Quality Inn & Suites - College Park, USA 

What this hotel lacks in Quality, it makes up for in awfulness. There simply aren't words to adequately convey just how truly awful the awfulness is. Now don't get me wrong -- I'm no hotel snob. I've driven cross-country numerous times and stayed in some pretty shady places that wound up being wonderful experiences -- the old Blue Bird Motel in Tucumcari, New Mexico, for example. But the awfulness here is just so spectacularly awful that run-of-the-mill, everyday, ordinary awful hotels and motels can only dream of achieving such heights (depths?) of awful-tude. Let's start with the "Tower." At some point, this motel was just a high rise. It is filthy. The rooms are "decorated" -- if that word can even be applied in this context -- in the most godawful blend of Salvation Army chic shag carpet and who-knows-what-they-were-thinking wallpaper. Everything is an afterthought, but at least the rooms offer you plenty of noise from Baltimore Ave. Then the "suites." I don't know if there are, in fact, trillions of bugs in this room, but my skin crawls being in it. The sheets -- the clean ones -- are nicely appointed with leftover stains from someone else's bodily fluids. The "comfy chairs" are spectacularly stained as well -- and with what I simply don't want to guess. I plugged in my cell phone to charge it, and the television went out. One of the lamps disintegrated in my hands when went to turn the bulb on. I'm afraid to touch anything without a massive bottle of hand sanitizer immediately nearby. But it gets better. The corridor outside the room is covered -- covered -- in bird droppings, because dozens of birds use the overhead on the second floor of the 2-story "suite" building to perch upon. Step outside and step into a pile of bird guano -- goooooood morning! The fridge, the microwave, the WiFi -- these are nowhere near payoff enough to justify this place, especially when I'm going to pay several hundred dollars for the privilege. So why stay? Because the nicer College Park hotel is booked, and the rest appear to be even worse. Now to their credit, the staff are friendly. They try hard. But nothing, nothing, can overcome the sheer, utter, pantheon of awfulness that is this hotel.

There is a reason the price is low. The place was clean, although a slight musty smell in the bathroom which went away after I turned on the air conditioner. Room safe didn't work (there was a low battery message) the bolt lock didn't work, it looked like someone had put a plate in the door jam that was slightly out of place. It was a non-smoking hotel, however, the stairwell reeked of smoke, Saturday afternoon there was a pair of undershorts in the hallway near the stairwell. Morning breakfast was good, juices, pastries, waffles and juices. Shuttle van runs in mornings and late afternoon. It's worth the low price.