The Worst Hotel Stay Ever.

A group of us piled into two cars and headed to Gulf Shores/Mobile/Dauphin Island for some fun in the sun over the weekend and were privileged enough to have one of the worst hotel experiences in the modern era.

After a day of swimming under red flags at Gulf Shores which was safe, or very unsafe, a tasty dinner at Lambert's Café (WHERE THEY WOULD NOT LET US ORDER OFF THE KIDS MENU OR SHARE A PLATE! Man I was reeear about that, AND I FORGOT YOU HAVE TO PAY WITH CASH OR CHECK, NO CREDIT/DEBIT CARDS!! Double reaaar!!) and shopping for round sparkly things at the outlet malls in Foley, we arrived at Exit 3 on I-65 south.

Stayin' in the Ghetto
We pulled into the hotel parking lot where we had reservations and were greeted by, how do you say, some unsavory characters. I'm thinking, "where is my handgun when I need it?"

Upon entering the hotel I was then greeted by lots of yelling by travelers at the check in girl behind the counter, because their reservations had been messed up. After mentally practicing my "duck and cover" maneuvers so as to avoid gunfire should it erupt around me, I checked us in to our rooms and we drove around to the back of the hotel.

Additional unsavory characters were spotted in the rear of the building. As we approached the building, I was glad to see that it had a key card lock on the outside to keep intruders out. But naturally it was broken and anyone could walk up and get inside. Great.

Squashed in the elevator
We found the elevators and started to get on. I was last, and the elevator doors began to close. I was halfway in, and figured that the doors would retract when they hit the cooler I was holding. Wrong. They continued to close and I was literally pinned in the middle. So now I'm freaking out, what if the elevator begins to go up and I'm not in it? So finally, after Shayla repeatedly pressed the "open door" button, it opened and I was able to squeeze into the elevator.

The room
It was about 9 PM at night. The room appeared to be clean. However, that proved to be a severe misinterpretation of the situation.

As we moved across the room, we all noticed something strange. As we walked across the floor, the floor was giving under our feet. It was as if we were going to fall through to the floor below. I have never felt anything like that in my life before. Talk about scary.

We were all stinky and nasty from being in the ocean earlier in the day, so showers started. Jawana went first and when she got done she requested I examine the shower wall when it was my turn. I did. It was covered in mold and mildew. So the whole time I showering, I was singing. Loudly. "Clean me.. yuck yuck yuck… the shower's dirty… yuck yuck yuck." Others who have been on vacation with me, know I love to sing in the shower. Loudly.

A little later Jawana reported seeing a bug in the bathroom. Nice.

The Breakfast
We got ready to go eat the free continental breakfast. When we opened the door from our room to go into the hallway, we were greeted by sweltering heat once again. No air! We talked to another couple who were having similar problems like us. However, their bed sagged in the middle and touched the floor!

We got down to the breakfast area and were ready to eat their free continental breakfast. One small problem, there really was no food. The toaster didn't work and the fact that it was literally probably 90 degrees in the breakfast area, didn't help my appetite any. A couple in front of us tried to get Orange Juice out of the dispenser and it just sprayed all over the place. In addition, some sort of chunks came out of it, so there was no way I was drinking any of that. I ended up eating a bowl of Froot Loops with semi-cold-ish milk. Yuck.

After that incident, and on top of everything else, there was no way I was staying there another night. I went to the front desk and got a refund on my debit card and we checked out and went up the street to the Best Western.