Best line from TripAdvisor reviews of the Hotel Carter in NYC

i've stayed there

i want to stay there tbh. i feel like i know the place after reading the reviews for so long. i stay in a very similar place in DC - really cheap and 2 blocks from the mall, but expect no service/"frills"/cleanliness. if you can deal with that then its ideal, but theres a constant stream of people complaining and freaking out to the staff which is lol

nothing interesting happened during the night i stayed, tho when i got home the next day i will admit that i immediately stripped nude in the front hall of my apartment and put everything i brought on the trip into a plastic trashbag for urgent laundering.

'man who lived behind a vending machine in a small gap' def sounds like a bit role in Twin Peaks

also 'i don't care - they don't pay me enough' should be on our currency

-There were moles everywhere in the bathtub.

what the

i have no idea what that means!

I am assuming it means "dark spots" and not "small subterranean mammals" or "dark, raised skin spots"

although who knows, maybe someone clipped all their moles off in the tub and never rinsed it out

i thought it might be a typo of holes?

although that doesnt make any sense

guys this is the hotel carter we're talking about, literal moles are not out of play

goin with BELL PEPPERS

"With request from the small chinese man received nothing but hard heart ache and pian"

this is just beautiful

reading these in Neil Hamburger's voice

"moles" must be a typo for "molds" right? I mean I want it to just mean "moles", but

maybe they meant the tub was full of savory chocolate sauce

ok why did molds not occur to me

My top 4. I can NOT narrow it down further:

You know it's gonna be a bad start when the entrace to the hotel has a display of nutcrackers in the window
I took sleep aids for 2 nights to escape from the horror of reality
I first noticed that my room door was broken in two!
With request from the small chinese man received nothing but hard heart ache and pian

so much horror

white things out in the air so we shut it off

"MISS WE CANNOT CATCH MICE" ::jerry lewis voice::

Roxy, I love you. For the past two years I have been obsessed with reading bad reviews of a holiday camp in England. In fact, I was catching up the other day. Totally going to read this one and I have a feeling it's going to be my new thing. (btw: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g1752567-d607436-Reviews-Pontin_s_Camber_Sands_Centre-Camber_East_Sussex_England.html - in the last three days there seems to be a rash of positive reviews but go back - some of them are unbelievable. Also, the pictures.)

-We found maggets on our beds. -There were moles everywhere in the bathtub.

Also, I really want this to be moles too. Dammit.

ENBB you know Pontin's Camber Sands was where UK ATP was held for many years? Yeah it was pretty low rent but nothing horrendous, my favourite experience was the shower that cycled automatically and unstoppably every minute between boiling hot and freezing cold, having to jump in to wash for the brief seconds it was tolerable. Would also like to find a pic of the terrifying David Thewlis lookalike mural above the bar.

Maybe it's got a lot worse recently...

I don't know if I did know that, I think thought it was at a Butlins. Maybe it has gotten worse because some of the pictures/stories really do make it look pretty bad.

Yeah they moved it to Butlins which is about 1/1000 as seedy.

Oh, I've been to Butlins. I think the one it's held at though right now the name is escaping me.

Minehead!

Oh I liked that little Pontins, I didn't mind the chalets. It was amazing that the resort even had its own associated bar (<3 u, Queen Vic). Can you imagine a US campground having a pub attached? It would be unusable.

Which was not seedy but was definitely still . . . an "interesting" experience. Not really the kind of I'd ever pay to go to again tbh. Was totally worth it for the day trips though - I saw wild ponies and landscapes that looked like something out of a surreal dream!

I'm going to Camber in two weeks for ATP! I've been plenty before, and yeah, Minehead is a lot nicer in terms of chalets/cleanliness, but Camber is way better for maintaining the festival atmosphere.

x-post - Oh I liked that little Pontins, I didn't mind the chalets. It was amazing that the resort even had its own associated bar (<3 u, Queen Vic). Can you imagine a US campground having a pub attached? It would be unusable.

― Tottenham Heelspur (in orbit), Thursday, June 13, 2013 11:23 AM (50 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Hmmmm, campground? Is that what you would liken them to? I was trying to explain it to someone once and I couldn't really think of a us equivalent but I've never been to a campground. In light of that this might be a dumb question but, don't you stay in tents and stuff at campgrounds?

