The St. Pierre…while it’s in a great location just a bit off the beaten down Bourbon street path, it’s by far the worst hotel experience I’ve ever had. In town for a last minute Super Bowl trip we thought we found a diamond in the rough. Last room available in the entire city. It looked like a remodeled quaint boutique chalk full of Louisiana charm. PERFECT… or so we thought.

On day one, we woke up too early to a man pressure washing the outside of our cottage – doors, walls and windows. This was a bit odd and slightly alarming to say the least, but it’s New Orleans (shoulder shrug). Then I step into the bathroom to shower… no hot water. Not to mention, the non-existent water pressure. When I called the front desk to tell them they responded with, “we’re working on it.” Fine. “Do you have an eta on when we might be able to shower? Maybe in 15 minutes.” OK, cool. One hour later, the water went from freezing to maybe just melted ice cube temperature. We were a bit hung over and eager to take on Super Saturday in NOLA so we decided to tough it out. Polar plunge it is.

The next morning we awoke to a horrific smell. I traced it to the shower where I found raw sewage seeping up from the drain. Brown chunks floating in standing water. Come to find out the toilet was no longer flushing as well. So instead of calling I threw on some clothes and headed to the front desk. There I was told that the room was JUST renovated and WE must have flushed a face towel or beads down the toilet. I was completely horrified, but in hopes of actually getting a shower in a town with no open hotel rooms for miles, I stayed calm. I responded with, no sir I’m sure that’s not the case, since the only time we’ve spent in the room was for sleeping. Their maintenance man who resembled scrooge with a southern twist, came to the room to assess the situation. He then threw up his arms insisting that we broke the plumbing. Huffing and puffing he stormed away grumbling about how he would have to go rent tools, etc. Obviously ruining his entire day.

I went back out to the front desk in hopes of finding someone who was trained in the field of hospitality to find a toilet/shower to use while on our NOLA holiday. There I found scrooge sitting down reading a paper, ie not renting tools. I told the manager that this was unacceptable and tried to trouble shoot. Are there any rooms where people have checked out? ANYWHERE we could shower or even relieve ourselves. With complete disdain, they told me that there were no free rooms and stated that scrooge would repair the damage they were certain we caused.

Feeling at a loss and high from feces fumes, we sat in our 10’ x 15’ cell, errr room, trying to figure out a plan B. With a stroke of luck we found one open room that popped up on Hotwire (which was coincidentally the website that got us into Hotel St. Pierre)… Embassy Suites with a massive price gauge. At this point, well worth it!

While we were packing up our stuff Scrooge returned with what looked like a giant enema kit and a shop vac. Within 10 minutes the toilet was removed and plunked down between our clean clothes and the bed. Just a few feet away from Scrooge working away, I was packing my bag when I felt liquid spray on my arm and jacket. I looked up to see that Scrooge was definitely not a plumber! Shop-vac’ing at the base, where the toilet once sat, he forgot the out-take hose. Ironically, this mistake resulted in a high-pressure shower of human feces/urine. Hitting me, and all of our bags. I screamed, STOP! But Scrooge couldn’t hear me beyond the hum of the vacuum. So I did what anyone trapped in my situation would do, and dove into the closet to try and minimize damage. FINALLY after screaming at the top of my lungs he heard me and stopped. Shocked, I emerged from the closet. With no real apology, he stepped out of the room to let me clean up and cool off.

After two days without a proper shower added to the normal stench of New Orleans existence, this was the icing on the cake. The candle on top was the fact that they wouldn’t refund our money. “Third party billing.”

We asked them to call us a cab but that was apparently out of their skill set so we had to fend for ourselves. While sitting on the front stoop waiting for a taxi to randomly drive by, an employee came out to say, “Come back now y’all, you hear!”

No thank you. I’m not sure who St. Pierre was, but we can definitely cross off the patron saint of plumbing!!

Honestly, this is the first time I can ever claim that I was showered in poo.