Sandia Peak Inn Old Town ABQ, a Howard Johnson by Wyndham — Hotel in Albuquerque

We had a horrible experience at check-in when the night clerk cancelled our reservation simply because he did not like our request for extended check-out. Long story short, we (married couple) arrived at Sandia Peak Inn Old Town ABQ, a Howard Johnson by Wyndham motel at 11PM. We were in town for a half-marathon. At check-in, I asked for a courtesy extension to check out at 1PM. I explained that we are checking in late and just need some extra time to come back for a shower after the half-marathon. The check-in clerk seized on the 'checking in late' comment and rudely said it didn't matter how late were checking in, check out was 11AM! I explained that it was just a courtesy request, and he responded that we could pay for an extra night. When I commented to my spouse that it didn't seem reasonable to pay for an extra night for a 2-hour check-out time extension, the clerk thought I was addressing him, became ruder and sternly reminded us that check-out policy was 11AM. In hindsight, I wonder whether asking for a 45 minute or maximum 1-hr extension would have made a difference since we really just needed a few minutes to return from the half marathon, shower, and rush to the airport for our 2PM flight. The only reason we needed extra time to check out was because this particular half-marathon (Chilly Willy) was starting at 8.30AM as opposed to the usual 7AM/7.30AM for most races. We expected to finish the race around 11AM. Even a 30- or 45-minute extension of check-out time would have enabled us to quickly return to the Motel, shower, and leave before 12PM to return our rental car and make the 2PM flight. Anyway, back to the motel clerk, he repeated rudely that 11AM was the check-out policy. That was obvious and it was the reason we had preemptively requested a courtesy extension. I asked to speak to the manager which seemed to enrage the clerk further (I suspect he was the owner). The clerk instantly said he could cancel the reservation and have us look elsewhere. Remember, it was almost 11.30PM so we asked if he could check us in and we would talk to the manager in the morning about the extended check out request. He repeated that check-out was 11AM even though we were not disagreeing with check out policy. He again added that he could cancel the reservation. Then, before we could say anything further, he just told us he had cancelled the reservation and asked us to leave. We were stunned! We had never had such an experience before. We travel around the country running half-marathons. It is our passion. We had booked through Orbitz, so when I started looking for a number to call Orbitz for further guidance, the clerk became irate and called the police. HE TOLD THE POLICE THAT WE HAD A GUN! I just couldn't believe that he could callously file a false police report. We told him since he had reported that we had a gun, we would wait for the police. We stood our ground even as the clerk's female colleague cursed and called us unprintable racist names and threatened to physically drag us out. We never made any aggressive moves and never uttered a threat. But the female clerk aggressively moved close to my spouse, spewing profanities and racist curses, and threatening to have us jailed. It was a safety decision for us to quietly wait for the police because, in my mind, if we walked out the door as the police were arriving expecting armed intruders, we could be shot! That is not a far-fetched outcome. After maybe 10 minutes, the two clerks retreated to the back of the office. The police arrived. Outside, we explained the situation, provided our contact information, and complained that the male clerk had filed a false police report that we had a gun. It was obvious to the three heavily armed officers (they had been told we were armed) that we were harmless travelers. Traumatized, we left to find alternative accommodation. We hope to pursue the matter with Howard Johnson/Wyndham and the police particularly because of the false reporting that we had a gun that put our safety...

I would not stay here again, at any price, and could not recommend it to others. Cleanliness is a baseline motel requirement, and this place fell far short on that score. Unacceptable. Judging from our room, I do not understand all of the positive reviews. Everything about the room felt and looked disturbingly unclean. We did not even feel comfortable setting down any of our things on the surfaces, nor would we ever consider sitting in the filthy easy chair. I would have gladly paid significantly more to stay at another place that felt clean. But it was late & we were tired.

I try to be fair with these reviews, so will detail the good things too. On the "plus" side, the room was quite large, had a large refrigerator, microwave. Bed was comfortable. The cabinets were quality and attractive, with real granite tops. The location was convenient to restaurants and shopping. There was plenty of hot water for showers. No charge for Wifi. The room rate was a bit less than other places, but not sufficiently so to sacrifice cleanliness.

