Das Parkhotel, Ottensheim, Germany

I think we’ll let the copy and images from the hotel’s website speak for itself. Note: Best if read in exaggerated German accent.

dasparkhotel is conceived and implemented primarily as a hospitality tool.

The chance to safely store your luggage and recharge portable electronic devices allows complete freedom of movement.

it is necessary to have a place to be alone, to hide from the new and strange voices when they get to be too much

the simultaneously functional and comfortable concrete sleep-pipes offer the chance to experience a place in a totally new way.

Nuovo Albergo Russo, Trapani, Sicily

Nuovo Albergo Russo’s website is typical for Italian hotel websites – like someone’s kid brother got a hold of a discarded HTML book from 1998, and is now treated like the Bill Gates of his village.  And once again, the photos tells a story much different than “Come stay here.”  We’ll call this one, “Victorian Mafia Murder Mystery on Acid.”

Concetta Nunziata receives an ominous warning from the local Mafia. Whether it's her son lying unconscious on the bed or the angry phoenix in the painting is anyone's guess.

She then heads to a seating area decorated by her dead grandmother, and sees a ghoulish painting of herself on the wall. Are the eyes... following her?

She hears music playing in her dead grandfather's old study. Is someone in the hotel with her?

It seems the hotel... has been closed for years! The furniture is covered with sheets, and everything on the back wall is askew!

Ye olde telephone is ringing! The sofa's missing an arm! And is someone going to be setting the whole thing aflame soon?

She runs from room to room, looking for anyone who can help her, becoming dizzy from the clashing patterns...

...and her fragile hold on sanity finally breaks when the bed covers speak: "You're forever trapped in this prison of fugly!"

She hears the far-off laughter of her lost son... and awakes to find herself in the very room she started in. "You were having a nightmare, dear," her husband says, as he tickles their son, who collapses into giggles. She, too laughs... but then stares off in the distance as she swears she hears a gramophone playing in the distance...

FIN.

Finestra su Roma Apartment, Rome, Italy

Now, I know this isn’t technically a hotel, but I had to include it here because, while their name charmingly means “Window on Rome,” the only view they decided to show us was of my favorite thing: Hallways.

This looks like the establishing shot for a Law & Order takedown scene.

I'm not sure what we're supposed to be focusing on here.

Do I need to present my hall pass to whomever will be sitting in that chair?

Hotel Central Dominik Panzio, Budapest, Hungary

I think I know what happened here.

Someone in management took a picture of a hotel room for something called a web site, which he knew nothing about.  But, being the dutiful employee he is, he grabbed his one-shot and a key, opened the door, snapped this picture and left.

When the pimply-faced night clerk saw this on the website (no doubt while looking for porn), he called up a friend who happened to be a budding photographer.  The photographer swore he could do better, and they hatched a plan for him to come over to the hotel at night, when managment wasn’t around, and take totally awesome shots of the place. “Just leave it to me, my man,” the budding photographer said. “It’s all in the details.”

“BP,” as our pimply-faced night porter called his friend, the budding photographer, “This is a hotel, not a gift shop.  We need pictures of the rooms!”

“Not a problem, my man,” old BP said. “I brought along my enormous, plug-in light.” Little did pimple-face know, BP was going to use these shots in his instructional booklet, “How To Light A Room.”

And you see kids, that’s why there’s gear in every single room shot on their website.

Franciacorta Golf Hotel, Paratico, Italy

These pictures actually tell a story.  It’s about an older man who, disillusioned by unfulfilled dreams of being on the varsity football squad, decided to become a writer.

But that did not work out either, and he hadn’t left his room for days when suddenly he stood his typewriter on its end, left his half-finished glass of prosecco and went downstairs to the wellness center.

Well, hello, ladies. Now, this was more his style.  And they seemed so happy to see him, too.  After some chatting, he lured them up to his room with promises of half-finished prosecco and a bowl of fruit.

The girls, not entirely smitten with our aging Lothario, locked themselves in the bathroom, one sitting on the toilet and the other on a conveniently placed table, and painted each other’s toenails and giggled about the lecherous old coot.

The end. Of existence.

Red Rose Hotel, Chiang Rai, Thailand

Another reader submission!  Keep them coming, gang! The Red Rose Hotel in Chaing Rai is from Jason, who says, “It was an old short-time hotel, where you would park your car next to your room and they’d pull a curtain shut behind it. Then no one could see that you were out for afternoon delight with your secretary. Nowadays the rooms have drastically changed. Like Toontown vomited.”

Now, Jason, come on, it can’t be that ba… HOLY CRAP.

Am I ready for something different? Uh… what did you have in mind? Because I’m not a coke addict with ADHD, so I’m not sure this is my kind of different. Thank God it is Chang Rai’s only amusement hotel; I’m not sure the public could handle two of them.

Shall we move onto the rooms, hilariously placed in a template called TOON TV and surrounded by a fake rock graphic and a kind of clip art version of a safari party, with a late-night infommercial operator… who’s blonde?

Yes. Yes, let’s move right on.

This room is called BAKERY, although on the pic name it’s BERKERY.  I guess that means it’s a berzerk bakery.  Or just a bread oven in hell.  Also, I want to note that this room’s actual name is “507,604″ which I hope is not an indication of how many people have had panicky, furtive sex in this room.

Oh, and the rooms come with: 2 cups of coffee and karaoke.

I shit you not.

Remember the Hungry Hungry Hippo game we had when we were kids? No?

Thanks to the Adventure Room, now you do.

I was wondering to what extent the room above, called LOCO, would be crazy. Then I saw the picture, and now I’m traumatized for life. This room should be called REGRESSIVE THERAPY or FLASHBACK or BAD TOUCHES.

This next room… well, I think it’s kinda cool, although I’m not sure how comfy that mattress is, or how much I’d injure myself sliding down off of it when I went I go pee in the middle of the night.

Their Classic room looks like an air mattress laid out on someone’s front porch.  And, it doesn’t come with karaoke, just the 2 cups of coffee. RIP OFF.

Moby Dick Oceanfront Lodge, Nanaimo, British Columbia

I’m back – and I’ve got a doozy for you, sent in by faithful (and patient) reader David. Hold on to your hats, matey, because the Moby Dick Oceanfront Lodge is coming for YOU.

Friends don't let friends Photoshop drunk.

One of these has to be true:

1. The boats are tiny little playthings in a kiddie pool.

2. The lobby is inaccessible by land. Or, possibly, at all.

3. The hotel rooms are enormous – and the first floor is fully submerged.

4. Those people on the path are in fact small children playing unattended, which frankly should not be allowed.

5. The border between the grass and the path is emitting radioactive light, or there’s a light dusting of snow in this otherwise summery scene.

If you know the answer, please let me know – because I’m out of possibilities on this one.

Moving on to the activities section of this hotel website alerts the viewer to some horrifying picture/text combinations:

The caption under this picture on the website is:

Dinner anyone?

Which is what a really mean uncle would say to a small child upon showing them this horrible site. I love a good crabcake as much as the next girl, but no one needs to see their dinner suffering like that.

This next one is going to give me nightmares, however.

Have you always wanted to jump off a bridge?

I can only conclude from the funhouse-style hotel structure to the ghoulish meal and suicidal activity schedule that no one gets out of Moby Dick Oceanfront Lodge alive.

Huntley Santa Monica Beach

Lo and behold, it looks like your Miss Expatria had a bee in her hotel bonnet way back when!  Let’s see what she had to say:

I don’t believe I need to express further on this blog how much I love hotels. Some might call me a hotel snob, but really, I’m not. I disdain hostels and a one-star is out of the question, but my only true requirement is that the room is clean and well-maintained. Give me that, and I’m perfectly content.

I’ve rarely had a room that has disappointed me. Sure, my room in Negril was made of bare cinder blocks; I was 35 feet from the Caribbean sea, I wore my bathing suit to dinner and people brought me rum punch 14 hours a day. The room was fine. [I was going to link to the hotel as evidence, but it looks like they've completely renovated it - so for your enjoyment, here it is! And, I highly recommend all-inclusive resorts while in the Caribbean; but that is a post for another time, and I digress.]

Right, then, my point – and I do have one – is most likely unfounded, but strongly held nonetheless: The Huntley Santa Monica Beach messed up.

Now, don’t get all excited; I haven’t secretly flown to the States for a sneak peek. My opinion is based solely on their site, which I linked to above, and this totally awesome review by film critic Leah Rozen. Why is that review awesome, you ask? Because it is an evenly written slap across the face. LOVE IT. And love her!

So, let’s take a look at the hotel from Miss Expatria’s point of view, based solely on Ms. Rozen’s review and the hotel’s website:

1. The Huntley is located across the street from the beach. But 62 white fish on a white wall and a rattan-inspired end table do not a beach feeling make. Especially since they are in stark contrast to the 1970s Lake Tahoe theme of the rest of the lobby. I come in off a day on the beach and find this? No, thanks.

2. I enjoy a nice television as much as the next girl. But did you really stick it like a hot dog on a large black pole in the middle of my room?

