16 Signs You're in a Bad Hotel

Almost everybody looks for bargains when they travel, and sometimes good hotels have promotional offers (often keyed to their slower seasons) or offer special rates to military personnel, hotel chain loyalty members, and anyone belonging to AAA or AARP. That said, if a hotel is priced significantly below other ones in the same area over the same time period, beware. As the old saying goes, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

These days, many travelers rely on review sites like Yelp or Tripadvisor when deciding where to stay. These can be very helpful. If the most recent online assessments are two or three years old, though, watch out. What might once have been a pleasant place to pass a night or two may well have gone downhill.

Some hotel websites publish photos that look anonymous or generic, as if they’re been culled from an image search instead of representing the way the place actually looks. Or you’ll find a photo gallery with plenty of shots of the exterior, the lobby, even the neighborhood, but little or nothing that shows you where you’ll be sleeping. Not a good omen at all.

When you pull up to a hotel, if the grass outside is brown, the shrubbery is patchy, the flowers have long since wilted in the ground, it’s a pretty good indication that the hotel these exterior features surround doesn’t pay attention to the details that can make a stay pleasant.

Thrift-shop furniture, stacks of years-old magazines on uneven end tables, cheap and ugly art prints on the walls, layers of dust on every surface…. The lobby is the public face of a hotel, and it it’s not in good shape, you almost certainly don’t want to go upstairs.

Nobody greets you at the front desk, or they greet you as if you’re bothering them; your perfectly reasonable questions (where’s the nearest bus stop? how late do you serve breakfast?) are met with clipped responses; they project an air of hating their job and watching the clock for quitting time…. A surly staff generally means that a hotel is badly managed – and if it’s the management that’s surly, they’re in the wrong business and you’re definitely in the wrong place.

You finally get to your room and the first thing you notice are big, dark spots spreading across the coverlet or the carpeting. You don’t want to think about what they are or how they got there, but you might well consider that management doesn’t care enough to clean them up or replace the stained items (or maybe can’t afford to do so).

Bathrooms collect mold, especially in the showers, but mold can and should be cleaned away. It’s not only unpleasant to smell and look at, but for some people it presents a real health hazard.

One-ply toilet paper, small towels made from thin and scratchy material, no shampoo or conditioner, just a tiny bar of soap if you’re lucky – these are all signs that the hotel doesn’t care much about your comfort, even in your more intimate moments.

The TVs at some hotels will remind old-timers of the days where there were just eight or nine broadcast channels available when you switched on the set. No cable or streaming services means the hotel is saving money any way it can, and that will doubtless affect a lot of other features of your stay as well.

This one’s controversial, because a surprising number of upscale hotels use these hangers – the kind that replaces a conventional hook with a post and ball that fits into a ring permanently attached to the hanger rod. They’re extremely annoying to use, won’t let you hang a shirt in the bathroom to steam out, and furthermore imply that the hotel distrusts you and would expect you to walk off with an armful of regular hangers if you could. Not a very good look for a hotel.

Everybody experiences room temperatures differently, and a hotel guest should be able to make a room as warm or cool (within reason) as desired. Thermostats or window units that don’t work or that are maddeningly difficult to calibrate help ensure an unpleasant stay.

Some hotels choose not to offer guests a mini-bar. That’s fine, but if there’s one in the room, it should be working, and keep its ingredients cool. The same is true of the mini-refrigerator some places install in place of a mini-bar so that guests can chill their own beverages. It it’s unplugged or malfunctioning, it’s just a hot box instead of a cooler, so why is it even taking up space?

The days of dial-up are thankfully behind us, but some hotels simply don’t have enough wireless bandwidth to accommodate the needs of their guests – especially during prime-time hours when half the occupants may be trying to surf the web simultaneously. Slow loads and intermittent service are annoying, but what’s even worse is when the hotel charges you a healthy daily fee for wifi use.

Your TV isn’t working, you need a wake-up call, room service isn’t answering – so you call the front desk. And listen to the phone ring and ring and ring. If a good hotel is temporarily slammed, the staff will notice that you’ve called and call you back. At a bad hotel, forget it.

Some hotel bars are popular local watering holes as well as conveniences for guests. Some of them have live music (usually cover bands of questionable skill but impressive volume). Some of them may double as sports bars drawing hordes of highly vocal fans. If the bar isn’t well insulated from the guestrooms, and you just want to get some sleep, good luck.