Now for the many "minus" aspects of this motel. I reserved by phone, leaving a credit card and my contact information. I usually reserve online, but needed to phone anyway to get more information. Yet upon arrival they had no record of my reservation. The woman who met me at the front desk was largely distracted, with a phone to her ear during the entire check-in. She asked me three times if we had any pets. Luckily, they were not busy, so she simply made a room available on the spot, and did honor the original price I had been quoted. If instead they had been fully booked, we would have been out of luck, and without a room. In the parking lot, there are very few curb cuts to accommodate rolling luggage, and there was a raised brick trim that made it impossible to wheel bags over the curbs. So you either need to lift the bags, or walk far out of your way to find a curb cut.

Entering the room, the door stuck badly when trying to open it. With quite a bit of force, I was able to open it. It required lots of force to open every time. My wife was never able to open it without assistance. Upon entering the room, we were greeted with an overwhelming odor of very strong, unpleasant artificial scent, like very cheap air freshener or a heavy perfume, almost like it was used to mask bad odors from a prior guest. The lights were very bright--way too bright. They had the sterile, cold white kind of fluorescent bulb harshness that one normally sees in warehouse or workshop, not a hotel room. There was no rug or carpeting, just bare, cold floors in the entire unit. The easy chair was disgustingly filthy. The photos don't really capture the grime. There were dingy stains on the arms and seat cushion. It should have been cleaned, removed or recovered--never should have been left in a room offered to guests. The whole room was memorably poorly cleaned overall. The dusting was not thorough, and it looked like the kind of dirtiness that comes from repeated fast, uncareful cleaning over time. Accumulated dust in corners, aged dirt on baseboards and corners of the floor. The cover on one of the electrical outlets was shattered. There was dirty splatter on the wall, that could have been easily cleaned. The bathtub looked grimy, scratched and stained, in a way that reminded me of the tubs of some guy friends in college who rarely cleaned their place.

The inside of the door and the knob were remarkably filthy, as if someone repeatedly kicked it with dirty boot soles, and closed it with greasy hands. Again, this was obvious at a glance, and could have been easily cleaned, but was ignored by cleaning staff. The clock radio on the nightstand was filthy, again indicating a lack of careful cleaning over a long time. Wifi was incredibly slow, even for simply checking text-only emails. The room had very little sound insulation from loud sounds outside. The street in front of the motel was particularly noisy, with cars revving engines at all hours. ...

Please see google review for prior background to the story. I will focus this review on the response therein from the 'Owner' because I do not see an option to respond directly to the 'Owners' response on our prior google review. I want to make it clear that our intent is not to hurt the 'Owners' business. As a matter of fact, we have never even written a review of our travels beyond checking buttons when prompted. So, this comes straight from the heart because the checking clerk and his female colleague insulted us, have made patently false claims in the response saying things such as we said, 'we like to check out late', 'we should be allowed to check out late', etc. This is how the clerk perceived our courtesy request - that it was some kind of entitlement rather than a courtesy request. We couldn't possibly 'like' checking out late because we are runners and as I indicated, our races often start early enough for us to return to the hotel, shower and check out in time for either a flight or a long drive home. I would say, we are often in a hurry to check usually before 11AM. This particular day just happened to be a race that was starting later than normal (8.30AM) hence the courtesy request for a late check out. The 'Owner' is hurting their own business by engaging in presumptions like us being 'entitled'. Look further and there is a related issue with a different customer about a mishandled check out time. It shows a pattern of a business with poor staff training and management skills. I trained in hospitality so I can recognize poor customer service and this was the worst ever! There was zero reason for the 'Owner' to be adversarial, demeaning, and later threatening. He could very well have said, 'sorry, we do no not allow late check-out' and that is it. In our experience, it is not unusual for a desk clerk lack the authority to extend the check-out time. But this clerk even took offence even when I said, 'it is ok, just check us in and we will talk to the manager in the morning about a late check-out'. ||||This 'Owner' chose to hurt is own business by being rude, and aggressive. It was not necessary. He says he has video. If so, please bring it on. He says he wants to sue. I say bring it on! The most hurtful thing that night was not even the discourtesy, it was the blatant false reporting to the dispatcher that we had a GUN. On one hand, I am eager to get that video. I have even thought of filing a freedom of information request to get the dispatch report regarding the claim about us having a gun. The clerk calmly told the dispatcher that we had a gun. Filing a false police report is a crime. While I would like to pursue this, it would not be worth my time but if the 'Owner' wants to ratchet up the lies and the innuendo further, we will be ready to face that video showing him and his female colleague cursing us, threatening physical violence, and we will be glad to face the dispatch report of the male clerk reporting that we had a gun. We patiently waited for the police to dispel the gun report. The police came (heavily armed because they had been told we were armed), we talked to the police for a few minutes and left in peace as we...