06/11/07

The Funk of Forty Thousand Years (permalink)

carlisle foul disgusting nasty hotel con convention anime omaha otaku travel

I just got back from my trip to Otaku Omaha last night, and while I will be posting photos and information about the con later, I thought I would make a quick post about the hotel the con was at.

Without a doubt the Carlisle Hotel (a Days Inn) is the worst hotel I have stayed at in a long time. The hotel is obviously old judging from the architecture and decor and the state of repair and neatness of the hotel suggests that there has been no maintenance or cleaning done to the premises since it first opened. The EPA should categorize the place as a Superfund site and seal it off for the betterment of all mankind.

Because I am tired and lists are easy, here are some fun facts about the hotel:

• The whole place smelled like a mix of the chlorine leaking into the building from their chemically hazardous pool, disease, mildew, and the fumes of noxious cleaning chemicals (not that I ever saw any evidence of cleaners being used).
• One of the big selling features of the rooms on their site is the inclusion of a clock radio. It didn't work.
• The carpets had so many stains it was impossible to discern the original pattern.
• The rooms featured hung ceiling tiles, many of which were broken, sagging, heavily stained or un-matching.
• The wallpaper was peeling at almost every seam, missing in several places and was covered with an array of stains that I did not care to investigate.
• The beds were horribly old and would sag almost to the floor under normal weight making the springs creak.
• The view from our room was facing someone's driveway and an old beaten down car.
• The entire place was kept at about 85 degrees, causing the smell of a few hundred sweaty nerds to add to the general funk and greatly increasing the discomfort.
• There was no weather or sound sealing on the room doors, and there was about a once inch gap between the door and the floor where you could see out (or in).
• None of the staff seemed to give a shit about their customers, and were extremely unhelpful.

Click here for some shitty reviews of the carlisle hotel in Omaha, NE.

(as an aside, one of the only good reviews on that site contained this sage wisdom in response to the negative reviews: "donot aspect more crispy without oil.")

In short, DO NOT STAY AT THE CARLISLE HOTEL. If you must attend a convention or event at the Carlisle hotel, I recommend staying at one of the several hotels right next door, including:

• The Best Western Kelly Inn, Omaha
• The Hawthorn Suites Omaha
• Super 8 Motel Omaha West

Photos (these would be much more illustrative with smell):

The shitty smelly floor of the carlisle:

The crappy view from our room:

The door to go outside passed through a service room filled with trash and an even stronger odor:

Don't let this photo fool you, this cleaning cart never moved the two days we were here. I think it is a prop to fool future customers into thinking that they actually clean the place once in a while. Oh, and the lighting in this photo is very representative of the gloomy lighting in the hotel and not a camera defect.

A sign outside the carlisle hotel bar. I took the first half of the hotel sign's advice, and it did make the stay more bearable, but not by much.