GUYS STOP YOU ARE MAKING IT SOUNDS WAY BETTER THAN THE HORRIBLE PLACE I HAD IMAGINED IN MY HEAD AND NOW READING THOSE REVIEWS WILL NO LONGER BE FUN.

Yeah, we don't really have those little...holiday villages? Anymore. I think they were more common in my mom's childhood but they turned decrepit/seedy eventually and then mostly disappeared. There are still some campgrounds that advertise cabins instead of tents, I don't know how common that is.

Kamping Kabins.

Yeah, there really isn't a direct equivalent that I could think of especially not one with activities and an entertainment schedule and stuff. I'll tell you what it did make for - excellent people watching. I guess what freaked me out most about those Pontins reviews was just how dirty so many of them made it sound. The words "mould" and "filthy" come up way too many times for somewhere that you're paying money to stay.

rox is this gonna be your honeymoon destination??

Fans of the words "mould", "filthy" and "smell of cats" may enjoy the tripadvisor for a place near me:

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g186361-d193762-Reviews-or10-Nanford_Guest_House-Oxford_Oxfordshire_England.html

(again, it has a few more favourable reviews lately for some reason. I haven't read them for a while so I don't know if the recent reviews are as amusing/horrifying but I spent a whole afternoon reading what was there about a year ago)

Look, as long as the English insist on putting carpeting in bathrooms, I don't see how you're going to avoid mold in the best of cases.

I used to work summers at an expensive (for West MI) resort with sort of the same idea: children's activities, tennis courts, a beach, mini-golf, tetherbalol. It had a main lodge with hotel rooms, and lots of smaller outbuildings that were full chalets with their own kitchens and stuff. I promise you that the decor and furnishings were NOT what guests were paying for, unless they were paying for the privilege of looking at the same lampshades their grandmothers had when they stayed there (it was that kind of place).

It was clean though (I know because I cleaned it).

When we went back to our room, there were people meditating right in front of our door, which we could not open

maybe they were trying to cast a spell of closing

AND NOW READING THOSE REVIEWS WILL NO LONGER BE FUN.

Just check out the travelers photos...

Oh, I've looked at them. All of them. Horrifying tbh which is one of the reasons I'm surprised that so many people are saying it's not that bad. It looks pretty grim!

The hot-water faucet fell out when I was in the shower, and a gush of boiling lava-like water landed me in ER.

Gotta admit laughed out loud at that one. ROxy deserves a medal for this thread.

we had FOIL as a mirror.

underrated IMO

I have to admit the idea of trying to shave or put on makeup in front of a foil mirror did make me chuckle

Yeah, that's pretty good. I kinda want to stay at this place. For like 20 minutes. Just to see how bad it really is.

lol who am I kidding - if it's as bad as it sounds I'd last 15 tops.

Also underrated imo:

"the walls were covered in graffiti, one that said 'evil lurks within this room look under the bed'"

It's like the Amityville Horror up in this place.

once for a friend's wedding we stayed at a cheap Philly hotel room with blood spatter across one of the walls and the pervasive smell of old butter because we were too broke to stay anywhere else

omg omg omg

"We witnessed cockroaches and mice and there was a blow up doll outside our window!"

witnessed lol

x-post - BLOOD!

also a big fan of someone had urinated in the bed recently and placed all of the pillows in the center of the bed to absorb it.

well wait let me rephase

Strangely enough the mould on the ceiling didn't bother me that much, nor the resident cockroach.

Gregor Samsa lives in my room

rox is this gonna be your honeymoon destination??

― ttyih boi (crüt), Thursday, June 13, 2013 3:37 PM (2 hours ago)

haha this is also the question that was on my mind

hahaha no, but i have been thinking of it lately bc andy and i went to nyc on our first trip together, and that's when i discovered these amazing reviews.

