Bad Hotels

With all of the great hotels opening up in and around the city, time for a hall of shame for those not keeping up.

For some reason I really enjoy reading bad hotel reviews. Usually they are pretty funny. Here are two to avoid:

Roberts Riverwalk Hotel [[Former Omni, next to the Rattlesnake Club)
http://www.yelp.com/biz/roberts-rive...roit-detroit-2

Sounds like there are severe management issues, and lots of basic problems like holding reservations, HVAC issues, no hot water, and room keys de-activing daily.

The Met Troy [[Former Mariott on Crooks)
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Rev..._Michigan.html

The main problem seems to be the hotel is disgusting. Old food left in rooms, blood on the bathroom floors, bedbugs, "moist carpet," mold problems, etc...

You are sure to enjoy these for the former Ramada in Taylor.
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g42747-d141965-Reviews-Ramada_Downriver_Taylor_Detroit-Taylor_Michigan.html

Fortunately for at least them that place has been torn down.

The problem with the Roberts is the owner. Too many children meddling in the affairs of the owner, who I believe is based in St. Louis, but has resorts in the Caribbean. I friend of mine tried to manage the place until November. He kinda knew what he was getting into, so being a hotel professional his entire life, including management at both the Ritz Carleton and the RenCen Marriot, he chose to tackle the Roberts with the guarantee of some semblance of autonomy......which he never got. He was smart and only included his title as "beverage manager", knowing that "manager" of a one-star hotel might limit his future.

I would see him at several events around town, including my house or friend's house, and it seems he was always on the phone trying to put out some fire with the booking/reservation/computer/other bullshit. He figures he spent 20 hours a week on the phone in addition to his 50 working there dealing with ongoing problems. The staff tried. The owner's children meddled in all sorts of dealings with the hotel, and he would be told to do one thing by one person and the opposite by someone else. He finally managed to get himself fired over some trivial BS, for which he is actually grateful to be free of there.

Which is a shame, because it's in an awesome location, and despite being run-down by the OMNI, still has alot of potential.

Hamtragedy, what a shame your friend had to go through that. These family businesses can get pretty dicey, they act like they want a professional operation and even tell the potential hire that's what they want, and then once they get the true professional on board they go back to the same old thing.

I also enjoy the bad hotel reviews and I try to keep up with them so I don't steer someone wrong when they visit the city.

With a few exceptions, all non-franchised hotels fairly sub-par.

There were nasty transient/hourly lice-dives in Detroit like the Blackstone down from Zoot's Coffeehouse. Lots of the prostitutes took their johns there. Blackstone was also called the "Crackstone" by many of us.http://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/bl...nt?oid=2172628

When obnoxious candy ravers would stomp up the porch steps of Zoot's announcing that they were "looking for tickets for the rave" they heard about on the voicemail [[for you see, their was an elaborate "map spot" system devised back in the day to throw off the tracking of the police looking to bust a covert party and to cause folks to jump from two to three locations collecting directions until they got the actual party location directions and tickets, and usually the persons manning each location could sniff out the true patrons from the infiltrators. In this case, some of the more idiotic, drugged-up "ravers" traversing to Detroit from all the way out in the boonies, did not pay attention to the instructions to carry themselves with some sense of discretion upon coming to Zoot's.), many of porch-monkey scoffer types got fed up with their clown act. So, in a pique of mischief we'd send the more senseless ones over to the Blackstone. We might sweat it a bit if they didn't return soon enough, but they'd come back wide-eyed and befuddled "uh, there were no tickets there, but there sure was a funny smell."

The Hotel Ansonia was another dive that we used to be able to score a 6-pack of cheap beer [[and I'm sure other things, as well) from behind a grimy Lucite barrier surrounding a front desk for cheap if it was past 2a. A real boon for anyone who got off work from their bar job, wants to unwind with some friends, and forgot to cop some drinks.

Then as far as bad places to stay goes. There's this one. http://www.detroityes.com/mb/showthr...hlight=holiday

Well from reading that yelp.com review, I am convinced to AVOID the Roberts Riverwalk Hotel Detroit. One guest review was a compliant of someone walking in on them while they were eh, having sex! Hah. Talk about over-booking!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JBMcB

For some reason I really enjoy reading bad hotel reviews. Usually they are pretty funny. Here are two to avoid:

Roberts Riverwalk Hotel [[Former Omni, next to the Rattlesnake Club)
http://www.yelp.com/biz/roberts-rive...roit-detroit-2

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I don't travel alot, but one thing I always do when planning a trip to check out these 2 websites
www.bedbugregistry.com/


www.bedbugreports.com

These are both pretty reliable, but the first one, Bed Bug Registry, I have found to be easier
to navigate and more reliable and current that Bed Bug Reports.

Great, now you guys are going to have me flip through all types of hotel reviews now.

I actually enjoyed my stay at the Roberts a few years ago [[2012). Everything went smoothly, key worked fine, things were clean, no one popped up in my cardio session or anything. That location is great, hopefully they pick things up and get on top of their issues.

The Met Troy was originally built as a Hilton, not a Marriott. The Holiday Inn on Harper, now the Travel Inn, is a basic hooker and crack den.