We booked this hotel because it was the most convenient along our route. Originally we booked using Priceline, but we made an error on the date. (Should have booked for THAT night and instead booked for two days later.). When we explained things to the owner, to his credit he was willing to cancel and refund, which he was not obliged to do. We decided just to book directly through him rather than use Priceline, since we were already there. But the price he gave us at the counter was about $25 more per night than we could have gotten online, so I think he fudges prices as he wishes. (My husband watched him nudge the nightly rate up by pennies until the total with tax was exactly $100.)
Considering we’d spent that much the previous night for a 2.5 star hotel, the side by side comparison was stark. This hotel was sad. The halls smelled bad - a mix of smoke and old. The tiny lobby was decorated in 1970’s garage sale style, complete with rainbow disco ball. Paint throughout the hotel was contractor high-gloss almond. The rooms have no decor, though ours did have one accent wall painted burgundy.
Gratefully, the room was quite clean, at least where it mattered. (I clean for a living and use a black light to check my own cleaning, so I use it when I go to a hotel, and this one passed my test.). Bathroom was well cleaned, bed was clean, furniture was clean.
And yet, I think just the old-ness of it made it hard to relax. The chair in our room had an old slip cover over it, not quite well-fitting. The paint, the lack of decor, the worn bathroom fixtures…all of it gave off a gas-station-bathroom vibe: it may be clean, but you can’t quite get comfortable there, and you still feel like you need to wash when you leave.
A few other specifics…. There had been ants in the bathroom. No biggie - happens everywhere. But I could tell that they’d been recently sprayed - there were dozens of them dead on the bathroom floor. One more reason to leave my socks on when walking in there - I didn’t know what he’d sprayed with. There was a refrigerator in the room, but it wasn’t plugged in or cold when we arrived, so we didn’t use it - it would have taken too long to cool down and our food was safer in the cooler. There was no microwave in the room. So when I wanted to reheat my breakfast (which I brought) or make my tea, I had to walk down to the lobby and use the one there (which was dirty and very slow). The water in the hotel was un-drinkable - hard and sulfur tasting. There was a small mini fridge in the lobby by the microwave and there were exactly two bottles of water in there (for guest use). I used one I. The evening and one in the morning, and he had no others to offer. There was no vending machine where I could purchase more, either. He did offer to fill my water bottle with water that he had purchased for his use - he had to take it into his apartment and fill it, which felt awkward to me. There was a coffee pot in the lobby as well. The spare pot of water was kept on the floor under the table that housed the coffee pot. I don’t drink coffee and didn’t partake, but it seemed odd and unsanitary that the spare pot would be kept on the floor (especially given the ant situation down the hall).
The bed was comfortable, the pillows overstuffed and stiff. There was only a sheet on the bed, but there was a comforter available nearby. The room was quiet for sleeping, despite the fact that some guests had pets (we heard a few small barks when we arrived and then again in the morning, but between those times all was quiet).
I really have mixed feelings about this place. If you’re traveling and need a place to lay your head, this works. But I think it was way over priced ($65 would have been appropriate), under-supplied (a vending machine or drinkable water, a microwave in the room), and just past its prime, giving it a creepy kind of feeling. The owner is nice enough, and he cleans the rooms well, but honestly we won’t...
  Â
Read more
Learn more insights from Wanderboat AI.