ENBB <3 thank you for this link - i think i have a new hobby. the hotel carter's tripadvisor has some pretty funny/O_O pics too - most are people showing mysterious rashes. and similarly, the hotel carter is now sadly being renovated, and is also having a recent rash of decent reviews. sad

batshit crazy reviews on trip advisor is my most favourite thing ever, thanks roxy

I love how there's rats and guys living in the hall and then "the curtains in your room were sewn in the early 60's"

voted for 'FOIL as a mirror,' it's the caps that does it, also love that it works in the sense that somebody can be somebody else's foil

right now really feeling the power of "Looks like a scene from a bad movie that takes place." however "There are bums defacating in the lobby" offers a strong challenge

BELL PEPPERS is good too... it's like youre in a real life AD&D game with a DM who has a sense of humor

voted "There was a man who lived behind a vending machine in a small gap whom the staff did nothing about." without even looking at the other options

the room key that opens every door on the fifth floor is like a feature from a fairy tale. a fairy tale with a bum defecating in the lobby

you mean defacating

I do indeed

I first noticed that my room door was broken in two!

I like this because it sounds like the fact that the door was in pieces snuck up on the person.

Disembodied butts defecating

wish I did not just GIS Hotel Carter NYC

FYI 2008 really to have been a banner year for the Carter in terms of amazingly awful reviews/pictures. Yes, I've spent the morning reading back that far and have no plans of stopping any time soon. What? It's a slow summer Friday afternoon!

When you walk into this awful hotel you spell a strong scent of BELL PEPPERS.

I love this whole sentence.

"the whole place is a no go area."

The fire escape routes showed floor plans from a different hotel!!

^^^ voted this on the grounds that it is the most terrifying

I read these all the way back to some time during 2004 last Friday. Amazing material.

wikipedia page on this place is fascinating...

On August 31, 2007, a housekeeper found the body[43] of Kristine Yitref, 33,[44] wrapped in plastic garbage bags and hidden under a bed in Room 608. Sex offender Clarence Dean, 35, was charged with homicide.[45] Yitref, as Mistress Kris, was formerly a member of the goth rock group The Nuns.[46] She had turned to prostitution at the time of her death to support a drug addiction.[47]

WOAH

"Sex offender Clarence Dean" o_o

The Carter Theater in the Carter Hotel presented Aesop's Fables in fifteen theatrical styles in November 1979. The play was produced by the Theater Workshop and the Broadway-Times Theater Company.[31] The off Broadway musical, Ka-Boom!, debuted at the Carter Theater in November 1980.[32] The space is now occupied by Cheetah's Gentleman's club.

omg the bay area Nuns?

"I didn't catch anything during my visit, but your luck will vary."

^has grown on me. WILL vary. lol.

Top 15:

we had FOIL as a mirror.
they found a dead body in a room, so we decided to leave one day early, but they refused to give us our money back!
As soon as we put the heater on, white things started coming out in the air, so we shut it down.
Looks like a scene from a bad movie that takes place.
Upon arrival we were greeted with a blood stained bath, not to mention rancid carpet.
The fire escape routes showed floor plans from a different hotel!!
When we went back to our room, there were people meditating right in front of our door, which we could not open
You know it's gonna be a bad start when the entrace to the hotel has a display of nutcrackers in the window
We witnessed cockroaches and mice and there was a blow up doll outside our window!
I discovered that my room key opened every door on the fifth floor.
I first noticed that my room door was broken in two!
If we'd found the prostitutes in the lobby it would have been a highlight.
I got verbally assaulted by one of their ' employees' that thought that I was an undercover cop
-We found maggets on our beds. -There were moles everywhere in the bathtub.
Upon trying to lay in bed for the night I found the sheets were covered in some sort of biological mess.

This is really hard. I kind of like the ones that juxtapose a fairly common complaint with something just completely bizarre like moles, floating blow-up dolls, blood stains, etc. Kind of feeling "I first noticed that my room door was broken in two!" which reads like text-adventure narration, or the setup for a decision in Choose Your Own Adventure or something.

I love how this poll has a two month end date, as if to encourage us to go visit New York this summer and check out the veracity of these claims first hand. Only lacks an option for "create your own".

I still feel like Sic let us all down as a community by not staying here during his recent trip to NYC.

