xxx

Please share your stories!

Mel

I'll bite. I was a B&B in Dublin that had come highly recommended by a friend of my sister. It was well-located--just off Baggett and within walking distance to St. Stephens Green, Grafton Street, etc. But what a dump!! They put us in a basement room with a door out to the junk-filled backyard. The bathroom had a cigarette butt floating in the toilet and dirty footprints on the tile floor. Sheets were threadbare. We asked the owner to let us out of our 5 night commitment if we paid first two nights. He refused, but did move us up two floors. That room was clean and, I must say, we ended up howling on the floor at how spartan the digs were. This time we had a fire escape that looked down onto the trash and a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. When we headed out the next morning we saw a lovely home across the street with the same name, except it was the ___ Inn and we were at the ___ Lodge. We MUST have been in the wrong place! (I'd rather not give the name--I'm not comfortable with publicly slamming anyone or anyplace.) <BR>This runs a close second to a guest house we stayed in by Victoria Station a few years ago. That one we DID get out of after the first night!

Betsy

I don't usually respond to requests on the forum that are posed negatively, but I can't resist this one. We stayed in a very well-located B&B in Canterbury last summer whose strongest point was its lack of hospitality--the hosts were only going through the motions. In addition, and no less important, we were there during the late June 2000 heatwave. Our room was entirely decorated in red (red red), including the carpet, and there was no cross- ventilation because the window directly across the staircase from our room had been recently painted shut; my husband almost tore the window from its frame trying to open the darn thing. Our only salvation was an air-conditioned bookstore at the end of the street. The owner let us veg out there one ungodly hot afternoon. We were never so happy to see the shore of Calais after our trip over from Dover on the cool, cool ferry. <BR> <BR>Wait! Here's another one--a beautiful old hotel in Stein-am-Rhein, Switzerland that overlooks the Rhein. The view from our window was breathtaking. The fact that everything in the hotel, including the bathtowels, was infused with the smell of the fat used to cook the fish in the restaurant was also breathtaking.

andi

About 20 years ago, a place called the George Hotel in London. Beautiful from the outside and the lobby wasn't bad. The rooms were really strange. They had this textured, almost 3-D wallpaper, brown and orange. Also, there were just two of us but about six beds in the room. Very noisy because of lots of college students up all night. The whole place was pretty depressing.

mimi taylor

We left Bilboa where we visited the Guggenhein and travelling back to France through a heavy rain that caused stones to fall on the car and it was night and scary, so we headed for the nearest town and stayed at a small hotel, grateful to be away from the mountains. The floor creaked, the toilet was so loud that with the paper thin walls, we could not sleep. The shower was so miniscule, my 6ft 4 1/2 husband bearly made it into the cubicle. The walls of the toilet (as well as the dining room was fake stone paper peeling off at all walls. There were only one other couple there. The mother(hostess) sat in the middle of the floor chatting them up. The elderly father was chef. The son, a dead ringer for Norman Bates, quirky motions and all. Sunlight came as a blessing. I think all the garlic we ate saved us.

JOdy

At least 35 years ago , on our 1st or 2nd trip to england, i had a wish to stay in a "castle"! Don;t remember the name of the castle or the town, but chester-le-street and studley something sounds familiar. The desk clerk was right out of the adams family, dinky little room, but okay otherwise. The next morning at breakfast, the man next to us asked the waiter what was the red stuff on his toast? "OOI I must have cut me bloody finger" was the response! And he didn't replace the toast. we have referred to this place with many laughs over the years as " Crudley studley"

Mary

It was Saturday night, we had no reservation, and we were somewhere between London and Edinburgh. We finally found a place to stay. The room had electrical cords running all over the room. Evidently we accidentally unplugged one because the manager knocked on our door and berated us out for unplugging their TV. There was a small concrete moat-like trench in front of the front door that had corn flakes floating in it. Don't know what they were doing with corn flakes but the couple we were traveling with found corn flakes in their bed when they got ready to go to sleep.

Never Again

The Inverness Hotel in London which came 'highly recommended' by Virgin Vacations!! In our jet-lagged state, we were greeted with the following scene: <BR> <BR>Dark, dreary lobby <BR>Holes in tablecloths of restaurant <BR>Rickety elevator with lots of graffiti <BR>Constant sound of banging doors in halls <BR>Filthy, torn window curtains <BR>Slashed bedspread <BR>Closet with just 4 hangers <BR>Rust and mildew in tub <BR>Toothpaste splatters on mirror <BR>Bars of soap with hair stuck on them <BR> <BR>Oh yeah, and this was the room they upgraded us to after we complained!!! <BR>

