#10: Fort Lauderdale’s Sea Club, via TripAdvisor
Here’s an awards ceremony you can guarantee the recipients won’t show up for: Tripadvisor’s readers have rated the 10 nastiest, dirtiest, filthiest hotels in the United States. You are surprised, of course, that two of the top 10 are in New York? At least we’re not South Florida, which tops out the list with a whopping 4 offenders.
1. Tropicana Resort HotelVirginia Beach
Called the most luxurious lodgings in the area by the hotel (‘fraid not – there is no such thing as luxury in Virginia Beach, not even at that flashy new Hilton). TripAdvisor users heartily disagree. “Vile!” is just one way it’s been described.
2. Hotel CarterNew York
Jonathan Kozol’s book, “Rachel and her Children”, recounts the tales of children having to cross the street with buckets to to get water at a nearby bar, back in the Dirty ’80’s, when this was a city-subsidized welfare hotel. Today, it’s supposedly a budget tourist crash pad. Just walking by the place gives us the creeps.
3. Days Inn Downtown/PortMiami
“Bad,” “Terrible,” “Gross,” are just a few adjectives used to describe this hotel, which isn’t downtown at all – as if that would help matters. No doubt more than a few cruise passengers have been suckered in by the “Port” bit.
4. Budget InnKnoxville, Tenn.
Please. Like you didn’t know what you were getting into with a Budget Inn. These are the properties that not even Travelodge or Days Inn will let in to the fold. Careful of the site – it crashed our computer. Lovely.
5. Red Carpet Inn Fort Lauderdale
These can be nice – they can also be horrible. This one, with a thrilling location right at the 95/595 cloverleaf, behind the airport, definitely falls in to the latter category.
6. New York InnNew York
An old tenement on 8th, at 47th Street. Words all but failed one reviewer, who could only shriek “IMPOSSIBLE!” Yes. Just like Hell’s Kitchen residents say to themselves every morning, when waking up and remembering how much rent they pay for the same type of living arrangement.
7. Poindexter Ocean Front ResortMyrtle Beach, SC
Just check out the pictures of the roaches found in the rooms. Enough said.
8. Days InnLancaster, Penn.
Apparently, it’s BYO Lysol at this bug preserve just north of downtown. If we may be so bold, what are people doing overnighting in Lancaster? If you must, at least they’ve finally got an interesting hotel – The Arts – open now.
9. Ramada Inn Miami Airport NorthMiami
We’d rather sleep on the dirty floors at the airport than at this nearby flop. This has to be one of the sketchiest airport districts this side of the Third World.
10. Sea Club ResortFort Lauderdale
Not only do the bed bugs bite, the management likes to rip you off. How pleasant. They’re opening luxury hotels all around this dump – The Atlantic is right next door. Then again, when it comes to expensive hotels, you can do better than the Atlantic. Come to think of it, you can do better than Fort Lauderdale, generally speaking. But that’s just us.
TripAdvisor [Web site]
