Clarion Hotel Conference Center on Lake Erie — Hotel in City of Dunkirk

Our stay 2.11 to 2.13.25 First time staying here. Read many bad reviews, and looked at a few hotels in the area. We needed to be here for hubs job, he has a customer in town. Out of the hotels i looked at this had the best reviews and mixed at that.

I saw no pictures with or on bad reviews. We stay at hotels a lot. So our expectation on them are set low. Because I didn't see any pictures we decided to give it a try.

Dunkirk is an older town. The hotel has been here a while. I don't know how long, but it either been here a while or it is just not taken care of. The building looks old and worn. Walking in, again very old. Now it is on a water front so does have that vibe as well.

We checked in and they even honored our request to be on the 4th floor. We had a lake view room, overlooking the beautiful- frozen -Lake Erie. I checked the room for Bed Bugs, there were NONE. We don't usually stay with Comfort suits so again our expectations were low. We have had issues with the brand in the past.

The set up of the room was not ideal. The couch not in a position to watch tv without really turning and straining your neck. The tv is more for when you are in bed. Really i am guessing there isn't enough room to be able to really set the room up correctly. The reason i say this is the desk is at the end of the bed. So sitting in the desk chair and anyone walking from the couch or the other side of bed has to walk past the desk and it is not convenient.

The bathroom is very old, had the little bottles of shampoo (which the conditioner was partially used)etc. no wall hand soap, shampoo etc. There is tub with shower. Also there is metal soap dish in the wall.

There is a fridge in the room but no microwave, there is a community one in the vending area. The ice machine, although does work, looks like it is from the 70s. This hotel could defenitly use some major updates and a huge face lift. If you are staying a night or two, it would prob be good. i would not want to spend a week here.

The bedside lamps,and reading lights, none of them, worked. I called about them the night we checked in and the girl was going to come up to look but it was getting late and we just delt with it. However, none of the outlets on that side of the room worked, and no outlets are on the otherside of the bed. We had to plug our phones in at night before bed on the other side of the room, let them charge, to have them for our alarms for the morning. I did discover on the morning we left after my suitcase was moved that there was an extension cord that was not plugged in. Why? Who knows.

The sink was a slow drain when we started and by the time we left it was almost completely clogged. I advised the desk at check out and of the issue with the lights by the bed which I ended up discovering that the extension cord under the night stand was not plugged in. I didn’t get a sorry or any kind of apology. This is why we usually don’t choose the Choice hotels. So if you decide to stay at this hotel, remember if things are not working start crawling under the furniture to see what isn’t plugged in

The resturant is closed on Tuesday.. just our luck.

Breakfast, which is nothing to write home about is serviced until 9am.

None of the walk ways in the rear of the building were cleaned after snow and ice, so you can’t go walk by the lake.

I have added pics and video to show the things i am...

The front desk and lobby are very nice, they should have spent a little more in other areas though.

The first room they gave me was nice, but the in room jacuzzi tub water wouldn't shut off after turning it on. Then they sent up the dish washer to try fixing the issue, of course this was after someone from maid services was sent up and told by the front desk to "push down on the knob to get it to shut off", which tells me they a knew about this issue, yet still chose to rent that room to me.

At this point almost an hour after I called the front desk to tell them I had an issue with the jacuzzi tub, they gave me another room, which I had to move all of my belongings to, with no offer of help to do so from the hotel.

At no point was I offered a discount, or future discount for my troubles.

Comparing this with my stay at the Best Western a week before... At the Best Western, breakfast wasn't just continental it was full on hot breakfast, and lasted almost 2 hours longer than the Clarion offered. Hot coffee, tea, and other drinks were offered 24/7 at the lobby in Best Western also, no mention of anything like this from the staff at Clarion. Checkout time was also 1 hour earlier than Best Western.

Clarion did have a restaurant inside the hotel, and supplied a menu (with prices which were already high) in the room. To my surprise when calling the restaurant directly from the room phone, I was told the prices were 18% higher to be delivered to the room, and then a tip was expected on top of that. Portions were EXTREMELY small for such high pricing. At least the food tasted good..

Upon leaving I found my receipt just slipped under the door, with no indication of needing to stop at the front desk. So I decided to stop by, and ask if I was all set, to which the front desk girl said "yes" and not another word. I wasn't asked how my stay was, there were no apologies for my inconvenience of the first room, and they didn't even want to door key back.

Pricing of the room was no different than the Best Western.

To say the least, I expected more from my stay at...

I have been in contact with customer service and let them know what happened when I stayed there. Number one, the attendant at the front desk was lost for 15 to 20 minutes. When he finally appeared, he was wearing casual pants, a grungy T-shirt, and a baseball cap. No hotel uniform.

When I got to my room, I couldn’t understand why my key wasn’t working until I realize my door wasn’t locked. I am a woman traveling alone and propped open the door and had to my room to make sure nobody was in there.

The floor was dirty and crumbly like there was sand on it, the mirror outside the frame on the mirror Outside the bathroom door Was just hanging there. The hairdryer burned up in my hand and I couldn’t shut it off. The off button wouldn’t work. I finally had to grab the plug and pull it out.

When I went to breakfast, the chairs and table all nicked up, I went outside and saw that the pool wasn’t open. It’s summertime. Why wasn’t the pool open. I believe I paid for an open pool.

All in all, I was extremely unhappy about this. When I checked out, I was hoping to talk to the front desk clerk, but she was on the phone and had seven or eight people waiting for her. I was on my way to a memorial And celebration of life for my friends husband who passed. I had no time to wait in line until she had free time.

I also didn’t want to complain in front of all the other people that were standing there. I hope you understand that I was being considerate by not addressing the front desk person.

I understand I could’ve paid more money for a room with a partial view or a full view of the water, but I didn’t expect to be up over the air conditioning systems.

For the money I paid for this room – $241, I am shocked that all these things were wrong with this hotel and how you can charge that exorbitant rate. Disturbing...