Nancy

I can tell you a place (hotel) to *avoid* in Verona. The name of the hotel is Locanda Catullo. My husband has the name memorized permanently, it was such an awful experience. <BR> <BR>The hotel had been booked by phone by a local person we knew from business who <BR>lived in Verona. He made these reservations 5 days in advance and phoned us <BR>the info, telling us we must arrive at Locanda Catullo by 2 PM to check in. <BR>We rushed to get there on time and did get there by 1:30 (having to leave <BR>Venice much earlier than we really wanted to). By the time we took the bus <BR>and had a lengthy walk trying to find this Locanda, then walked up the 3 <BR>flights of stairs to the reception desk my husband (who is 47) was sweating <BR>bullets as he had a heavy backpack on and was also carrying another bag. The <BR>owner said he did get the reservations, but he was not going to honor them. <BR>He said he decided not to accept us as we wanted to stay only one night (which <BR>was what we booked). The owner confirmed that he did take the reservation for a one night stay but "now I have decided against it". My husband is fluent in Italian so he spoke at length to <BR>the man about honor and commitment but the owner wouldn't budge. He said he <BR>didn't need to because he is listed in "Let's Go Europe" and gets enough <BR>customers that we didn't matter. That was just how he stated it. He told us <BR>to go away and wouldn't even call another hotel to see about rooms even though <BR>he admitted he had taken a reservation for us many days earlier. We went a few <BR>blocks and phoned other hotels until we found one with a vacancy. By the time <BR>we walked there most of the day was shot, so we never saw more than a tiny bit <BR>of Verona. Locanda Catullo knows <BR>how to *take* a reservation but they don't know how to *keep* a reservation.

nancy

Nancy, <BR>did you ever contact "Lets Go Europe" with this story? <BR>Might not help, but if you emphasize how difficult it will be for you to purchase anymore of their books, or recommend them to friends, they may take your complaint to a "next step" <BR>It would be "just desserts" to have that place taken OUT of the book. <BR>Sorry to hear about all your stories. <BR> <BR>We had a Island / Tobago one. <BR>In 1975 my boyfriend's mother had her travel agent book us a <BR> a place at an "exclusive beach resort " guesthouse on the island. <BR>It is too bad, that the travel agent went to another agent working off the island of St. Lucia <BR>(does that even make sense?) <BR>We arrived at 11:30pm. was shown into a small ,not very well built cottage on stilts. <BR>As our host opened the door, and turned on the one bare hanging from the ceiling lightbulb, we saw three cockroaches , a good 9" long, scurry to under the bed. <BR>the room had one open window, with a sheet tacked across it. <BR>a bed with a saggy matress, one top sheet and one pillow, sans case.a small nightstand, and hooks for clothing and no other furnishings. <BR>We had a shared bathroom, which we discovered when the gentleman from the other side of the cottage walked in. <BR>Oh, and there was a few small holes in the floorboards, from which one could admire the pigs. <BR> <BR>All this for only the low cost of $400 /night! (in 1975) mind you. <BR>so, next day we left, let the travel agent duke it out with the owner, and checked into a very nice hotel. <BR> <BR>If I had been expecting this scenario, I could have gone with it <BR>(for of course, less than thew $400!) <BR>as I was young and use to roughing it, and camping out. <BR>But, this was definitely NOT what we had signed up for. <BR>Oh well, <BR>Makes a funny memory.

toppity

Now at last a decent travel thread that is fun but helpful.

Rosenatti

Nancy, I was so incensed by your Verona hotel story that I e-mailed the post to Let's Go: Europe. It hit one of my Achilles Heels: hoteliers who use their listing in a popular guide book as an excuse to go as bad as raw eggs in the noonday sun. I hope the Let's Go folks nail him to the wall -- literally.

Linda R.

My story: San Salvadore hotel in Venice. <BR>I had reserved 2 rooms; one for my husband and I and the other for my parents, for three nights this past April. When we got there (down the little smelly alley) they told us that there was only one room--with 4 twin beds crammed in it for us. They also said that it would be 450,000 lira for the one room. The 2nd room needed to have the shower fixed and would be ready the next day. Well, this wasn't the best setup, but we managed. <BR>The next day the other room wasn't ready still. I did make a note of which rooms had people going in and out of as there are only a few rooms at this hotel. After a second night as sardines we were finally getting the other room (for our last night!). When I saw which room it was it was one that I saw people going in and out of the night before! When we went to check out the next day they told us it would be 450,000 lira each couple for the first room! Oh, noooo we said. It was supposed to be for the room, not per couple. At this point my husband and my mother went outside so that my father and I could "duke it out" with this poor guy that didn't speak much english. After about 20 minutes he said O.K., O.K. just pay 450,000L for the room and we left. This place overbooked and then lied about it. Then they told us that we would only have to pay one price and then tried to double it. Never will we go back there! At least now we laugh about it. <BR>Linda R.

Susan

A few years back we stayed in a god awful London flat - north of Hyde Park, now owned by an absentee Middle Eastern landord (who could care less). We got it through British Airways. <BR>Our flat was in the basement - very depressing, very tiny, and very dirty. It took us 3 days to get them to half clean the filthy carpeting (prior occupants had had a barfing baby & god knows what else) & to fix the 1 dim light in the sitting room. <BR> There was a heatwave (not their fault, of course) and we had trouble falling asleep before midnight. Then, about 2 a.m., the defective smoke alarm <BR>would go off - very shrilly throughout the hotel. This happened more than once a night. Each day they would promise that the thing had been fixed. Not! <BR>