You know it almost as soon as you see it. It's not a good situation.
Luckily, there are a lot of options and you don't have to be stuck with what you get. The good thing about having a bad hotel room is that there are other rooms in the hotel.
As amazing Airbnbs are, If you're staying at an Airbnb, this is where you're SOL.
Recently, I stayed in Da Nang, Vietnam with my two uncles, and it was almost immediately clear that when we entered our hotel room, it was not going to be in a good situation.
Meaning, as in every time you took a shower, it flooded the entire bathroom like it was flooding the Titanic. (For those interested, the shower wasn't fully sealed from the bathroom.)
In blistering Vietnam, where you needed to take three showers a day, it was totally untenable.
Compound this against three people sharing a hotel stay, and the situation was basically a nightmare.
Document the hotel room as soon as possible
Photos, videos. As much as you can, without making it a hassle for yourself.
If you skip this step, you've lost a lot of recourse, especially if it means you have to file a dispute with the credit card company down the line (and we hope you've paid the hotel with credit card).
This is important if the front desk staff also pushes back, as I suspect, most of them already know the problem rooms.
(Even as a seasoned traveler, I forgot about this!)
Say something about the room to the hotel staff immediately!
Chances you're only there for two or three nights, so when it comes to a bad hotel room, that's eternity, dude.
In my mind, there's two kind of hotel issues: It is either a nitpicky or a major issue. (There is something about giving grace to human error, as long as it's reasonable.)
Flooding the hotel bathroom floor, in my mind, was a major issue.
In our case, the hotel staff said a lot of the rooms in the hotel had the same issue (dubious! given what happened later), but a staff member came up to clean and check the room.
Not a good situation. (Ramsés Cervantes / Unsplash)
Ask if the hotel room can be changed and/or ask for a refund
I knew it was a bad situation, when the next morning, I went to the bathroom and immediately wanted to murder someone.
I met with the front desk staff as soon as I could, who offered me another room, on a different floor, even though it was away from my family.
Magically, this room had no issues, and to boot, was cheaper and even larger than the previous room. It had functioning amenities, and didn't smell like mold-so it was a relief on all fronts.
If for some reason there is not other available hotel room-hotels do get booked out!-I would ask for a possible refund, full or partial, depending on how bad the situation is.
Personally, it is better to deal with the front desk rather than the corporate office, though taking a look to see if there are available hotel rooms through the reservation system doesn't hurt.
Dispute it with the credit card company as a last resort
This is pretty straightforward, provided that there is compelling documentation. The credit card companies, in general, are pretty lenient in terms of giving favor to the customer in my experience, but definitely don't expect anything without written communication.
In a worst-case scenario, if you've exhausted all routes and they won't budge, you can still cancel any remaining nights or look for a vacation rental elsewhere if you're still mid-trip.
Life is too short for a bad hotel room!