Kind of feeling "I first noticed that my room door was broken in two!" which reads like text-adventure narration, or the setup for a decision in Choose Your Own Adventure or something.

haw, otm. it's also just so terrible. broken IN TWO? also lol that something was that terribly wrong before even opening the door to the room.

i didn't mean to make this poll last forever and a day tbh

If they'd read TripAdvisor first, they could have just changed rooms by taking their key down the hall to some other, still-intact door.

I'm just imagining that person on the fifth floor trying every door, horror mounting as each one opened based on the same key

i wonder if they tried it on any other floors

Second floor's where you've really got to watch out.

http://static.rogerebert.com/redactor_assets/pictures/scanners/viewers-guide-the-keycard-to-room-237/237key-thumb-510x382-53776.jpg

I chose the fire escape routes showed floor plans from a different hotel!! for total absurdity & because it seems to really capture the whole attitude of the hotel.

agreed, that one is so bizarre!! why go through the trouble

like did they just google + print "floor plan" or

I would not rule out the possibility that the hotel has... changed.

kind of want to go here

the best is image searching the pictures and thinking... ehh, that's not _that_ many stains on the mattress

i should add that the full quote, which wouldn't fit up there, was:

with request from the small chinese man received nothing but hard heart ache and pian from the fact that his hotel had nothing to offer except but rudeness, smell and disease.

I voted for that one because it made me lol super hard just now

you go down the list but oftentimes you just want to return to 'There was a man who lived behind a vending machine in a small gap whom the staff did nothing about.'

This thread delivering biggest laughs in recent memory.

I have a Word document full of uncensored highlights collected over many months

I still feel like Sic let us all down as a community by not staying here during his recent trip to NYC.

nothing stopping you from going p much any weekend u kno

loving this garbled metaphor

We did not watch any TV, but turned it on to muffle the air of desolation in the room.

I keep seeing the name of the hotel and thinking it has something to do with Jay-Z

jay z should buy this hotel

Hotel Carter sits atop a semi-preserved turntable-based bus-station from the turn of the Depression: http://www.scoutingny.com/

specifically: http://www.scoutingny.com/?p=6766

Guy on the phone beside me trying to book a hotel: "What's your hotel like? Do you know the Hotel Carter? Is it better than that?"

a friend of mine said his band stayed in a hotel which was full and he had to stay in essentially the same room as the concierge which was separated by like, a blanket nailed to the ceiling. and the concierge jerked off to porn all night "2 ft away from my head". i thought of the hotel carter

also, that was their first night ever being in america. lmao

welcome to america!!

in america we jerk off next to ppl's heads from behind a curtain as a welcoming ritual

he shouldve asked the guy behind the vending machine if he could spare any room

what sorts of snacks can you get from this vending machine, I wonder

The curtains in your room were sewn in the early 60's. Film at 11.

that one is my favorite today.

I'll bet those snacks are really old. The candy bars are probably all white & the machine probably steals your money.

And yet, not SO old that anything has any kind of cool retro packaging or anything like that.

obsessively going through the tripadvisor reviews

I had a room with an open window. The window would not close. It was the beginning of April and + 3 C. When I asked the staff to fix the window there was a man who came in and tried to duck tape the window shut and failed. Before leaving (window still open) he said "- Ugh, this is a horrible room."
There was blood stains on the wall in the corridor, I found an old tooth brush covered in months of dust under my bed. Bathroom missing tiles. Grimy all over. Plug sockets looked lethal.
Do not recommend. Even for the price in relation to location I would never go back. Ever.

also the owner's wikipedia:

He began his hotel business in New York City, first with the Hotel Opera on the Upper West Side in Manhattan, and then Hotel Carter (with favorable low prices, which was deemed the dirtiest hotel in the US in 2009[8] ) in Midtown Manhattan and Hotel Lafayette in Buffalo, New York, Quality Inn Downtown, Best Western (Baltimore).[9] Along the way Mr Truong owned and operated other New York hotels as well, including the infamous Hotel Kenmore Hall on 23rd Street which was seized from Truong by the US Marshals Service in 1994 because of deplorable conditions and rampant crime within the building.[2]

this is amazing:

“My first night in New-York was at The Carter Hotel.”
Reviewed October 18, 2002
P.S. Since I am a french Canadian, Excuse my poor use of your language.

