Recently, I asked the BuzzFeed Community about the wildest and worst hotel experiences they've had while traveling internationally.
Here are 11 of their top answers:
1. "I was stationed in Turkey in 1999, when our family left our base to stay in a five-star hotel in Kuşadası, Turkey. As I lay in bed early the first morning, I was staring at the ceiling when I heard a cracking sound. I woke my wife in time for us to both watch a crack forming in the ceiling. As we contemplated our predicament, the crack shot across the ceiling as dust particles fell. My wife erupted from bed to snatch our youngest child. I did the same with our son, and we bolted to the adjoining room, where our eldest two were sleeping. From the safety of their room, we heard a roaring crescendo from inside ours. We looked back into our room to see nearly the entire ceiling had fallen."
"Chards of plaster lay atop our pillows. We were lucky to escape uninjured."
2. "Our hotel in Amsterdam last week had a drink voucher for each guest as a 'thanks for choosing us' gift. When I (a 45-year-old man) went to the bar with my mom (70) to use the voucher, we met another American, probably my mom's age, who struck up a conversation once she heard us speaking English. It was her last night there, and we made idle chit-chat about travel and our lives in the States. At one point, my mom got up to use the bathroom, and once she was out of earshot, the lady got up, walked to me while giving me a look, and said in my ear, 'Room 303. Knock three times. After your mom's asleep.'"
"Then she walked to the elevators. Needless to say, I did NOT knock on 303 that night."
3. "Australia 1996 or '97. My American parents were living in China and decided to take us all to Australia for the Lunar New Year break. We were driving through the interior between Sydney and Surfer's Paradise. We passed a perfectly nice-looking hotel but decided to go on just a little longer for the drive. Hours and hours later, we finally came across another motel — a cinderblock [chain hotel]. So gross. The walls, cinderblock inside, too, were growing mold. We opened one bed to find the most spiders I had ever seen in one place."
"My mom wanted to go back to the other place or just drive all night. Dad wouldn't. She sat up in a chair all night holding my 8-month-old sister while my other sister (17) and I (19) shared the one twin bed that didn't have spiders in it. Dad snored all night. He's the only one besides the baby who slept."
4. "I was on a trip to Kenya with my wife and friends, and we had a guide who put us up in a hotel. We came out to [the] patio for the big dinner they served nightly and were seated. Then, dozens and dozens men came to [the] buffet and cut in front of me. They were loud and cleared out all the food. Our Kenyan guide told us to stay seated and say nothing. After some very tense moments [with us] not understanding what was happening, he guided us out without food. I saw our guide was waving his hands and yelling at the chef loudly for a couple of minutes before he walked over to us. He said he was yelling at the chef because he put our lives in danger."
"A local politician brought his 'bully boys' to eat the food for free. They were his enforcers who would sometimes kill their political rivals on behalf of the politician. That was one time they could have all that lemon pepper chicken."
5. "We were honeymooning in Greece, and the first place we stayed had a bathroom with no toilet. It was a hole in the floor with foot pads for squatting."
"And when we did get a place with a toilet, there was a can for the used paper."
6. "I was visiting Istanbul with my mom a few years ago. We were going to be in Istanbul for five days, and we stayed in one room. My mom got the bed, and I was on a rollaway bed they made up for me. After a long day of tourism and walking around on the third day, I was looking forward to a shower and a short nap before the evening. Unfortunately, when we returned to our room, my bed had been taken away!"
"We called the desk, and they said their hotel was full and that I should sleep in the same bed as my mom (which, of course, I didn't want to do!). I was fuming! They said they couldn't get a bed until the next day (I told them to bring back the bed that I was already using).
We tried to find another hotel, but most of them were already booked up, so I had to just deal with it until they brought me another (more uncomfortable) bed the next day.
In the meantime, I wrote a review on Trip Advisor stating what happened, and they demanded that I take down my review!! Of course, I didn’t!!"
7. "[I was] in Prague for one night. I got a room at a very nice old hotel that was opened in the early 1900s. I got in around 10 p.m. and was leaving the next day for Vienna. I got up to my room and discovered there was no lock on the door. I called the desk, and they didn't understand what I was complaining about. They didn't understand why I needed a lock?!?"
"I asked for another room, but they said they had no other rooms available.
There was a small dining table and two chairs in the room. I took one of the chairs and wedged it against the door knob. I didn't sleep exactly well that night."
8. "I stayed in a hotel in Zimbabwe that looked beautiful from the outside but had a traditional thatched roof for the ceiling. When I walked in, there was a huge spider on the wall above my headboard. I karate-kicked it, killed it, and left it on the wall in case there were any others who needed to see what might happen to them if they wandered by. I later realized that there were these white, pretty-looking things up in the thatch — which, upon closer inspection, turned out to be spider nests."
"There was nowhere else to go or other options for the night, so I put everything I had into my backpack and zipped it tightly, including my shoes, pulled up the corners of the sheets and blankets onto the bed to not give any walkways to critters who might try to visit, and prayed a long prayer for safety. Unforgettable, for sure!"
9. We stayed in a bungalow on Koh Samui [in Thailand]. There was a copy of [the travel guide] Lonely Planet lying around, so I read what it had to say about Koh Samui. There was an entire paragraph about how the bungalow owners would murder each other to eliminate the competition. I asked our bungalow owner about this, and he replied, 'That doesn't happen much anymore.'"
10. "This was in Bahrain. A friend was supposed to come for a night before I delivered some training, but she stood me up. So I rented a cheap room. When I arrived, there was a full-on disco in the basement, with the whole building thudding. Several ladies with thick makeup were draped over the lounge chairs, and a man was vomiting outside by a bush. The lift opened to a massive rat scampering merrily along the corridor. There was no lock on the door, and the thump of the disco made it all the way up to the sixth floor."
"I lugged a heavy set of drawers to block the door. There were suspicious, ummmmm, stains…on the sheets, so I lay in my clothes on top of the bedspread. The hotel was called Phoenix, and as far as I was concerned, it could definitely have gone up in flames (empty, of course)."
11. And finally: "I was in London many years ago with some friends. We were poor college students doing the hostel tour but wanted to stay in a hotel for a few nights. We picked one with good ratings and checked in. Went into our room. Our 'two queen bed room' was two single beds on wheels and two single beds zipped together. The beds on wheels would move when you slept, so you'd start in the room and end up in the bathroom by the morning. The two beds zipped together did not stay zipped…ever."
"The window had no screen and was tied with a shoelace. It frequently opened, and, one time, a pigeon flew into our room. Another time, it opened during the night, and my friend almost fell out the window going to the bathroom.
My pillow had blood on it. When I told housekeeping, she said it was probably just hers and gave me another pillow. I would have complained, but I'm pretty sure we were in one of the best rooms there. We left a few days later. Stayed in a hostel, [which was] infinitely better than the hotel room."
What's the worst hotel experience you've had while traveling — internationally or not? Share your stories in the comments!
Note: Some responses have been edited for length/clarity.