When I booked this hotel the pictures online looked very nice. The star reviews were good and there wasn't a report of bed bugs since 2016 that I could find, so I booked one night. The e-mails I received prior to arrival were annoying and the pre-check in is not worth it as the same process has to happen once you get there.
Upon arrival, the outside of the place looked like it was nearly abandoned and sad looking, the entire place was really depressing looking. It definitely is not someplace I felt that I wanted to be especially safety wise, but I had no choice. I couldn't tell where to enter to check in, I drove around the place completely, and there were people wandering that didn't look like they were on vacation or anything, but living there permanently. I finally went through some dark doors to where you check in, and it looked so sad inside. The lady doing the checking in was nice and professional. The other workers I saw there seemed like they were mad to be there, I only saw them on their breaks outside the front of the place, but I felt that there must have been something more going on for them to be so unhappy, I did not interact with them.
As soon as I got into the room I checked for bugs. I did not find any thankfully, and also the air unit worked, but found the following:
This was supposed to be a non-smoking room, but you could definitely tell at one point that smoking had been allowed since the smell was still there. The side lamp did not work, the outlet was coming out of the wall. The place needed a good vacuum. The mattresses were so old and worn that you could see the metal tearing out of the corners, the mattress cover wasn't in much better shape either. I had to use the restroom, but found the toilet paper wet, probably because there is no proper ventilation in the bathroom, and everything felt really damp. The shower head did not work and looked rusty, I had to get down to the bathtub faucet and wash my hair and myself like I was bathing in a river. The shower curtain looked like it hadn't been changed since the place opened, and felt like it hadn't been cleaned in months. The towels really disgusted me. Although they were "Clean" they had very tight curly black hairs ingrained in them. I had asked for more towels at the front desk later on when someone else was on duty and he was very hesitant and seemed like he was going to refuse my request, but he gave a spare one, and a smaller pool towel after I explained that an extra towel was needed to wrap my wet hair in. He then kindly offered more shampoo which I did not want to ask for after the towel deal, so I was glad that he did, and accepted appreciatively. I then headed to the gym which looked like it was made from an old room, the exact same size as one, and to no surprise since it said that it wasn't monitored, it was dirty, half the equipment wasn't put back together, both the treadmill, and elliptical did not work properly, they were so squeaky too, I was afraid of disturbing the entire place by their noises, even my ear buds didn't drown out the noise. There was absolutely no cooling or ventilation, I had to open the door to get any kind of air circulation.
It was late evening and I was just so tired, I wanted to relax, but after seeing how the other things in the room did not work, I did not even attempt to turn on the TV or WIFI. I just tried to get to bed. The interior and exterior walls were so thin that you could hear your neighbors talking which were arguing unfortunately, and smoking right outside besides which of course with such thin walls, really make the place smell like awful cigarettes, thankfully the thick smoke didn't last too long. It sure made a long night with constantly being woken up from the noises outside. In the morning I went to get the breakfast that their website boasted so much about. It was literally some yogurt cups, a literal few slices of bread, bagels that were hard, store bought muffins that you could get anywhere, a couple of hard pastries that you could also get anywhere probably fresher, 2 cereals, frosted flakes, and raisin bran, a couple of old looking bananas, and a couple of tea bags with coffee. They had a pancake maker that did not work even when following the instructions. I did not want to ask anyone since the morning crew was just as unhappy as the night of check in. They also had orange juice and water, the apple, and cranberry said that they were out of order. It was fill for breakfast, but nothing like what was advertised. There was a sign that said no food to be taken out of the kitchen yet I saw other guests walk back to their rooms with covered plates of what was left. I noticed before checking out that an unmarked police officer made a round. That confirmed my feelings of the place and wanted to leave as quickly as possible. I also noticed that there were a couple of semi trucks parked in the conference center lot and looked like instead of getting a room at the hotel, they just stayed in their trucks. I guess that must have been better than the rooms. The young girl at check out was on the phone for a few minutes before she was able to assist me, we exchanged greetings, and I said I would like to check out, I handed her the key cards, she only said thank you, I asked if she needed anything else from me, she said no, and that was it, there was no questions of how was your stay, anything, everything was quiet like they knew how bad it was there, and did not want to hear it again, or do anything about it. Given that this hotel chain is supposed to be high standards, this was extremely disappointing. I will never go back again.
US