Top 10 Fictional Hotels

Hotels play a central role in many books, television shows and films. Some would make a great place to stay, but others are clearly best avoided!

1.  Fawlty Towers

Fawlty Towers was the iconic British television show of the 1970’s. It was written by John Cleese and Connie Booth. Cleese played the hotel owner, the grumpy Basil Fawlty.

Constantly at odds with his wife, Sybil, Basil Fawlty was also troubled by the inconvenience of having to deal with paying guests. His attempts at attracting a “better class” of guest were hampered by a vast range of problems, including drunken chefs, poor quality builders, his Spanish waiter and Basil’s own inability to be pleasant towards any other person on the planet!

The idea for the television series came to Cleese after he’d stayed in a UK hotel and experienced dreadful service from a continually annoyed owner.

2. Hotel California

“On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair…”

Those words are, of course, taken from Hotel California, the hit song released by The Eagles back in 1977.

Regarded by some as one of the greatest songs of all time, there are many different interpretations as to what the lyrics mean. With its mirrors on the ceiling, not to mention the pink champagne on ice, the hotel suggests a certain type of place. These days, it might well be considered tacky!

3. The Royale

Fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation will undoubtedly remember that some of the crew beamed down to visit The Royale hotel in an episode of the second series.

The episode sees Worf, Data and Riker entering a hotel that’s not a million miles away from many Las Vegas establishments. They soon realise that they are trapped inside a living version of a book and have to act like the characters from the novel in order to escape.

It’s a hotel, Jim, but not as we know it!

4. Heartbreak Hotel

Made famous by Elvis Presley in the 1950’s, the song Heartbreak Hotel has been covered numerous times since.

This particular hotel doesn’t sound like the best place to spend time. We’re told that you’ll find it at the end of a lonely street. You can’t miss it. Most people are crying and the desk clerk is dressed in black. It would be no surprise if Basil Fawlty owned it!

5. The Bates Motel

There’s a common theme appearing here: most of us probably wouldn’t want to stay in a fictional hotel!

The Bates Motel was, of course, the setting for Psycho. Most remembered for that shower scene, this is Hitchcock at his most haunting.

6. Hotel Babylon

Hotel Babylon was a book written by Imogen Edwards-Jones, describing life in a fictional London hotel. In some senses, it appeared almost frighteningly realistic.

It tells the story of marital affairs, workplace liaisons and celebrity culture. Hotel Babylon found wider fame when it was used as the source for a BBC television series in 2006. Probably a more comfortable place to stay than some mentioned above!

7. Overlook Hotel

Murder, suicide, ghosts and evil spirits. These aren’t the sort of attractions that most hotels would like to boast about. But that’s exactly what you’d find at the Overlook Hotel, as featured in Stephen King’s The Shining.

8. Hotel Trianon

Hotel Trianon was the fictional hotel created by Graham Greene for his 1966 novel, The Comedians. The Hotel Trianon was located in Haiti. It was a Victorian structure and was surrounded by some wonderful gardens.

It sounds lovely. Too lovely for a fictional hotel. So Greene had to tell us that it was falling into a state of disrepair.

9. Schrute Farms

This fictional hotel is something special. Back in 2007, NBC asked TripAdvisor to create a fake hotel profile, to fit in with an episode of The Office, the hit comedy show. Schrute Farms soon started attracting fake reviews and has now received almost 800.

A fictional hotel where people claim to have stayed! Who knows, maybe they have..in their bizarre fantasies.

10. The Tipton Hotel

This fictional hotel in Boston provides the setting for The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, the US sitcom. Now shown all over the world on The Disney Channel, The Tipton Hotel has reached a whole new audience.

If you were forced to stay in one of these 10 hotels, which would you opt for? I think it would have to be Fawlty Towers. As long as you survived to tell the tale, it would provide a constant source of amusement!

Bio

Simon Barnett enjoys travelling and has visited many parts of the world. He also likes tracking down online discount codes for hotels and airlines, in an effort to help others travel for less.

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Posted by List Guy on October 11, 2010. Filed under Entertainment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry