Guests staying at the hotel on which the horror film The Shining was based are dealing with their own nightmare after contracting a gastrointestinal illness.

Guests of the Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, NY came down with a stomach illness around lunchtime on Friday. The hotel was forced to shut down for at least the next week after hundreds of guests and employees came down with the illness, the Daily Mail reports.

Many who stayed at the hotel took to Twitter to express their disgust at the hotel's lack of response to the issue. They said the popular mountain hotel should be renamed "MoChunk."

Some said that they were faced withe the conditions that those on a bad cruise ship face, especially with the recent news of norovirus outbreaks on cruise ships. One guest said they felt so terrible that they thought they were going to die.

It is not clear how the illness started but guests provided some suggestions such as unwashed salad and dirty pitchers of water. Some guests claimed that the staff seemed to show no concern over the conditions.

Norovirus is common in places where large numbers of people gather. It is very contagious and can be spread through people or even through a food that an infected person has come in contact with.

The hotel responded to the issue saying "Almost all of the guests have checked out," Bert Smiley, President of the hotel said Thursday according to the Daily Mail. "We're just waiting for the last few to leave. The state Department of Health is working to identify the bug, which Smiley described as an 'aggressive stomach virus."

The Mohonk hotel can accommodate up to 600 guests. The hotel started its own sanitization efforts but after realizing they needed to do more, they hired a private company to carry out a thorough cleaning.

Guests who booked stays during the next week were notified and rebooked.
A spokeswoman for the hotel said they're taking the outbreak seriously and are cooperating with Ulster County and New York State Departments of Health and are working with guests.

In addition to closing the hotel to guests, they also reduced the number of staff over the last few days to limit the spread of the virus. Employees are able to use their vacation time during the break or they can return to work to help with the cleanup.

The Mohonk hotel is a National Historic Landmark resort and Historic Hotel of America. Some say that the inspiration for Stephen King's novel The Shining was The Stanley hotel but many locals claim that the real inspiration is the Mohonk Mountain House.