GrandStay Residential Suites Hotel - Eau Claire — Hotel in Eau Claire

This was the first time that we have stayed with GrandStay in a number of years. Our first experience was good, this experience not so much. Although nothing significant occurred while we were there, it was a number of small things that occurred that soured our experience.

We actually booked our room initially through AirBnb due to pricing. We booked for one night only, but then had some plans changed and booked for two nights. When making reservations for this establishment through AirBnb it has to be approved by the manager within 24 hrs of booking. We got a response for our initial booking, we never got a response for the change in our plans, and discovered this the morning we were leaving, so we quickly had to make a reservation through their own website for the second night. I do not blame GrandStay for this, as we should have been more attentive to this. But it provides some context to our initial problem.

We arrived to the hotel and I explained to the Desk Clerk that we had two separate reservations, one through AirBnb. She could not find the reservation from AirBnb in her system. She was pleasant and apologized, and said she would leave a note for the manager and morning desk clerk to tell them of our situation so they could pursue it and resolve it. We were fine with that, but when I called in the morning the manager answered, and she was unaware of the problem, and no information was passed to her.

She asked me to come to the front desk and resolve it after I ate breakfast. We were able to resolve it quickly. She stated the AirBnb reservation was now in the system, and that they would "check us in and out later in the day," and would not have to move rooms, which we were appreciative of. The only problem was that when we arrived back to our room that next evening, tired after a long day of activity, we found our key had been deactivated, and so had to make a trip back to the front desk to reactivate it.

As to the room itself, although modernly decorated, clean, and generally comfortable living space, all the living area table lamps and floor lamps did not work. The television in the livingroom was below sight line, and you had to look down to view it. It was a strange arrangement. This also made it difficult at times to get the remote to function.

The rooms do have a kitchen and are intended for extended stays. Ours was not an extended stay, thank goodness, as there was only one frying pan to cook on it with no other cookware. There was some bowls, plates, and glasses, along with table utensils, but clearly you would have issues with an extended stay if you wanted to cook in the room.

Our room was labeled a "Queen Suite." Our bed was very small and no where near the size of a typical queen bed. I would describe it as either a double bed, or a Queen minus. Just be aware you will be dealing with a small bed for two people.

On the second night our toilet began to malfunction, and would not flush properly. I called the front desk to ask for assistance, expecting a maintenance person to come assist us. In my experience in the past when similar situations like that have occurred, hotel staffs generally want maintenance staff to resolve the problem, so as not to cause further damage, or causing flooding into rooms below, as our room was on the second floor. I was told I could come to the front desk and get a plunger, or they could bring it up to us. They did bring a plunger, and we were able to resolve the situation temporarily, but had to plunge again the morning of checkout.

For brevity, see notes about the breakfast below.

Finally, we did not check for bed bugs at this location. But now upon on seeing two prior reviews from this location, it appears it "MAY" have been a problem in the last few months. That is not reassuring in light of the rest of our stay and the problems we had. We will be vigilant in the coming days to look for indications of bed bugs, and add more here if we do find that we have...

First of all my family of five had to change rooms because our toilet was broke. We didn't have the chance to cause the issue. When we told the front desk they gave us a plunger. We ended up moving everything from the 3rd floor room to the 2nd floor. All with 3 kids including our autistic toddler. This was extremely hard on her which made our first night very difficult and long. Secondly very small 2 room apartment didn't even look like the advertisement. At all. There was not a walk in shower. I included a pic. They don't have the walk in showers. The bathroom was completely different. Some people are disabled and depend on the walkin. Squeaky, lobby furniture, the miniature version. It was so dry and stuffy in the rooms. Be careful touching the lights here. The beds were the worst I have ever slept on. We bought an air mattress for my husband to sleep on because the queen beds are really fulls and the pull out couch is paper thin. You can feel the bars. The super tiny coffee maker was nasty and leaked all over the counter. The carpet felt dirty and rough. Everything felt sticky and gross. Counters, dishes, fridges, handles, everything. The tv stand and dressers are from the 90s and the TV's are smaller then 32inchs. How they have furniture arranged is like they just threw some stuff in there and called it a day. The entertainment center was in front of the pocket door to one of the rooms. The second room was super tiny. Almost as small as the full bed that was in it. Not queen beds. No way. 🙄 There is way too much chlorine in the tiny pool. It is unsafe for anyone to sit in the pool room. It doesn't feel ventilated at all. My daughters and I got nauseous and dizzy. I will be reaching out to customer service. I have health issues and a flare due to how strong the chlorine was. Blew me away. Not sure that can even be called a breakfast. We will never stay here again. We were in town for our daughter autism evaluation. I made the mistake of picking this hotel. Our trip could've went so much better bad we been able to sleep, and been comfortable where we were staying. I had requested extra pillows with the room when booking the apartment. The room came with the 4 extra they gave us. But when we had to switch rooms we were told to leave them that we had to a for new ones once we were in the other room. She was the only employee we seen there. So we had to ask her for these extra pillows that were supposed to come to our room. So weird. Anyways, we asked when she came for the key card once we finished moving all our things with our screaming tired toddler. There she told us she would have to go look for new pillows. The hotel was obviously not busy at all. So she returned with 3 pillows. So we got 3 of 4 pillows. Lol it was so weird. It was just such a horrible, uncomfortable hotel stay. I would not recommend this place to anyone. If we hadn't paid $400 for 2 nights we would've found a different hotel. Horrible internet. Couldnt work online. Absolutely not...

First night we arrived at about 10pm and things went fine, but the next day they never cleaned our room. We were in the room from 3-4pm; however, they should have been there prior to that with only a 20% occupancy (per the front desk) that doesn't seem unreasonable. We had to ask for clean towels or else we never would have received any.

The second night a fire alarm went off at 12:30 am because someone used the fire extinguisher on the 3rd floor (where our room was) which created a large dust cloud. No one ever let the people waiting outside (about 12 of us) know what was going on. There was no one who came out to take attendance and make sure no else was in the building. The fire department let us know that it was okay to go back inside, not a staff member. Come to find out there was only one person on staff during the night for the entire hotel. That one person also did not come to our room to let us know the situation. Which according to their safety protocol they should have. They did not offer to move our room to different floor. The dust was left on the floor for all to walk through and the fan they used to try and clear the dust, was facing into the hallway instead of out into the stairwell window. Nothing was cleaned up the next morning and the maintenance wasn't to arrive until about 10 am. When we asked to speak to a manager the next morning; their shift was suppose to start at 7 am and they still were not there when we checked out at 9 am. No concessions were made upon our complaints of how things were handled, other than to speak to the manager who wasn't there.

Today the manager spoke with the card holder of our group and stated that if we wanted to stay there again, then we could choose the room of our choice. However, no compensation for Saturday night or any explanation of how things will change and be handled in the future should an emergency occur again at their hotel.

I find it unacceptable the way they handled things and the managers small attempt to try and right...