If I needed to shack up for the night, I think I'd rather check in to a trash dumpster than this place: Imagine a resort hotel built brand new in the mid-1970's, but then barely maintained, repaired or renovated thereafter – despite remaining open to this day! That's allegedly the case in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, with the "Grand Resort Hotel & Convention Center" (various pictures above).The good words end with that "Grand" name, as the website TripAdvisor.com has named this allegedly rotten joint the "dirtiest hotel in America," and with good reason if you believe the accounts of myriad guests who have stayed there (links at bottom).
I read only 25 of the 161 negative online reviews of this reported hellhole. But that was more than enough to get the dreaded picture and to be able to take you on a little tour of this alleged fleabag (literally) hotel's so-called facilities. Here's what just the first 25 complainants had to say (read at your own risk):
Entering the Front Lobby
-"This is a very dirty rundown facility that has seen its best days years ago."
-"Beyond the front façade, everything is still from the 70's. No repairs (exit signs & bricks were falling as we watched)."
-"They boasted of a 5 story lighted waterfall in the lobby. I had my doubts of the place when I saw that the 'waterfall' was a stone wall that dripped a few drops of water."
The Conference Facilities
-At the banquet facilities, "we paid outrageous prices and were served what amounted to Dinty Moore Beef Stew over white rice."
-"The air vents were covered with black mildew . . . Many of our [conference] attendees now are sick with a respiratory disease."
The Common Areas
-"Ice water in the indoor hot tub."
-"Piles of dirt and trash lined each floor hallway we went on."
-"Chewing tobacco spit oozing down the halls and corridors."
-"I was not aware that there would be several dozen (or more) dogs on the premises, barking all night, and . . . great lakes of dog urine were in the stairwells."
Entering the Room
-"Our door knob to the room was loose and ready to fall off."
-"We had a friend walk right in into our room with 'their' key. They are real keys and some are so worn down that they work in most of the hotel rooms."
-"There were also a couple of rooms that were broken into and valuables were stolen."
-"It was so nasty and with so many spiders webs that you were afraid to step inside. It looked like housekeeping had just came in and walked back out."
-"A room so putrid and smelly it causes a gag-reflex when you walk in."
The Amenities
-"Fireplace didn't work and they had paper clips on the front screen so no one could open it."
-"Phones did not work. Lighting is dark, dingy, dismal."
-"Don't dare use the coffee maker in the room because the smell in the pot infests the coffee, making it taste like sewer water."
-"Electrical outlet missing cover."
-"TV got none of the major networks or even any local news shows."
-"The AC never got cold."
The View
-"The window was so filthy you couldn't see out of it."
The Bed
-"They didn’t even have any blankets under the comforter."
-"Bedspread Cut."
-"No cover over mattress, when turn bedspread back stained."
The Bathroom
-"Showers either freezing or scalding, water smelled like a sewer, propane smell in room, hair on pillows and sheets and dirty!!!!"
-"I couldn't even take a shower, because the water would change from scalding hot to icy cold. I had to jump out twice to avoid being burned and frozen."
-"The Shower had MOLD growing around all corners."
-"There was dirt at least 1/2 inch thick in the bathtub which was filled with lots of dark hair."
-"The toilet was cracked totally in half."
-"Mix and match bathroom of blue toilet w/ yellow seat."
-"The fixtures in the bathroom are so old, they can't be repaired because there are no parts available to fix them."
-"It had a window unit AC in the wall above the double sinks that was blowing black chunks of something out into the sinks while trying to brush my teeth."
-"Pubic hair stuck to the bathroom floor in some unidentifiable, gelatinous liquid."
The "Roommates"
-"BED BUGS and other bugs in the bathroom ceiling and above the king bed."
-"There were at least 50 stink bugs flying around the room."
-"Bugs all over the rooms, ants, fleas, etc."
-"The room is no more than a dog house with a bunch of fleas running around."
-"We found three roaches."
-"There were ants in the room and a corpse of a black beetle."
-"There were dead bugs all over the place except for the yellow jacket which I killed."
-"A bug or a spider bit me in the room one night."
-"I came home with bug bites on my arms and legs from staying in this 'resort.'"