Not at all like what the web site is offering. Half the night staff were drunk. The carpet in the elevator is the same as the one they use to cover the head of my bed. Every client before us took of the sticky tag on the cloth they bought and stick it back on the room wall. So there was maybe a couple of dozens of prize or size sticker. We never find any working television. I am a well grown men and i didn't find the guts to undress and sleep under the sheet. My wife and I Slept fully clothes and on our coats. But since we were young and poor, This trip was the one we remember the most. My wife and I because Manhattan is indeed the biggest place on earth.

like a french-canadian a moveable feast

wow thats moving

oh man the owner's wikipedia is also a longstanding obsession

"Every client before us took of the sticky tag on the cloth they bought and stick it back on the room wall. So there was maybe a couple of dozens of prize or size sticker" is the very first thing in my word document "best of"!!!

Woah the owner also owned Hotel Kenmore Hall which:

Hotel Kenmore Hall is a 22-story single room occupancy hotel located at 145 East 23rd Street in the Gramercy section of Manhattan, designed by architect Maurice Deutsch [1] and constructed in 1927. Author Nathanael West lived and worked at the hotel as a night manager in the early years after the hotel opened;[2] one of West's real-life experiences at the hotel inspired the incident between Romola Martin and Homer Simpson that would later appear in The Day of the Locust (1939). West allowed friends like Edmund Wilson, Erskine Caldwell, S.J. Perelman and Maxwell Bodenheim free room and meals. Dashiell Hammett finished The Maltese Falcon (novel) here [3]

That is AWESOME.

best poll, it's so difficult to decide

I discovered that my room key opened every door on the fifth floor.

is currently my favorite, i'm imagining this guy opening all of the doors in turn and being confronted with new & unique horrors behind each of them

Voted for "moles" - typo or not, I like the idea of a colony of these guys saying "get the fuck out of our bathtub"

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/02/images/050202_mole.jpg

foil mirror imo

i'm imagining this guy opening all of the doors in turn and being confronted with new & unique horrors behind each of them

― ⚓ (elmo argonaut), Tuesday, July 16, 2013 3:57 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol, yes

Say, isn't tuomas visiting nyc soon?

As soon as we put the heater on, white things started coming out in the air, so we shut it down.

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080210191235/aliens/images/9/94/Alien_facehugger.jpg

tuomas would be sooo unable to understand anything about this hotel including the negative commentary

imagining tuomas's reaction to the floorplans from another hotel

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Going with fire escape plans, which is not the most unpleasant thing you could encounter in a hotel, necessarily but really suggests either (a) the hotel transcending total negligence and moving into outright evil, or (b) a sign of some Stephen King shit going down where the hotel is built over a burial ground of Satan-worshipping Dutch colonials or something and over the years has been changing, gradually, from a hotel into something... else.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

god ive been so mad without internet in my house cause i couldnt view the results of this poll on my phone!!

GREAT top 3

http://tripadvisaargh.tumblr.com/

omg

"the staff talk to you like dirt they don’t call you by SIR or MADAM they say OI YOU the security guard tells you to shut up and that ‘this is hell and i am the devil’ (what a nice start)

we was only asking for a safe deposit box - gill0842"

I got attacked by wild dogs, the bedroom was disugsting the bed/ sofa had poo stains and the people before us had weed on the bed which the cleaners didnt clean which i had too sleep in with my sister.

you have no idea

I'm on page 15 and am now reading about some place in Blackpool that it linked to and omg I'm riveted.

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowUserReviews-g186332-d2322987-r127110475-Malibu_Hotel-Blackpool_Lancashire_England.html#REVIEWS

Holy shit, the response from the management of that hotel.

ResponseS plural. I've gone down the rabbit-hole on this one.

malibublackpool, Your Shrink at Malibu Hotel, responded to this review
10 September 2012
How many times do we have to tell you not to open tripadvisor accounts and use your turrets in writing. We understand your medication is not working but it will in time. The malibu clearly had to put up with you on your day release from ward 29, but this will be your last release. If it wasn't for the malibu hotel, you would be lying in an alley again somewhere after paying your fiver a night allowance. Thanks Malibu for looking after this very sick person...

