IBIS budget hotel: the worst experience ever

I'll tell you right after explaining this fun advice found in more than one toilet in Lucerne. 

In many countries (like, for example Colombia) one doesn't flush the used toilet paper but puts it into the waste bin to avoid congestion. Also many Asiatic countries do not have the same toilets as we do and people don't know how to use ours. As in Lucerne there are by far more tourists from far away countries than Swiss people, they are obviously annoyed by the effects of wrong toilet use. 

Many tourists take tours like "Europe in 5 days", where they visit three cities and two countries in one day and have not the slightest contact to the local culture and customs. So that left sign indeed makes a lot of sense.

The other sign is obvious and internationally valid...

But let me talk abut the horrible IBIS budget hotel in Lucerne:

I reserved this hotel - not at all cheap as its name might suggest - outside of the city because it announced having a parking. This was an important point to me because I didn't want to drive around hours in cities to search for a parking space and then be far away from the hotel. So in the reservation I pointed out that I need a parking.

The answer was: "we do not reserve parking". Of course this answer came only after the payment...

Arriving at the hotel the extremely unfriendly and completely uninterested guy at the reception, after letting me wait because he had some more important things to do (probably answer his personal whatsapps), didn't even know if there was a place in the underground parking. He sent me to enter the parking and see myself. That's what I did, and, of course, there was no space. My car is quite large and has a large turning cycle, so I wasn't really happy. I found a parking on the street - but only for two hours, and with the need of a special card, of which the monster at the reception also couldn't tell me where to get one.

The room was a prison cell. Extremely small, no decoration, no wardrobe, no place where to put the suitcase. The shower was a small plastic box in the wall, the toilet another extremely small box with a door that didn't really close. I am not really fat, but almost 2 meters tall, so the experience in shower and toilet was really bondage...

The hallways were stuffed with the cleaning staff's stuff and with cleaning women standing in the way talking together without the slightest intention to move out of the way.

Of course, the electronic key to the room suddenly stopped working so we had to ask for repair at the reception, with another waiting time and unfriendly staff.

You must know that Switzerland in general is a place where people is proud of its friendliness and the staff ready to be of service. So this extremely unfriendly and uncomfortable experience stood in extreme contrast to what you are use to receive in Switzerland. If there wouldn't have been the very Swiss price you could have thought that you are in an enclave of some strange pace of another world.

Of the many hotels I booked on booking.com this is only the second one that received only one star in my review. One star because zero or minus-stars are not possible.

 So, should you ever be tempted to book an IBIS budget hotel: think once more about it before booking!