Condo-hotel we stayed at in Miami (the white 2 story) – this picture is taken from the kayak
Backyard
San Juan
I’ve been looking and pricing a lot of hotels for the vacations that I’m taking with the BF and with my friends. There are so many options. I hate trying to choose a hotel, because I have definitely picked a lot of bad ones.
A question that I always ask myself is if I should be a little frugal with the hotel that I choose, of if I should splurge and treat it like a real vacation that I dream about.
I have scrimped on hotel rooms before in order for me to have more spending money on my vacation. The difference between a $100 hotel room and a $200 room add up quickly.
One thing that I should share is that I’m extremely germophobic, I’ve stayed at my fair share of 1 star hotels, and I can never sleep when I stay at these. I will have to sleep with a hood over my head, and pants, socks and everything else. Yes I do realize that all hotel rooms are most likely dirty because thousands of people have probably slept with the same blanket and mattress, but I’m more of a visual cleanliness person.
If it looks clean, then that’s good enough for me. But if it looks dirty, then I will have nightmares forever (such as with the hairs and throw up as talked about below).
Choosing cheap hotel rooms have been mostly good for us though. For our Miami trip last year (the condo in the first picture), we used Airbnb for our room and got a great deal. I think around $125 a night for the room. Not the cheapest place we have ever stayed at, but it was across the street from the beach, in Miami Beach, had a canal in the backyard with a boat and kayak for us to use, and a jacuzzi (way too hot in Miami when we went, so we never hopped in).
Of course we could always go free and use Couchsurfing (as explained in my past post). I’ve never done this, and I don’t expect to do this on any of my vacations in the near future, mainly because I like my privacy, especially on a vacation. Would you guys couch surf?
Last year, on one of our vacations, we stayed at an extremely dirty hotel. I wanted to throw up immediately when we walked in. We were extremely mad too, because the hotel was over $200 per night (which by the way was the cheapest thing we could find in the area). There was food on the wall (and some throw up!), the bed was made, but it was obvious that they were not washed because there was multiple hairs on the bed and pillows (and no I am not talking about the hairs on your head, I’m talking about the gross kind of hair).
Yes I know that a hotel is a place where you should only sleep, but I don’t know if I want to do that this year. One hotel that we stayed at had a cement floor, cement ceiling and cement walls. The A/C was leaking and there were puddles everywhere. It was super gross but less than $50 a night. Although I didn’t choose this place, we were on a small road trip and were really tired, and of course Justin Beiber was in town, so there were NO hotel rooms.
Anyways, when me and my friends go to Vegas for the bachelorette party, the hotel cost isn’t really bothering us too much. That is mainly because of the amount of girls going. I think we might be up to 7 now, so splitting a room with that many girls won’t be that expensive.
But for the vacations that me and the BF take, cost is definitely a factor, since I won’t be splitting everything 7 ways. We definitely want to be comfortable and happy though, and not let extremely gross hairs on our blanket ruin our vacation. I definitely consider a good hotel room to be a part of the vacation.
So, what’s the maximum that you would spend per night? Thoughts? Is a hotel only a place for you to sleep?
Also, I updated the blog today, what do you think? I like the simple, clean look.
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