Where do I start? The animals scratching in the walls? The decrepit condition of the rooms? The terrible clinetele? Take your pick. The Bay Hotel has it all! I had the distinct displeasure of staying here on business for two months. My employer de jour was obviously far more concerned with saving money than with providing their employees a civilized place to stay for this extended trip. So be it. I’ve stayed in lesser hotels before. Hell, I’ve stayed in motels in central Florida. I thought it wouldn’t get any more depressing than that, but Bay Hotel exceeded my expectations for how mediocre a hotel can be. So let’s just break it down so you can continue reading the other terrible reviews: 1. NO HOT WATER. There was often no hot water in the shower in the mornings and never any in the sink. Nothing like a tepid shower to get you ready for a day of work. 2. INADEQUATE BEDDING. I don’t know what kind of person sleeps with nothing between their body and an unwashed comforter that hundreds of people have done god-knows-what on, but I’m not one of them. I had to request a top sheet, and they forgot to replace it every time the cleaned the room, which cost me a trip down to the front desk each time. 3. BROKEN WIFI. Nearly every day, I had to make a call to the front desk to have them restart the router. They didn’t seem to care that this was a recurring issue. As with every chronic problem with the hotel, the staff cares little about fixing the underlying problem. 4. NEGLECT. The condition of the room was atrocious. A ceiling leak stain was so bad it had started to become a hole. There were also holes in the wood trim from the leaking windows, which did not seal. There was actually a gap between the window mullions to the outside, which is probably why you need the A/C on full blast all the time. The bathroom was a sad site, with worn floors and a shower more appropriate for a highway rest stop than a hotel. I made the decision early on to wear flip flops in the shower and house slippers everywhere else. I didn’t trust my feet to come in contact with any part of that floor. 5. UNSOPHISTICATED CLIENTELE. This place is clearly marketed to mainland Chinese tourists, who arrive literally by the bus load, often shouting and generally creating a less-than-relaxing environment. A number of these folks clearly have just enough money to do a low budget trip to Thailand, but almost no understanding of how to adapt to local customs and standards of etiquette in their travels. If you were unlucky enough to take the elevator during checkout time, you would find yourself literally fending them off as they tried desperately to pack into an already overloaded elevator. And then you get to fend them off yet again as they try to pile into the elevator in the lobby before letting you off. 6. THE SLOWEST ELEVATORS IN THE WORLD. I have ridden antique elevators faster and larger than these. When you have enough time to listen to an entire song on your phone while waiting for the elevator to arrive and then a whole other song while waiting to get to your floor, there is something terribly wrong. 7. CREATURES IN THE WALLS. Toward the end of my stay, I started hearing the distinct sound of scratching in the walls. I called down to tell the front desk and they sent up a man (a boy, really), who proceeded to try to press buttons on my air conditioning control. When I finally got him to understand my complaint by scratching the walls myself like a rat, and saying “animal”, he just said “no animal”. He went away and came back with a bell hop who gestured to another room, which I went to inspect as they laughed at me the entire time. I weighed the pros of packing up all my stuff from two months of living there and moving against the cons of discovering what other horrors might await me in a new room. After contemplating, and dealing with more of their obnoxious laughing, I told them to get lost. For the rest of my trip, I lived with the rustling and scratches in the walls every night. 8. POWER OUTAGES. This place loses power during storms. And it only takes about 4 minutes without air conditioning for your room to become a sauna. 9. TERRIBLE LOCATION. This place is located in the midst of a depressing industrial neighborhood with no good restaurants or really anything besides auto repair shops. The only food options are the food court of a mall 10 minutes away or a McDonald’s. And every time you venture to either, you risk death by automobile, moped, or exhaust inhalation. I didn’t bother with the hotel restaurant in the time I was there because every time the elevator stopped on that level, the restaurant had some function going on with horrible karaoke. If there is one thing I can compliment, it is the little coffee bar they have in the back of the lobby. Really good coffee and nice staff, though be prepared to wait a while for everything. No one with even the most basic standards for where they stay has any business giving this place their money. It’s hardly fit for a one-night-stand with a call-girl. There are far better hotels that are only slightly more expensive all around. This 20 story beacon of mediocrity needs to be condemned. An empty lot would be a better use of the space. Bye-bye, Bay Hotel. Thanks for the memories.…