City Harbor Suites — Hotel in Guntersville

Located in: Guntersville, AL|City Harbor review—room 302|The property was recommended to us by one of our relatives. We have some good and “needs improvement” comments to share.|The good:|1. The property appears to be relatively new and is very clean. |2. Spacious suite with a nice living area, dining table, fairly large kitchen with microwave and dishwasher along with a large refrigerator plus stove/oven, two bedrooms (king in one room and queen in the other), two bathrooms (one with shower and the other with tub/shower), and a balcony area looking directly at Lake Guntersville…which has two chairs and small table on it.|3. Staff members very nice and helpful.|4. There are only 20 suite units, and we did not have any noise other than the band that played down the pier on the weekend (was able to faintly hear it in our room).|5. It is pretty easy to access, is in close proximity to the lake and also to some restaurants, a bar and two grocery stores not too far away.|The needs improvement:|1. The property is set up with a touch pad for entering the room and the code is sent in advance. No checking in at an office. When we arrived, the key pad was badly scratched up and I could not even see the numbers to be able to open the door. We had to make a call to the office to summon a staff member. Due to the problem not being able to be resolved relatively quickly, they were able to move us to the next room for the duration of our stay. Honestly, this should have been addressed and replaced before our arrival. |2. In the first bathroom--- it has a shower, and the property provides dispensers on the wall with body wash, shampoo and conditioner. This is appreciated; however, we prefer to use our own shampoo and bar soap (there is no bar soap provided by the property) and there is no place to put the personal toiletries in the shower except to put them on the floor. We suggest that at least a corner shelving unit be put in the shower for this purpose. It also needs more than one towel rack in the bathroom.|3. The shower in the first bath and the shower/tub in the second one need to have grab bars for those who may slip getting in or out…this is especially true for the one with the tub/shower.|4. In the living area--- the view of the lake is great with the sliding glass doors; however, it really needs to have curtains available to provide some privacy (those coming by with boats can easily see into the suites), block out the morning sun, and also at times to block the light in the middle of the day. This is not only for privacy, but to also be able to see the television as the glare makes it difficult to see the screen. Also, if we wish to take a nap on the sofa, the bright sunlight coming in the large windows makes that difficult as well. The furniture is all an off-white color and it will not likely take long for it to become soiled/stained (sadly, not everyone takes care of furnishings as they should).|5. Would be helpful to have room darkening shades or curtains in the king bedroom. The blinds that are present do help a little, but the blinds are no match for the bright morning sun. I was thankful to have brought my eye blinders to help not be awakened so early by the light from the morning sun.|6. The fitted sheet on the king bed does not remain down on the mattress. I had to keep putting it back on the mattress each morning as the top edge rolled up and I was sleeping partially directly on the mattress.|7. In the king bedroom—there is a cabinet for the television and it has two fairly skinny drawers. This is almost no storage for unloading a suitcase (esp when staying for more than a day or two—and we were there for the week). The room needs drawer space. The closet has hanging space only--- needs to have a shelf in it above the hanging rod for storage.|8. In the queen bedroom—the cabinet for the television has no drawer space at all….just the support stand for the television. Again—drawer space needed and the closet also has no shelf in it above the rod, but a shelf would definitely help.|9. The televisions are all “smart tvs” and have two remotes…one for the tv (on/off and volume and selecting the Direct tv or smart options) then the second remote for the Direct TV. For those of us who are not as smart as the smart tv and trying to figure out the combination of how to use the remotes, it might be a good idea to include some instructions for use of the remotes.|ADVISORIES:|1. The property is a bit on the pricy side, but it does have some good features.|2. There is not a pool at this property. Guests can get into the lake although I did not wish to do this.|3. It is a little distance from the parking area to the rooms. For those who are mobility challenged, there are 6 parking spaces, but they are not that close to the building. If a guest has a scooter, then it’s not an issue. But if they use a rollator or cane, even though the handicapped spaces are present, it is a bit further than most places to get from the spaces to the rooms as the rooms are on floors 2 and 3 (elevators are available).|4. The parking can get a bit limited more on the weekends as the area is pretty popular especially for one of the bars (Levi’s) which also has a band playing outside on Friday and Saturday nights, and also a nice restaurant (Mike’s Steakhouse) on the pier.|5. When guests check out of the suites, you have to strip your bed sheets and put them in the washer before you depart. Used towels—are to be gathered and piled in the floor in front of the washer. You do not have to wait on the sheets to finish—just get them started. Guests also have to take the trash out to the can at the end of the hallway. The property does not charge a cleaning fee as some condo-type rental units do, but they do ask for the sheets, towels and the trash to be handled as described.|FOOD OPTIONS IN THE AREA:|1. Big Mike’s Steakhouse—is just down the pier from City Harbor suites, so it is only a one or two minute walk. The “Big Mike” 24 ounce ribeye is their specialty, but they have a variety of smaller steaks available. They also have other options beyond steaks. They open at 4 pm and the line had already started before that time. As soon as it opened, we were all seated, but the wait time definitely grew for others as the evening went on.|2. Another Broken Egg—we did not eat there on this trip, but I have eaten at one of these places before. They are more geared towards brunch type of meals and is a good place to consider.|3. Nash’s – is just across the parking lot from the City Harbor Suites. This place is much like a sports bar type of food. The buffalo wings were good.|4. Bama Bucks- This is located about 30 minutes from City Harbor Suites and was well worth the drive. They offer a nice selection of options—not just steaks. The ribeye was really good and the service was good as well. The property has an animal wildlife preserve on site, so it was fun to see a variety of animals such as camel, donkey, kangaroo, gazelle, black bear, deer, ostrich, wildebeest, alligators, buffalo, etc…. The cost to get into the area to see the animals was...

