Red Roof Inn Utica — Hotel in City of Utica

Our fire department stayed at this hotel for the drill team tournament this past weekend. My fiancé arrived before I did with our child and he called to the front desk because the room with filthy. They came and “ cleaned up”. When I arrived the next day, I noticed there was permanent marker scribbles all over the desk and dresser, along with the night stand. The floor was so sticky that my slippers were sticking to the floor ( thank god I decided last minute to bring them ). Our air conditioner smelled so bad that the whole box of a room wreaked the whole weekend. The microwave had dried food all over the screen & buttons. The one bed in our room had stains all over the sheets. The pillows were all completely flat, the bed was hard as a rock and felt like it hadn’t been changed out in 20 years. I tried calling the front desk for more towels and the phone had no dial tone. When entering our room, our door was so beat up you had to physically push to get into it. The best part.. on Sunday before checkout I plopped my daughter in her stroller and was walking around the parking lot for fresh air. We walked around to the second building ( on the bagel shop side, outter rooms ) and housekeeping was cleaning a room with a blunt lit up while cleaning. Unbelievable. It wasn’t even worth stopping to the front desk because as we approached the lobby on our walk, the front desk staff were in sweat pants and raggedy tshirts chain smoking cigarettes. The site also says “ smoke free” on the website…. But people definitely smoke in the rooms…. Cigarettes and weed. Do not book here. Worst hotel I’ve even stayed in. I couldn’t even let me daughter play with her toys on the ground because of how filthy...

I was in Utica for less than 24 hours and and had booked a stay here prior to my trip. I came to regret that booking immensely. Upon walking into my room, it smelled very very heavily of cigarette smoke. I was sneezing and coughing most of the night. I left a window open to try and eradicate the smell, but that only did so much. I was only in the room for one night, and the clothes I wore to bed there still smelled like cigarette smoke a day later.

Moreover, the room itself was incredibly dirty. The surfaces were dusty, and various crumbs and particles of dirt were littered across the desk and night table. I felt uncomfortable even putting my bags on certain surfaces. Nevertheless, the height of my discomfort with the room was definitely the bathroom. It was very obvious that it had not been cleaned before my check-in. There was hair, dust, and dirt all over the bathtub and it was grimy. I ran the water for about 30 minutes before taking a quick shower, and it still felt gross after doing so. I am appalled. The set up of the bathroom itself was also strange, with the sink completely outside of the bathroom. The sheets and blankets of bedding were thin, too. The only mildly enjoyable thing about my night was that the AC worked well (which was a shock, considering the condition of the hotel.)

The hotel itself has very minimal services and amenities, and that could’ve been compensated for by cleanliness and order in the rooms themselves, but even the door handle of my room was broken, and my key card was dead. I have never had such an unenjoyable and dirty stay at a hotel. Needless to say, I will not be a patron of the Red Room Hotel...

⭐️s are deceiving!! Overall, I was very happy with this Red Roof Inn. The staff was very pleasant and attentive. The 3 ⭐️s are because it was an average and adequate place to lay our heads for the night, but there was nothing extra.

We had to stay in the Utica area last minute and wanted something nice, but cheaper than the other chains. We travel a lot and have found that it’s usually best to stay at a chain in a pinch. We picked this Red Roof in Utica because it was close to where we needed to be and it was $80/night. We were more than pleasantly surprised to find the carpets gone and replaced with wood laminate, although there were some smaller squares of thinner carpet under foot for the beds and at the door entrance. Both were clean and did not skeeve me out.

The place has clearly been renovated more recently, and everything was clean and in good shape. We had a bar fridge and microwave in our 2 queen room, but our friends did not... we paid the same, so I’m unclear as to why. The bathroom was small - just the toilet and shower/tub - but the sink area outside in the room was very spacious and had a nice stone countertop. The cons would be that 2/4 of us found the beds to be extremely hard and uncomfortable (the other 2 thought they were fine). It was also difficult to adjust the temp in the room and we kept adjusting it from too hot to too cold... not sure if that would have been an issue if it wasn’t 20° outside. Be warned - the unit by the window is A/C only and the heat gauge is on the wall because the heat comes from the ceiling.

As a side note, the biggest pro was the Willie’s Bagel Cafe at the end of the driveway...