Our Hotel Nightmare!

We travel frequently and often stay in hotels. I generally choose hotels based on location, brand, and luxury level vs. price. When I stick with the 3 H’s (Hilton, Hyatt, and the Holiday Inn (IHG) group) we usually don’t have any issues with our stays.

I am just now feeling emotionally ready to discuss a really bad hotel stay visit we had on July 3rd, 2023. I say visit because we definitely didn’t stay!

The Plan

We haven’t made many travel plans this year because our daughter’s wedding is coming up soon, and we have been quite busy with all the subsequent planning and events that come with weddings. But as the Fourth of July weekend approached, we realized we would be free to make some last-minute plans. I was really itching to visit Bronner’s Christmas World for some new ornaments, so I quickly pulled things together for an overnight visit to Frankenmuth Michigan. Frankenmuth is a perfect day trip because it is just a few hours away from our home and has a lot of interesting things to see and do.

After reading a lot of good things about the Wyndham program from some of the big travel gurus, I decided to switch some of our hotel stays to that chain. This trip seemed like the perfect time to book one of their properties. After doing a bit of research, I settled on the Baymont Inn Bridgeport/Frankenmuth. We had stayed at some Baymont hotels when the kids were younger and although they weren’t fancy, they were always fine. I booked the best room they had available in hopes that it would increase our odds of having a good stay.

We arrived in Frankenmuth mid-morning and went straight to Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland so I could shop for a few new Christmas ornaments. Then we headed to downtown Frankenmuth, which as expected, was crazy busy due to the holiday. We hunted til we found parking and then walked to the various sites along the Main Street of Frankenmuth. We visited the Cheese Haus, the German Meat Market, popped in for a beer at Frankenmuth Brewery, and finished with a big dinner at the Bavarian Inn. It was a very warm day, we had walked a lot and were full, exhausted, and ready to head to the hotel.

The Hotel

Our plan was to get checked in and relax for a bit, then hit the pool for a swim before bed. While I was checking into the hotel, the first red flags started to appear. The Desk Agent was not at all friendly and the lobby looked a bit sad and tired. But I was ready to get to the room, so I looked past these things and grabbed a luggage cart. It had been covered with extra hotel carpeting which was now extremely dirty and very worn out.

Our room was a 1 King Studio Deluxe Suite that cost $138.87 per night. I had prepaid while making our last-minute reservation. When we entered the room, the toilet and shower were in a room to our right and there was a separate area to our left with a large L-shaped vanity and sink area with tiled floors. When I looked into the main part of the room, I began to embrace that sinking feeling that this was not a nice hotel. I asked my husband to leave all the bags on the counter in the outer area. At this point, I didn’t want to alert him to my thoughts and hoped that I might just be overreacting and judging the room too quickly.

I slid off my sandals and headed into the main area to look things over. I immediately stepped on one of several patches of some substance on the carpet. These areas were both gooey and crunchy at the same time. I had no idea what it could have been, but it was so gross.

I also noticed the giant jetted tub in the corner of the room had moldy and split edges. It didn’t appear to be very clean and there was no way in H that I was going to use that! This is when I started to freak out a bit and my very tired husband asked if we were going to stay or not. Trying to be a team player, I said that I would.

Then I started checking the bed and around the edges of the mattress for signs of bed bugs and happily didn’t find any. We sat down on top of the comforter for a few minutes while I regained my wits. In the meantime, hubby fell asleep for about 10 minutes. When he woke up he headed downstairs to determine whether the pool area would be fit for us to use. No sense in changing into bathing suits only to get there and find out it was out of service or just too sketchy to use.

While he went down to look at the pool, I pulled the covers back a bit more which was when I discovered the bugs! Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!! It wasn’t easy getting a photo of them because my camera lens didn’t want to stay in the right focus and they were quickly scurrying about. When my husband got back to the room, I showed him the bugs and the video and we decided it was time to Go NOW!

We loaded up all of our belongings on the creepy cart and headed to the front desk. I showed my photos of the room to the Desk Agent and explained that we would not be staying. It had been less than 30 minutes since we first arrived at the hotel and I asked for a refund. She did not seem surprised by my findings nor was she empathetic. She said that she could not process a refund. A refund would have to be done after the night audit and processed by the Manager who would not be back in until after the holiday. I asked her to please leave him a note which she agreed to do. We left without getting a refund and knowing that we might never get one. It didn’t matter we needed to get out of there and fast.

I asked the Desk Agent for 2 garbage bags which I put our suitcases inside and then tied them off while we made the drive home. We had planned to stay over so we could do more things the next day, but at this point, that was off the table. Making sure that I covered all bases, I also typed an e-mail on my phone and sent it to the Manager during our drive home.

When we got home the clothes we had on and everything in our suitcases went immediately into the washer. I washed and dried the load on the hottest settings. The suitcases went into fresh garbage bags which I closed and segregated to an area where they couldn’t infest anything. Both of us showered like we hadn’t showered in a month. I washed my hair 3 times and almost scrubbed and scalded my skin off. I know that’s probably overkill but it was the creepiest feeling and I did not want to spend months trying to get rid of bed bugs.

Now What

A few days later I called and spoke with the Manager. He suggested that the creepy spots on the carpet were candle wax from a previous guest and told me that someone had been in the room for 3 days prior to our arrival. Since we checked in at 8:20 p.m., there should have been plenty of time between guests to clean and inspect the room before we arrived. It didn’t seem much effort had been put into that though. The Manager was somewhat apologetic and agreed to process our refund, but we were not offered any additional points, free nights, or any other type of compensation.

Since we lost the entire second day of our trip and had a traumatizing experience, I felt that they should have made some kind of a service recovery gesture.

I completed the Wyndham survey rating my stay after I was sure that the refund had been fully processed. When I heard nothing back from them, I went to their website and filed an actual complaint. Wyndham simply punted it back to the Hotel Manager who then e-mailed me wondering what I wanted him to do about it. I gave up and moved on since it was obvious that I was the only one who cared how traumatized I was by this visit.

The Mental Anguish of it All

Before you start thinking everything worked out just fine, let me tell you about the nightmare that followed for weeks after our stay. I was terrified that the little critters had hitchhiked home with us. I struggled to sleep and nearly lost my mind always feeling like something was crawling on me even though it wasn’t. I was vacuuming daily, deep cleaning, washing the sheets every other day, and constantly watching for bed bugs to appear. I bought traps to put in our bedroom, sprayed the house, sprayed inside the vacuum cleaner, and sprayed inside the bags with our suitcases. I drove my husband crazy as I used a flashlight to look for them everywhere. This incident really triggered me.

My paranoia and excessive preventative measures went on for about 5 weeks before I finally started to relax again. I think our quick escape from the hotel and the strategic actions we took that night saved us because we never found any bugs.

Near the end of August, we took a trip to Traverse City and spent 2 nights in a hotel. Not only was staying in a hotel now difficult for me, it was peak season and room availability was scarce, so I had to book a room at the Howard Johnson….another budget Wyndham property. I absolutely did a full room inspection when we got there and was happy to find the room clean, comfortable, and bug-free!

I know you can still have bad experiences even in the best hotels, but not nearly as often. So I am back to the 3 H’s for all of my upcoming hotel stays! The reason I am invested in points and miles is so that I can afford to stay at nicer hotels and resorts in hopes of not dealing with issues like this!

Have you ever found bugs or anything crazy in your hotel room? Please share your experiences.