A few years ago I was planning a trip to Miami for some friends and me. We were on a budget and really wanted to stay less than $100 per night for the hotel. Well when I found a hotel on South Beach for about $80 I jumped on it. I had been to South Beach a couple times and I had never seen a hotel that was much less than glamorous. I was shocked to find a hotel there for this price. We had 8 of us, so I booked 2 rooms. One of the rooms was $75 and the other one was supposed to have "updated" furniture and we payed about $85 for that one. I just knew everybody was going to love me for getting our hotel right on South Beach and going even a little under budget!

We drove 4 hours south to get to Miami and we were driving up the street where our hotel was when all of a sudden we saw the one hotel on the street that just didn't fit in. It looked a little dumpy. Well, of course, this was our hotel. I am always positive and told everybody that it was probably fine inside, but the rundown building was why it was so cheap. We couldn't find a place to park, even though when I booked the room it said there was a parking lot, so we pulled right up and I ran in to ask where we were to park. Well, the parking lot was about 10 blocks from the hotel. So we unloaded our luggage and I waited with it while the other girls went to park the car. When they got there we checked in and got our key. Since we got there first, we decided to take the "updated" room. The entire hotel had an unpleasant odor, but when we arrived at our room and opened the door the odor just got worse. Oh, and the new furniture I guess was from 1960 instead of 1950. The furniture was old and ugly and outdated. Soon after we got there, our friends, who had the room next to us arrived. Well, needless to say, I wasn't feeling the love that I had earlier expected to feel because of my find.

We decided to make the best of it, though. After all, how much were we really going to be in the room. Well, my sister went in the bathroom to get her bathing suit on and some kind of yellow liquid was dripping from the ceiling in the bathroom. We were all so disgusted that we ended up sharing the bathroom in the room next door for the next 2 days. 8 of us with one bathroom...not a great situation.

We went out that night and came home to our room and we were about to go to sleep when we saw one of the biggest Palmetto bugs I have ever seen on the wall. Then another on the floor. So, we slept in shifts with the light on. We seriously did! One of us stayed awake at all times to watch for bugs.

Just remember, if a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is!

Learn more about this author, Michelle Trip.
Click here to send author comments or questions.

---

Add your voice

Know something about Hotel horror stories?
We want to hear your view. Write now!