My group of friends has been traveling to New Orleans every February for the past 4 years and always stays at the Holiday Inn on Royal St. This year was by far our worst experience with this hotel. My friend called and booked 4 rooms, which were put on "hold" for us. We were told that the card would not be charged and that we would be able to pay in cash upon arrival. The hotel ran the card anyway, spelling my friends name wrong, so the card was declined. They cancelled our rooms and never notified us. When we called two days prior to arrival, to cancel one of the rooms, they told us it was too late to cancel it, but still did not say anything about us not even having a room in the first place. The second time we called to ask about early check in, and that is when my friend was notified that we didn't even have any rooms booked. Eventually that issue was resolved. We requested a handicap room, they gave us a regular room and wouldn't give us a cot because it was a fire hazard. You can have cots in handicap rooms because the rooms are bigger, and we knew this which is why we asked for one. On our second morning I was blow drying my hair and the outlet started to spark and have flames coming out from behind the outlet faceplate. I quickly unplugged the hair dryer and got burned. The hotel handled in all the wrong ways. They kicked us out of our room for hours until an electrician could come fix the outlet. Originally they told us that they couldn't get an electrician until Monday and that the hotel was booked so they were trying to figure out what to do with us. They wouldn't compensate us for anything because they didn't view the situation as an inconvenience and would only speak to my friend since the credit card was in her name under our room, even though I was listed on the room, made the initial complaint, and was the one that got burned. I was told by a friend that is a manager at a different Holiday Inn that I should contact guest relations and then the hotel is forced to address the issue and will be under review, This way they will question the manager since our complaint is legit and our issues should be resolved. We have the incident on video, but tripadvisor only allows photos. I felt that the rooms were clean when we arrived, but housekeeping didn't keep them clean as other hotels do. There was no outlet in the bathroom. Housekeeping kept leaving us with only two towels even though 4 guests were registered in the room and they didn't restock the toilet paper, we had to ask for it. The blankets were super thin and the pillows were really small. I'm really upset with how the manager handled our fire hazard situation, was unsympathetic, unhelpful and rude. We will be choosing a different hotel next year. There are plenty hotels with a good value and good location to choose from in the French Quarter.