Jasmine Beach Resort, Turkey
this is definatley not for the english so be prepared to be treated like we are the foreigners!!

...

RIP :(

http://www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk/news/local/court-shuts-down-stag-and-hen-hotel-1-4495879

OMG

ty enbb!!!!

The hotel was surrounded by wild cats so couldn’t leave the hotel at night - Donna O

Surrounded By Wildcats would have been a good ripoff of Captured! By Robots during the whole rediscovery of state-fair airbrushed cat-and-wolf T shirts thing.

You know, because everyone was really striving to rip off Captured! By Robots.

A door down the corridor had a hand-written sign on it saying “Anyone Who Knocks Dies” with a picture of a gun and a skull. - anon

There was a crap in the pool when we moved in. It got cleaned out but it made it difficult to eat meals as every time you faced the window it caught your eye and put you off the food.
The taps were annoying. - Angel889

^^ I love the use of the second person in that one especially

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g186332-d615459-Reviews-or40-Grosvenor_Hotel-Blackpool_Lancashire_England.html#REVIEWS

with regards to this “hotel”, this was my first day after waking up from a 10 year coma, and within 30 seconds are being in this hotel, I wished I was back in the coma!!! I decided I needed to get out of here, and required a long hard-drink to overcome this situation (alcohol hadn’t passed my lips for 20 years, obviously 10 of these I was in a coma). - DRBLACKITH666

btw i was in a coma fyi

"obviously"

"This is by far the worst place ive stayed in. i found a cats paw in my pillow case - JonNigweed"

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g190762-d632780-Reviews-Wulfrun_Hotel-Wolverhampton_West_Midlands_England.html

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g186332-d192734-Reviews-or810-Norbreck_Castle_Hotel-Blackpool_Lancashire_England.html#REVIEWS

We happened to be there at the same time as an Alcoholics Anon convention which made us feel totally guilty about drinking at the bar as they watched us mournfully.

There was also a large puddle on the disused forecourt in which a dead pigeon floated for the duration of our holiday. - angieM

What kind of hospital discharges you the day you wake up from your ten-year coma?

idk

so. many. questions.

I spent HOURS on this thing yesterday. I can't stop!

lmao at wishing he was back in the coma

http://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/df14b652-s.jpg

killjoys

lol

I sent this one to Emily a while back.

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g186338-d1650972-r188990643-Steve_s_Bed_Breakfast-London_England.html#CHECK_RATES_CONT

Do not go there. On arrive the stairs was full of mould and dirty and look like they had not cleaned the place in year. There was fly flying your face.

The place is badly maintained, almost neglected, the swimming pool looks like a pool with toads inside, the 2 cats of the owner come to steal the food in the kitchen and the dog is attached to 1 meter of rope and barks all the time.
Clothes were stolen from us, the owner is always shouting in her garden and we even had to bring in the police, the supporting evidences to the commissionership! Her husband says nothing, I believe that he is afraid of her.

The maid walked in on my wife while she was in the bathroom, and the maid asked us to wait out on the balcony while she cleaned our room (even though we insisted we didn't need her services that day).

The villa's guest book was a scrapbook of edited entries, blocking out a history of customer complaints.

we were given an initial roll of toilet paper, but were told that additional TP would be our responsibility as well!!

http://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/tripadvisor-s-worst-hotels-in-the-world-thrillist-nation

its my goal to stay at all of those

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9s9N0cBiFA

i keep referencing "receiving nothing but hard heart ache and pian" (pronounced pee-on) to my husband who i thought i had talked about this with. i was mistaken

finally he was like "wtf does that mean?"

respond by emailing him a confirmation for a stay at the hotel carter.

i think i was complaining that after much request from the toaster i received nothing but hard heartache and pian, and he had finally had enough

lol

"I took sleep aids for 2 nights to escape from the horror of reality" is criminally underrated

as a former guest i can say that getting blindingly wasted during your trip also works.