The Asbestos
-"The textured ceiling (asbestos) was falling down in at least 10 places and chunks of the ceiling were on the floor."
The Terror
-"I was booked here for 3 nights but my kids were scared to go to sleep."
The Staff & Hotel Policies
-"Our rooms were non-refundable" and the "entire stay is collected in advance."
-"They told me there was never a manager on duty."
-"No maid service for three days even though we requested it."
-"The employees at the Grand were beyond unpleasant and crossed over to nasty."
-Staffer responded to complaints by saying, "it's not like we hogtied you here sir, you can leave whenever you want."
Suggestions for the Future
-"The Health Department needs to close this place."
-"Health inspector please"
-"Run for your life!!!!!!!!!"
-"Stay away"
-"The best thing that could happen to The 'Grand' Resort is that a meteor fall from the sky and reduce it to rubble."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/01/25/national/main7281367.shtml
http://www.tripadvisor.com/DirtyHotels-g191http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g55270-d115880-Reviews-Grand_Resort_Hotel_Convention_Center-Pigeon_Forge_Tennessee.html#REVIEWS
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Postscript: Several additional notes here. First, I have to say that the comments about this joint on Tripadvisor.com were the funniest thing I have read in awhile, hands down. Sometime I'm going to have to read all of them instead of just the most-recent 25.
ReplyDeleteSecond, it's not like this place is trying to charge people an arm and a leg to stay there. It's a very cheap joint. I went to the its online reservation site today and was quoted a nightly rate of $45 for the "Deluxe Standard Guest Room." (BTW, how can it be both "deluxe" and "standard" at the same time?)
That $45 does not include tax at 12% nor a $1.10/per night charge for "phone access fee." And one of the commenters on Tripadvisor.com said that the phones don't even work there!
Finally, a general observation about the comments I read on that site: Many of these people had these terrible complaints but yet continued to stay at the hotel for days at a time! The excuse they gave was that the hotel made you pay for your entire stay up front and refused to ever refund anyone a dime. Thus, these people purported to stay additional days in order to get their proverbial "money's worth." Well, I think they got it and then some. I would have been out of there before I had spent the first night, refund or no refund.
DISgusting! I cannot tolerate mold, I would have bolted from there in a hot minute! How have they not been shut down due to health standards?!
ReplyDeleteI noticed that CBS had a follow up story today quoting someone in the management group. He claimed they have taken note of these complaints and are trying to make changes. But sounds to me that absent gutting and completely renovating the entire joint, they're just going to be putting lipstick on a pig. It literally sounds like this place got built in the 70's, and then no one tried to keep it up at all over the years even though it remained open that whole time.
ReplyDeleteAlso, HAH, mold is bad, but other things would have had me out of there even more quickly: Such as, insects and filthy bathrooms. And I'm no aristocrat -- I've stayed in plenty of Motel 6's and other such dives over the years.
ReplyDeleteSorry for the piecemeal nature here, but one final comment: Here's the one complaint that I found to be most absolutely vile, outrageous and completely over-the-top: "Chewing tobacco spit oozing down the halls and corridors." WTF? I mean: WTF?!? Really though: WTF!!!!
ReplyDeleteYes, I noticed that about the tobacco spit too....not sure how that can even happen?? WTF indeed! Makes my stomach roll, gah! The bugs 'n dirty bathrooms would have had me running too, BUT, I have stayed in my share of kinda crappy places on our youth mission trips - I just try to view it as 'camping' =) Mold, however, will make me sick, I'm extremely allergic and my throat would be constricting after about 15 minutes of being exposed to it. When we travel, we always, always, always look for lodgings that are no older than 5 years. My son, Steve has the same allergy, poor kid.
ReplyDeleteI don't imagine the asbestos falling from the ceiling (allegedly) would probably work very well either. How about the one complaint where the person said the mold was so bad in the conference facilities that conference attendees obtained a "respiratory disease" just from being there a day or two? What really struck me from all the complaints was that EVERY SINGLE ASPECT of this hotel allegedly had something very, very wrong with it. Seems to me that this would be the definition of hell. Thus, "Motel Hell" (which was actually the name of a bad horror movie from circa 1980 -- the source of the first picture above).
ReplyDelete