What better way to wrap up Hotels Week than by rounding up the best of the worst hotel horror stories? We asked to hear about your most terrible, no good, very bad experience at a New York City hotel, and boy, did you answer. From tales of horrid management during Hurricane Sandy to disgusting questionable showers at a hip hotel, read on for the worst of the worst.
When paying for luxury means getting royally screwed: This comes via Curbed commenter Mochipug, who described an incident at The Lowell. "Booked a room at $1,000 + a night for three nights. Started when as the valet pulled away with my car, I realized I left my diaper bag in it, and the doorman called the driver to bring the bag back with him when he returned and they charged me $35. He was walking back anyway, why $35? While out, repair guys were let into our room by the maid (I caught them leaving the room with her, and they mumbled something about checking the shower head) and completely raided the minibar of over $180 worth of beer, booze, and candy bars. The desk staff called me a liar when I disputed the bill."
"We were also charged something like $25 a day because we used the fireplace, and again, when I said we didn't know there was a charge they replied that there is a sign on the fireplace mantle notifying the guests of this. Well there wasn't one on ours and again, I was called a liar, accused of throwing the sign away, and told that 'If I couldn't afford to stay at a hotel like The Lowell, I shouldn't.'
When we checked out and moved on to visit family in NJ, we discovered at our new hotel that our credit card had been maxed outcharged $30,000+ instead of the correct bill by The Lowell. This was after we had checked the bill, signed and paid, and left. The credit card company suspended our card so we had to borrow money to pay the NJ bill from my husband's parents and make arrangements to pay for the car rental too. (Yes, we were only using one credit card at the time). The card company then bounced our finance charge from 7.9% to 29% because we went over our limit and immediately charged us on the $30,000+. It took months to fix everything and we never got the APR rate down to where it was. Oh. We also left our phone charging cord and they happily sent it to us, but neglected to say there would be a $65 charge." [Photo Credit]
When communal showers were a bad idea:
This tale came from an anonymous Curbed commenter. "The Jane Hotel. I took a shower in the community bathrooms they have. I got THE WORST case of athletes foot imaginable. My feet felt like they were on fire. When I told the management, they sent a 20+ something preppy ivy leaguer to tell me to basically go screw myself. Never again." [Photo Credit]
When a powerless apartment is better than a hotel:
This saga came by way of our tipline. "When Hurricane Sandy hit, my husband and I were living in the West Village. Like the rest of downtown, we were without power for a number of days. After attempting to get through a couple of nights staying in the apartment, we decided to find a hotel room to make it through the remainder of the black-out. We figured as long as we had a shower and internet we'd be set. Finding any vacancy in the city seemed like a miracle, and our "miracle" was in the Quality Inn on 36th and 10th (spoiler alert: this name is a misnomer). Just to book the room we had to commit to two nights and prepay at $240/night (I did know if this was the going rate or if they were taking advantage of the demand due to the hurricane). We thought it was worth it.
We arrived to a dingy lobby practically in the Lincoln Tunnel. After we were given the key and a quick explanation that we shouldn't expect our sheets or towels to be cleaned during the duration of our stay, we headed up to our room. We were okay with the sheet/towel situation given the alternative option to return to an apartment with no power or hot water. About 30 min into our stay, we heard water coming from the bathroom. When I opened the door to look, water was pouring from a ceiling vent which was loosely hanging from the ceiling. Water was flooding the bathroom counter and spilling all over the toilet. I have no way of knowing if the water was clean or not. I attempted to call down to the desk to report the issue, but the phone didn't work. How convenient. We went down to the desk, and let them know in person before heading out to grab food in hopes it would be fixed by the time we got back. It wasn't. The vent was still hanging out of the ceiling and water remained all over the toilet, floor, and counter. There was no attempt made to fix the situation despite our return to the desk to remind them.
Even with the bathroom flooding, we hoped to make this stay work. I decided to try and get some work done and attempted to connect to the internet (this was one of the reasons we decided to book a hotel, and an amenity we were paying for). Not surprisingly the wireless didn't work. I then found the Ethernet cable yanked out of the wall exposing multiple open wires under the desk. Not only was this a potentially unsafe electrical situation (especially considering the adjacent bathroom flooding), but the Ethernet cable didn't work. I started feeling overwhelmingly uncomfortable about our near $500 deposit. I had no confidence that anything in the room was even clean at this point and after an inability to sleep we left the hotel at 5 a.m. to return to our powerless apartment. Our total stay was less than 12 hours. I would take our dark apartment with no shower any day over that room." [Photo Credit]
When hotels have bouncers:
Last but not least, we heard from Curbed commenter Ardenite. "Hotel Carter 2006. I got forcibly removed from a room by what I can only describe as the hotel's bouncer. Apparently they don't allow their guests to have a guest. Probably for the better though; that place needed a serious renovation and de-lousing." [Photo Credit]
· What Was Your Worst New York City Hotel Experience? Tell Us! [Curbed]
· Hotels Week 2014 [Curbed]
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