problem for us but she was making it quite clear only one of us was getting in that room. We were sly bastards though so one of us booked the room and the others disappeared for an hour before breaking in through the back window.

The ‘hotel’ itself was something I’d imagine was near the front line trenches of WW1: No towels, no bath/shower, one sink with a dripping tap, no curtains, no carpet, no bed sheet… no bed. It was a hollow excuse for a room with an empty bed frame and two wooden chairs. We changed into some partially dry clothes and jumped out the window to get some alcohol.

The evening made the day bearable as we wound up in an old pub and drank our sorrows away. With a few beers in us we crept back into the rustic charm of our hotel and drifted off to sleep. The next morning I woke up hearing two sets of raised voices. One belonged to my friend and the other to the hotel owner. She had unlocked the door at 6am and came into our room whilst we were still asleep. She then proceeded to wake up my friend by poking him in the balls with her cane. She then started shouting at us in some of the most horrific sounds I’ve ever heard in my life. When she began to throw stuff at us we all made a quick exit out the window and ran out of the town never to return.

It remains one of my most favourite stories to tell. When keeping in contact with that particular group we always wonder two things. “Did we actually go back in time?” and “Do you think she would have provided a breakfast?”

Length?
The cane was bigger than her.
(bigbillybaws, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 6:25, Reply)

OT a bit...but meh.
Got a lot of crap holidays. Not really hotels per se, only ever had one experience with foreign hotels. (Turkey if you must know, and actually, it was probably one of the best ones.)

- The time in Italy, aged around 6. Was sitting in a restaurant, me having my staple of spag bol. (hey, it was italy and i was young) I load a huge forkful and just as i raise the fork, a train hurdles past on the tracks next to the restaurant, sending tomatoy sauce everywhere. Kinda ruined that day out.

- Spent a week in Germany looking a sheep and saying "Got a lighter? Leider night."...try saying it out loud....for a week...on end..

- Stayed at the Danish queen's wine-chateaux in Caix, France, due to my dad working as a bodyguard for said queen. Lovely place, although the princes own wine tastes like foxes piss. Seriously.. they called it red wine, but it was rose in color. And the tourists taking photos of us in the pool was fun enough the first day, but it got old REAL fast.

- The holiday to spain where we had borrowed an apartment from a wealthy family friend. It was an awesome place on the south coast of spain, overlooking the sea from high up in the cliffs. Had loads of rich scandinavians living there, great restaurants and shops 10 mins drive away, a huge pool, etc etc. Just that, about 8 hours after arriving, my dad got rushed to hospital with a pulse of 280+...was standing looking at the heart monitor on the porch of the apartment we'd borrowed, listening to my dad making wierd noises as he choked on the medicine they were giving him orally. (serously) Spent the following week doing 1. Drinking looooads of spanish beer and reading LotR 2. spending time in taxis to and from the hospital in Malaga visiting my father, and translating the doctors engrish to danish for my mother and little brother.
My bro and I ended up flying home after a week of this leaving my poor mother in spain with my ill father. How she ever managed this is beyond me, since spanish might as well be swahili to her, and her english skills consist of "yes" and "no". She's a hero.


That's about it...been camping a few times as a kid too, but those were suprisingly fun. Spent loads in the arcade machines tho.

Length Joke, not-on-topic joke etc etc...you're an imaginative bunch, make your own
(Jindrak, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 4:57, Reply)

An Escapade.
I wouldn't quite call this a hotel, B&B or a friend's house, nor would I call it awful, but I feel it'd be a fitting answer to the question nonetheless. For the sake of anonymity names and places have been changed, though the events in this are completely false as far as legalities are concerned.

Maybe this happened recently, maybe it happened a long time ago, but as a teenager I found myself in a spot of bother with my arduous, yet unhinged mother. I say unhinged, she did things like shout at the television, put clothes in the fridge to cool them down during summer, and defended her ideas with a ferocity I've never seen matched. Anyway, in a bout of teenage drunkeness and single-mother battling I was, as they say, "tossed out". Informed I was never to return.

