Travelodge guests left ‘traumatised’ after being forced to sleep in cleaner’s cupboard

A family with young children have hit out at a hotel over a “traumatising” experience, with photos revealing the “ridiculous” scene they faced.

A family with young children claim they endured a traumatising experience at a popular hotel chain, after they were forced to sleep in a laundry room due to a room key malfunction.

Danielle Barclay, 39, and her husband Jamie stayed at the Travelodge Ashbourne, in northern England between 28 and 29 December to attend a wedding with their children.

However the couple claim that when they tried to get into their room by using their allocated room keycard, it wasn’t working.

After waiting for over an hour for the situation to be rectified, the hotel — which was fully booked — offered the Barclay family a room at another Travelodge 32km away. However the family declined the offer, the laundry room was suggested instead — meaning the family slept on a “broken mattress” in the space.

Mrs Barclay said the situation resulted in a “horrendous night’s stay”, with the furious mother-of-two posting on TikTok about the ordeal.

Mrs Barclay’s family was offered a laundry closet to sleep in at a Travelodge hotel. Picture: Kennedy News

The family’s hotel room key didn’t work, so the best alternative was to stay in a laundry room. Picture: Kennedy News

“It was pretty traumatising for [the kids],” Ms Barclay said on social media of the situation. “We went to the wedding and got back at ten to twelve. The kids were getting tired and everything so we thought we’d come back and the wedding was finishing.

“The key card wouldn’t work, my husband had tried it. We went straight to reception and the lady was lovely and was like ‘oh yeah, I’ll come have a look at it’. She couldn’t get it to work. She kept trying and trying and trying.

“She rang the manager and the manager was apparently in Belgium and couldn’t really do much to help and there was nobody else to help her. We’d been sat on the corridor floor for like an hour. My daughter was crying and upset because she was worrying and panicking that we weren’t going to get our things out of the room. My son was exhausted, he was laid on the corridor floor trying to get some sleep.”

While some sympathised with the family, and in particular the 12 and 8-year-old children, others said that there was little more the hotel could do — especially given staff were working on opening the room, the hotel was fully-booked and they’d turned down the offer of another room at a different Travelodge.

But Mrs Barclay said that given the time of the situation, driving more than 30km at 2am with two tired children was not an option.

“The kids were exhausted,” she explained.

“If we’d have gone it’s getting back to this hotel in the morning. I would’ve had to pack up the room and go back to Derby to catch our train which we likely would’ve missed because we’d got an early train home the next day.”

Ms Barclay said her daughter was scared by the situation. Picture: Kennedy News

The kids took the broken mattress while the parents slept on the floor. Picture: Kennedy News

Ms Barclay said that being offered a set up in the laundry left her “in shock”.

“We were like ‘seriously, the laundry room?” she said, adding her kids took a broken mattress while she and her husband had a quilt on the floor with a pillow.

“A broken mattress on the laundry room floor. Just ridiculous,” she said.

“When we got in there, there was a laundry basket blocking the fire exit. Our beds were made up in front of the fire exit. God knows there could’ve been a fire in there and we wouldn’t have been accounted for and we wouldn’t have been able to get out.”

Alongside the set-up, Ms Barclay said the room was freezing, they weren’t given any toilet facilities and not offered anything to drink.

“It was the most uncomfortable night’s sleep,” she said.

“Having to sleep on an uncomfortable concrete floor with just a quilt on the floor is just not acceptable. My son was just exhausted by that point and laid down and tried to go to sleep. My little girl was scared in the dark. It’s cold, it’s not our room so she’s obviously going to be quite upset and scared by the situation.”

Travelodge apologised over the situation, saying “the hotel experienced an isolated technical issue”.

“The customer has been offered a full refund and we will be offering them a complimentary stay as a gesture of goodwill.”