Why My Friends No Longer Let Me Book the Hotels

It was a cold winter day at college. Rainy, freezing, gray — basically every weather condition I hate. Naturally, I found myself scrolling Hotels.com that evening, a website I personally consider one of humanity’s greatest inventions. And then I saw it: a two-bed hotel, two miles from the beach, $30 a night, available that weekend. Perfect.

Within the hour, I had convinced four of my girlfriends that we desperately needed a mid-semester beach trip.

Late Friday afternoon, we packed up the car and headed to my best friend Emma’s dad’s place — “Dad’s,” as we all call it — to drop off her cat and dog before driving to the coast.

Not even thirty minutes into the drive, the cat threw up everywhere.

And when I say everywhere, I mean everywhere. In my hair, on my clothes, across the entire backseat (which unfortunately had three people sitting in it), and all over our bags. Definitely not part of the itinerary.

After aggressively scrubbing my car with dish soap and water from a gas station fountain drink station, we continued on to Dad’s.

Luckily, there was Mexican food waiting for us there, which immediately restored morale. Spirits were high again. We said our goodbyes, got back on the road, and finally made it to Fort Walton late that night.

Naturally, upon arriving at 11:30 PM, we decided the most reasonable thing to do was immediately go to the beach.

Amanda and I jumped straight into the ocean fully clothed because apparently we had completely lost all decision-making abilities by that point. After our midnight swim, we decided it was finally time to head to the hotel and get some sleep.

As we pulled into the hotel parking lot, Emma and I were genuinely impressed. We’ve stayed in some pretty questionable places for this price before, so our standards were not exactly sky high. But this place had lights in the parking lot. A clean pool. Actual room numbers on the doors.

Luxury.

For reference, we once stayed at a hotel in Hot Springs National Park that didn’t even have room numbers — just an incredibly friendly employee who personally walked us to our room, which, by the way, did not lock.

So honestly? This place was already exceeding expectations.

Until we opened the door.

Immediately, it felt like we had walked directly into a lit cigarette. Eyes watering. Coughing from my asthmatic friends. Full respiratory distress.

But look on the bright side — it was just a smell.

We quickly started spraying perfume around the room in hopes of helping.

It did help.

The room no longer smelled like cigarettes.

It smelled like a very feminine cigarette.

At this point, I decided to shower before bed since I had just fully submerged myself in the Gulf of Mexico in my Free People romper. While showering, I discovered we were not the only living things in the hotel room. There was what appeared to be an entire microbiome of mold in the bathroom.

Not ideal, but honestly not even in the top five worst discoveries of the night. And plus sharing is caring. So I shared my shower with the microbiome.

As I walked out of the bathroom, I found my friends gathered around the beds looking horrified. Apparently, the cigarette smell wasn’t the only issue. There were multiple used cigarettes in and around the beds along with burn holes in the sheets.

Okay.

I had brought a blanket from home. I would survive.

As I walked toward my bed, we noticed two additional problems.

The first was the floor. Every step made a loud squelching sound because the floors were somehow both sticky and damp at the same time. The second was the window AC unit, which made the exact same loud clicking noise every two seconds.

Every. Two. Seconds.

Thank God I brought headphones.

My friend Ansley — who acts as the mom of the group and keeps the rest of us alive — began doing security checks around the room before bed.

Window = locked.
Main door = locked.
Connecting room door = secured with electric tape.

Yes. Electric tape.

Apparently a broken lock and a strip of tape were the only things separating us from the people in the neighboring room. We partially shoved a dresser in front of the door just in case.

Finally, it was time for sleep.

Or so we thought.

About forty-five minutes later, we were all jolted awake by screaming from the neighboring room. At around 3 AM, we learned that drugs and money are apparently very important topics of discussion. There was a full-blown drug deal dispute happening directly on the other side of our electric-tape security system.

At least it was something interesting keeping us awake.

Eventually, they seemed to resolve the financial disagreement because the drug-related yelling stopped. Unfortunately, the rest of the yelling did not. Our neighbors generously allowed us to hear every conversation, every TV show, and every deeply concerning detail of their evening activities.

By around 4:45 AM, after overhearing more information than anyone should ever hear from strangers, we collectively decided it was time to leave.

Three of us volunteered to take the first load of luggage down to the car, which was parked on the complete opposite side of the building. Walking through that parking lot at 4:45 in the morning genuinely felt like being in the Hunger Games.

As we squeezed between two parked cars to get to mine, we discovered that the car next to us was occupied.

“Hey there,” a man lying fully reclined in the front seat said while winking at me.

Horrified, I instinctively grabbed onto my friends and responded with a quick, “No thank you.”

Because apparently even in moments of extreme fear, I still worry about being polite.

We threw our bags into the car while our new parking-lot acquaintance kindly invited us into his vehicle. We declined and sprinted back upstairs for the rest of our things.

On the way, we passed an alarming number of people wandering around the hotel.

What exactly was happening at 4:45 in the morning?

Apparently this hotel was not designed for sleeping.

Somehow, we managed to grab the rest of our stuff without incident and headed straight to the beach for sunrise.

And honestly? The sunrise was gorgeous. The entire day ended up being perfect despite the complete lack of sleep and potential biohazards we had encountered over the last eight hours.

Later that day, I politely called the hotel to ask for a refund.

They refused.

They still hear from me regularly.

So if you happen to be the hotel manager reading this — hello again.

Moral of the story: never let me book the hotel.