I returned, but not after a couple of incidents that I'm not quite sure if I'm proud of or ashamed. I best get on with telling you about them.

We lived a little bit away from a large city in old Blighty, and thinking of myself as a homeless rogue I made my way there to find a pack of similar-situated scalliwags to pass the days with. The little money I had went fast on cigarettes and Carling, and as the city grew darker and the streetlamps brighter the roads grew quieter and that night cold came down, the cold that's all the more pronounced if you're alone, young and curled up on a bench with an empty bag but for your trusty inhaler, a smoker's best weapon. And a book, God bless you.

Eventually it hits one o'clock, I was awake and stumbled off the bench towards the rear-entrance of some club, hoping I could curl up beneath a ventilation shaft. It was pissing rain and I didn't have a coat. I was lonely, cold and like some ancient cliché from a film demanded it, a voice shouted, "You selling any drugs?"
Erm. Nah. "Nope." I replied to a gentleman and his lady friend who seemed nice enough and suddenly near to me.
"We're waiting on a draw." Said they, or something to that effect, and as the conversation went on I informed these two outstanding citizens of my predicament and was offered, in no short measure, a place to stay for the night. In the gentlemen's car, if I wanted. "It's dangerous out here at your age." they said and I agreed.

So, we spoke, and the gentlemen engaged me in a good conversation, he was drunk and E'd up a bit. He told me his lovely lady friend was a prostitute and they were waiting for rock. He was very adament he didn't usually do it, it was just a one night thing. He told me about his work to the top, from a similar position I was in at the time. Just GCSE's, no great ones, he worked hard, spent his money wiseley, invested it and had a great car, great apartment, and a great life. The whore and drugs confirmed this in my opinion. His car eventually came anyway and they took me to their apartment for a cup of tea.

I was expecting this to be some little flat. Maybe exaggerating. Let me say it wasn't. Obviously I need to retain some sense of anonymity for this fictional character, but let us say if I told you the city, told you to guess where these expensive and picturesque apartments were, you'd know them straight away if you were in anyway acquainted with the city. Inside was lovely, art-deco, awesome and beautiful and all. I was given a cup of tea which was lovely and a cigarette too whilst they punctured a beer can and smoked out of it. Apparantly it was bad rock however and it didn't do much for either of them, except his lady friend said it made her horny.

Que a couple of phone-calls, threats of people getting shot, and in between these this guy telling me about his family. Girlfriend, children, etc. After a while another deal was made and we went on a long walk through the city at about 2:00 am, to the dingiest, shadiest, most back-alley pool hall in the world. There occured a crack deal, a fascinating thing, and afterwards we went back to this guys apartment where they got high and the guy told me he'd be able to get me a job, I could work for him and he'd find me a place to stay - at that time I was tired and amazingly grateful I was inside. I realise in hindsight I'm almost quite critical of the event, but he's the one who's brought a stranger into his house and kept the kid warm, given him cigs, tea, crisps. After that he gave me a place to sleep inside. I didn't manage to sleep though, tried to ignore the sounds made between himself and his lady friend. In the morning, come-down, he said he wouldn't be able to give me a job, it was silly, my mother'd be worried and I'd be best heading home. And so I thanked him for the place to sleep and after a cup of coffee went home.

The next day I got arrested for getting attacked by some chav who accused me of stealing his wallet, spent that night in a cell, but that's another story. Essentially my point is, drugs and the hope of a job and new life aside, it was damn generous of that fella to give a homeless kid a place to sleep for a night, even if that kid was only homeless temporarily. So, if he's a b3tan, and can remember this event that transpired all those years ago - thanks. I went home eventually. Wasn't the last time I was homeless mind.

Length? I spend five hours in that apartment watching the sky brighten through floor-to-ceiling windows. I was really thankful too. And warm, and alive. All of which are positives in my book. My point being, it's all well and good to complain about your wet mattresses and extortionate prices - but it sure beats kipping in the rain. Also it's better than AIDS, and that awful goatee the Maddy McCann rapist has.
(sorry., Wed 23 Jan 2008, 3:23, 3 replies)