3. You boast a view of the Pacific, and then give me windows better suited for a motel off the Turnpike? As Ms. Rozen herself points out, the sea was “glimpsed only from the bed or by standing directly alongside the window.” For shame.

4. The bathroom: “Comparable in size and layout to a narrow galley kitchen in a cramped Manhattan apartment. There was no bathtub but instead a capacious glass-enclosed shower. A broken towel rack hadn’t been fixed and, during the evening turn-down service, housekeeping failed to replace used towels.” Ouch. When a room starts at over $400 per night, I would expect it to be at least as well maintained as my crappy apartment.

5. Why the candles at the bar? First off, the ceiling is going to be black within six months. Secondly, the wax will leak and make the bottles stick to their shelves. And finally, the bar looks like an operating room – 15 candles aren’t going to add nearly enough warmth. And I caught your cheeky scallop shells in pressed tin – again, not enough to let me know I’m 100 yards from the beach.

From Ms. Rozen’s review, it seems that the entire hotel merely serves as a backdrop for yet another swanky bar frequented by the glittering masses. Remember when hotels were for the guests?

Hotel Viennese, Rome, Italy

This hotel’s website is unique in that not only are there four completely different websites for the five languages they offer; each one is absolutely atrocious.

I feel like a kid at Christmas. I don’t even know where to start.  I guess we’ll go by language.

Italian – I want to say that this one was made in about 1992 and then forgotten; but I just checked and it was updated four days ago. That’s right: Someone logged in; looked at it; thought to themselves, “OK, everything looks good;” and then logged out and probably went for an espresso. Note animated flags; menu buttons too small for the text; ye olde rates table template; and the pictures… oh my eyes, the pictures:

Wait... then... look at the... oh hell, they're going too fast for the snark. (Update: If you don't see a series of pictures here, sorry; it's supposed to be their .gif that's on their site, but it's not working and I don't know why and now I feel like a heel.)

English – That’s not a mistake; your screen has in fact finished loading.  You have to scroll down past the sidebar menu to get to the actual web page. Sigh.  On this one, it’s the translation fun that stands out for me:

The hotels family run has blen recently restructured and room perfectly arranged are with private bath, TV color, air conditional, safe box. Parching and change are adjacent to the hotels in Rome.

Priceless.

French and German – Ah, here we see the artist coming of age. And, my favorite CCTV hallway shot makes a comeback. Seriously – hallways? Really? Is there anywhere in a hotel you spend less time?

Spanish – I’m tempted to say this is like the English page, except there is the strange yelllow screen at the top, and the .gif was added to this page where on the English it’s just one sad, lonely picture.

Now, this place is a one-star.  And that’s OK. But could you have maybe skimped on the ridiculous, midlife-crisis plasma screens and instead paid a halfway decent web designer to whack this crap into shape?

Tour Hotel, Blois, France

What is it about this picture on the Tour Hotel’s home page that reminds me of the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band?

It's wonderful to be here / it's certainly a thrill.

I’m not refuting that the hotel, the landscaping, the hot air balloon and the girl on the bike exist. I am, however, highly skeptical that they were all in frame at the same time.  I’m also unsure why this otherwise bucolic, if entirely contrived, scene needed clip art of white birds arriving from behind that tree like the fricking Luftwaffe.

However, let us set aside questionable photography so that we may turn our attention to a source of endless amusement for me: English translations from French. Let’s take a look at some of these Gallic gems:

Two family rooms with bunk beds (90 cm). The bunk beds are disadvised to the teenagers of more than 50kg. It is imperative to communicate the age of the children at the time of your reservation.

…and apparently, their weight. Because you know the French will have no trouble telling your little princess she is too fat for the bunk bed.

Two communicanting rooms COMFORT ** PRIVATIVE

I don’t know what communicanting is, but it seems that it’s important to do it in privativity and comfort.

two Triple rooms has three beds separated for adults and bateenagers

Verb agreement aside: Do bateenagers need beds, or do they sleep suspended from the ceiling?

You will find yourself wandering freely on foot

…and you will have no idea why.

a meeting room for up to 15 people, with a flip chart.

Oh my God, Martha!  They have a flip chart!  You can stop working on that PowerPoint presentation.

So that you can relax completely and forget your day to day worries, the hotel is entirely non-smoking

For smokers? Not so relaxing; not so worry-free.

room of 15 m2 TV channel + sat Tnt Wifi Gratuit Phones room of bath in very rooms Toilet Séche hair

Is the Tour Hotel some sort of conduit for coded messages between spies? Because if they are, I am totally booking a room.

(I know I’ve been hating on French hotel websites recently.  Just so you know… that’s probably not going to stop anytime soon.)