‘What disappointing UK hotel experiences have you had?’ – 21 traumatised travellers who really deserved their money back

When we imagine staying in a hotel, we think of luxurious beds, plump pillows, palatial bathrooms and tasty breakfasts. Or, at the very least, we want the it to be clean and have a door that locks.

Unfortunately, and despite the eye-watering expense of most of them, that’s not always what we end up with. Reddit user Sonnets4all has suffered at the hands of British hospitality recently, and posted this on the AskUK page:

‘Everything in the mini bar is free’, they said. What disappointing UK Hotel experiences have you had?

Bleak, to say the least. But hopefully they were cheered up by the comments from other people who had experiences that were similar, or even worse.

1.

‘I stayed in a hotel in Glasgow in late 2020- their dining room was still closed so you filled in a breakfast order form and they delivered it to your room. I ordered the continental breakfast, which was meant to consist of mini pastries and fruit salad. I got a squashed plain croissant and a whole, unpeeled orange in a brown paper bag.’
–niki723

2.

‘Stayed in a hotel in London. The smoke alarm in the room was covered by a plastic bag containing a used tampon.’
–Wide-Affect-1616

3.

‘Booked in London Docklands but checked in really late after a gig to find out they’d resold our room. I obviously kicked off and they found another room for us, grabbed the key cards and made our way up to the room, opened the door only to be presented with two people absolutely going for it.

On top of that, the hotel manager thought that the best compensation for the situation was a free breakfast for me and my two mates.’
–liam_08

4.

‘In Manchester my mum and dad went to see the theatre, when they got back to the bar later, a member of staff came up to my mum and told her they don’t allow women of the night into the hotel. Let’s just say my parents weren’t best pleased.’
–VapourTrail-UK

5.

‘At my cousin’s wedding, basically everyone else (singles and couples) got lovely deluxe rooms. We were a family of four and got put in a tiny cramped room that had broken glass in the toilet.’
–ZimbabweSaltCo

6.

‘The room had no windows, some random guy off the street got into the lift with us to see if he could come into our room to party, and then a fight kicked off in the reception also between people that weren’t actually staying there- all in one night!’
–icantstillbedrunkat5

7.

‘Went to a gig at Wembley and stayed in a B&B. Breakfast was Tesco value Swiss rolls, ready salted crisps and tea with no milk.’
–lungbong

8.

‘I stopped at a B&B near Gatwick airport for a flight the next day. The full English consisted of tinned mushrooms, watery tinned beans, a fresh tomato, cold toast and three tinned hotdog sausages.’
–tattywater

9.

‘I stayed in a place called the Chocolate Hotel once. There was a bowl of chocolate buttons in the foyer covered in dust, and they had painted most of the walls different shades of brown. That was a treat.’
–MrsTheBo

10.

‘Someone knocked on my door in a hotel in Wales and handed me a complete Wales rugby kit, and said it was for me. I presumed it was some sort of gift (I was young, and travelling for work – never stayed in nice hotel before). Half an hour later the guy came and asked for it back. The Welsh team were staying in the hotel and they’d got the wrong room.’
–gloomfilter

11.

‘Hard to top arriving at my hotel to discover that the water tank in the attic had cracked open and deluged every single floor, forcing them to cancel all bookings. The lobby was piled high with waterlogged mattresses and the poor guy on the front desk looked like he was contemplating walking over to the bar and drinking it.’
–JakeGrey