Knight's Inn of Hardeeville, SC
01/08/2005: I was looking for a good stopping point 10-12 hours from my home in Columbus, OH. A friend of mine in South Carolina suggested stopping somewhere near Hardeeville, SC for the night. This would put us just 5 hours from Orlando, so it sounded good to me. I booked the Knight's Inn, and being a name brand hotel, I wasn't too worried about it. Boy, was I wrong.
When I arrived, the hotel looked nothing like any other Knight's Inn I had ever seen. It wasn't the standard 1-floor brown building, but rather a sleazy two story motel. The design wasn't the same, but I didn't think it was a big deal. We checked in anyhow.
After finding our room, things were bad before we even opened the door. Two doors down, was a room with the door just hanging open. Either they were working on it, or someone broke in. In any case, the door shouldn't be open at 1am. I opened the door to my room, and the place was completely filthy. It looks like they bought used carpet from a mechanic's shop and just threw it on the floor without cleaning it first. Everything else was filthy in the room too, from the walls and ceiling, to the bed and table. I didn't even want to set my bag down in there. It just felt dirty. (To be honest, I've been in abandoned buildings where I'd rather sleep.)
After almost 2 minutes in the room, I decided to step outside and figure out what to do. There was no chance in hell that I'd be staying here, but the sign was clearly marked no refunds. As I walked around the second floor of this hotel, the floor stopped being concrete all of a sudden. It felt like it was thin carpet stretched over 2x4s. Then my foot went through the floor. "That's it! I'm outta here!" (2/16/06 Update: I was asked to remove this statement by a member of the hotel staff, but it is not 100% false. I will clarify here. My foot did not completely go through the floor like you'd see in a cartoon, but the floor did sink down like I was going to fall down through to the bottom floor. It was a scary feeling, and this hotel was still a dump. Never stay here.)
We immediately went down to the office and told them that we wouldn't stay there if every other place on earth was contaminated with nuclear waste. I needed a refund ASAP. They gave it with no problem, and we immediately got out of there to find someplace nicer.
In a Nutshell:
- Filthy room
- Dirty walls and floors
- Unstable floors
- Scary Hotel
Score: Z-
(Note: I only use a A-F scale. This hotel was just THAT bad.)
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