My stay at the Holiday Inn Montevideo (Colonia 823) wasn't terrible, but the whole place felt run-down and not enjoyable. Here are some ways in which it didn't match my expectations:
The first room I was in was right on a street; an alarm on the garage of the nearby Radisson went off all night long, so I asked for a different room. Not a big deal by itself.
The bidet in the second room was completely broken. It did not have a spigot for water to come out in the normal place, just a knob to turn (something?) on. When this knob was turned, the water came out of a leak in the CEILING!! I.e. instead of water around your bits, you get a damn shower, even if you're just turning it on to see if it works.
The toilet wouldn't flush solids properly. I often had to stand there and flush the damn toilet six or seven to get all the damn toilet. I have never had this experience in my life. I did not have any diarreha or other problems; the problem was the toilet.
The water in pool was the temperature of a sauna and was cloudy; it looked to me like the PH was off. I swim a lot, but could not use the pool to swim.
The exercise bike in the exercise room was visually ok, but completely broken.
The elevator I used always stopped an inch off of ground level; it was always too high or too low and would cause me to stumble entering or leaving.
The coffee at breakfast smelt and tasted terrible. I'm not sure if it was expired, or moldy, or burnt to charcoal before use or what, but it was