You'd Think We'd Be Better at Traveling By Now

Hi. It's us again. Are you shocked? We did mention that there was a hotel story in our last post. 

After our flight debacle, we were seriously looking forward to our hotel room. Picking up the rental car was insanely quick and easy. Shockingly so. We plugged our address into the GPS and the hotel was only 10 minutes away. At last. A shower, a meal, and rest. We weren't expecting much from our hotel. We chose it based on price and proximity to the ballpark, but the photos seemed decent enough. 

The first alarming sight upon turning onto our street was not the XXX store. Not at all. In fact, we chuckled at it. Then we saw what looked to be the real life inspiration for the Bates Motel. Thankfully, it wasn't our hotel, but it was right next door. What kind of hotel builds its establishment next door to a horror film? Okay, no problem. We tried to remain open minded as we pulled into a mostly empty parking lot. It didn't look so bad despite the weird man wandering around, giving us "I'd like to kidnap you and/or steal your kidney" vibes or the fact that the swimming pool they'd boasted about online was the size of a bathtub and the color of Slimer from Ghostbusters. 

The front desk guy was friendly and soft spoken. Through the lobby windows, we could see a strip club across the street. Not the classy kind where you might wear a suit to and drink scotch and smoke cigars at while getting a lap dance from a lovely girl named Mercedes who is only stripping part time to pay for medical school. It was kind of strip club that has a layer of stickiness on everything and the kind you'd leave having contracted lice, herpes, chlamydia, and a yeast infection from. But who are we to judge? 

The room was nice enough. Wi-Fi didn't work. There were stains on the towels. But nice enough. Did we mention that the front desk guy was friendly? That's when Lisa made the mistake of Googling the hotel, which is probably something we should have done prior to booking the hotel in the first place. Allow us to share with you a few of the more colorful reviews that she found:

 "All of the towels were horribly stained. I wasn't sure if they'd been washed or not. I found a roach in the bathroom in the morning, but the room was quiet."

 "Awful location. Sirens from police cars throughout the evening. Smelled in the office. I wouldn't want to eat the breakfast or drink the coffee. Awful smell in room. "

 "There were no restaurants within 5 blocks. Unfortunately, I walked those 5 blocks and in that time, I was approached by 5 different individuals either threatening me or asking for money. When I got back to the hotel, I locked myself in the room until it was time to leave. While I was checking out, a suspicious character tried to get into the rooms looking for his girlfriend. He threatened the hotel desk clerk. Luckily for me, my hotel transport arrived and I fled the scene, imploring the clerk to phone the police."

 "This was the worst hotel we have ever stayed in. The bedspread was stained and the room stunk. You know that you're in a bad area when you arrive and there's a hooker walking by the hotel."

We immediately went onto our phones and checked out other nearby hotels. We found a much nicer hotel 3 miles away for $100 more and booked it. Then we politely informed the front desk guy that we'd be checking out. He seemed hurt and confused. We kind of felt bad, but not bad enough to stay. Lisa said, "it's not you. You're so nice. It's us." He didn't charge us a penalty fee or anything.