Never Again..

....Will I stay at a "hotel" for $19/ night.

I am a cheap skate when it comes to particular things.

For example: I cannot stand spending a lot of money on hotel rooms. I dislike it very much. Reason one: I'm just there to sleep and shower. Reason two: I could do so much more with the money. I don't like spending more than $50/ night on rooms and usually I can get a pretty nice room for that amount.

Although I do have inquisition for the finer things in life, I am not high maintenence. I can sleep on the floor, I can shower in cold water...however, there is only so much I can deal with.

While looking for a room in Orlando last week, I landed on a deal for $19/night at the 'beautifully clean and renovated' Imperial Swan. Regulalrly priced at $59/night.

Right up my alley.....so I thought.

We pulled up on Friday, and we were the ONLY car there.. They sent us to our building and once again, we were the ONLY occupants.

I sent the hubby in to scope out the room and to make sure it was non-smoking. He came back out laughing and told me "well, this is what you get for being cheap".

The door to enter the building was missing its locks and just wedged open by the bent bar and the halls were gloomy even though it was mid-day..Lovely. I can't wait to see the room.

Room 609 was our truly 'humble-abode' for the weekend.

Room 607 was the 'maintenence room' which I was a little skeptical about. Therefore, I took the mirrors off the wall to make sure they weren't two-way mirrors. Checked all the drawers, holes in the wall (yes, there were holes in the wall), and TV for any hidden cameras. Uh-huh, THAT bad! It was a dungeoness type feel where the 'newly-renovations' included: textured wall-paper with ONE coat of paint over it, where you could slightly see the 1970 style floral patter seeping through, our very own walk out sliding door with a huge sticker that said "FOR YOUR SAFETY, PLEASE LOCK DOOR AT ALL TIMES AND USE SAFETY BAR", towels that not only dried your body, but scratched the hell out of it as well because they were as soft as sand-paper, a toilet that when you stood up the back of the toilet lifted OFF the ground and came crashing back down. Not to mention it took 5 minutes to flush. A shower fully equipped with a rusty shower rod AND lukewarm water, dusty lamp shades, and a carpet so hideous I didn't even dare take pictures.

The beds were actually OKAY considering.

We hurry and got ready and left for the night. When returning, there were surprisingly quite a few cars there, 3 gentleman in big trench coats standing in the corner looking like they wanted to sell us something and I was even fortunate enough to hear our lovely neighbors slamming doors and yelling at each other at 3:30am.

Thank goodness we were up at 7am and didn't get back till late again for our last night at hell hotel.

Everytime we drove by a nice hotel, Ray would point out that they probably didn't have all the nice luxuries we had at Imperial Swan. :)

Needless to say, my view on spending money on hotel rooms has changed.