Way to kill a good night. Came to hear some music and wanted a room for the night so I didn't have to drive home. Pay right at 300.00 for one night and walk in to find a note on the fridge saying if you don't do the laundry and carry all the trash out you will be charged an extra 50 bucks. I mean we were only going to be there for sleeping 1 night. Didn't even have anything with us to have for trash. But to be forced to do laundry after paying 300.00 for the night at a hotel / suite when absolutely no where in the listing nor going through the booking process does it mention this. I know to some this is nothing and will overlook it but this is absolute overreach and bait and switch on room pricing. I cancelled the stay within less than 1 min from reading that note on the fridge.

Due to unable to reply to your response I must put it here. Thank you for your response. I've never been one to say the customer is always right but I do know in the end the customer is the customer and without the customer you have no business. I know you can't please everyone all the time, and actually I am one of the easiest to please. Just like this time I try to over look or I always give a chance privately to respond and correct something before saying anything or leaving a negative review. I never received an email after booking on the phone by talking to a person not text. I specifically asked what are my total charges for the room. No cleaning fees or chores task list was given over the phone. After reading the chores list I text and said I wasn't trying to be an ass but wasn't going to pay almost 300 a night and have to do laundry and wasn't going to pay extra and would leave if needed to. I was told I would be refunded. I shouldn't have had to leave. I shouldn't have been told to do laundry, I shouldn't have been told I would be charged extra. All of this was after booking, after paying, after check-in. Prior to leaving the review I went through all of the steps to book online except entering payment info and clicking the final button just to see if mentioned it online, it does not mention it anywhere online. You have confirmed in your reply that only after you book do you find out about the additional charges if you don't do your cleaning crews job for them. It's also nice to know that the cleanliness of the sheets that your guest sleep on all depends on if the previous guest actually washed them and actually used laundry detergent. What if they washed their clothes first then had no more laundry detergent for the sheets. You should not put this on the guest. It's your responsibility to ensure a safe clean room for your next guest. Your later check out time is useless if you must spend it working, doing your cleaning crews job. Also what good is that extra hour check out if you need to leave out early like I needed to do. Now you must get up extra early to do someone else job that you paid them to do. You say you are not a hotel but a condo like the beach but the condo at the beach is normally individually owned. They don't run 108 units out of one property just like a hotel. You are charging for cleaning and all of the other fees you just have them baked in to your nightly rate which is the way it should be, but you should strip the beds and wash the sheets, it's your responsibility I don't do laundry. If you must charge extra for this it needs to be upfront and explained during booking no matter if online, by text or over the phone. Not after the booking is complete and not after you check in. But again the current guest shouldn't have to rely on the previous guest to do a good job on cleaning the sheets that they are going to sleep on. More and more businesses think they can push more and more back on the customer then ask for a tip. If you can't afford to run the business correctly don't run it at all. Cleanliness and over priced seems to the main things mentioned in other reviews. Maybe it's because you are overpriced and the previous guest didn't do a good job cleaning. Maybe the guest wasn't properly trained...

OK, it’s Guntersville — I get it. I’m not going to rate this hotel as if it were in New York (because if so, it’d be 1 star). As it is, I’ll go 2.5 stars

The complex is pretty cool. It’s new-ish for the area and has some interesting retail below the hotel. The room floor plans are fine, and having a kitchen is nice. The views over the lake are fantastic. But there’s definitely a few issues that show ownership/management is cutting corners and leads me to believe there may be more issues and/or further issues as the property ages.

1. There’s no indication at reservation that you’re going to be asked to function as the cleaning crew at check out. Given the state of the room, I’m pretty sure guests spend more time cleaning the room than staff does. If it were disclosed, it would be one thing, but I don’t work there. I’m not trying to do your laundry or dishes on my vacation. I very almost decided to tell them to kick rocks and just dispute the bogus $50 charge with Amex but decided I have bigger problems in life to get worked up about.

2. As mentioned, the cleanliness is pretty sub-par. The hotel almost gets away with it, because it’s pretty new, but there are some significant issues starting to show cracks. I highly recommend you do NOT look under the beds, because it clearly hasn’t been cleaned since they opened. Clumps of dust the size of golf balls and trash from previous guests are under both beds but in particular the master. The floors in our room were dusty, showers didn’t look all that clean, and all the cabinets both in the kitchen and the bathroom had TONS of dust in them. I think they pretty much rely on guests to do the cleaning, then just have somebody come by to make the beds and “touch up” the room for a few minutes. It’s clearly NOT deep cleaned between guests. Also, if you have any issues, there’s no front desk or on site staff, so there’s not really anyone you can complain to or ask to have your room cleaned better.

3. There are no standard hotel door locks. It’s a home-grade Yale keypad deadbolt and you only get the code before checkin. I presume they change it, but I don’t really know. Also, there’s no further way to lock the door if you’re inside/for overnight, so you just have to hope their keypad standards are better than their cleaning standards. Speaking of check in, even if the room is “ready” (as in, barely cleaned), they’ll charge you $20 per hour to get into the room early. If the room isn’t ready, it isn’t ready — no harm done. But charging $20/hour like it’s some seedy hourly hotel is just cheap.

4. Noise insulation is terrible and was clearly done as cheaply as possible. You can hear the restaurant below during the day, and at night just pray nobody so much as sneezes above you. It sounded like the people above us were re-arranging their furniture for 2+ hours one night.

5. I can’t prove it wasn’t a mosquito or some other bug - it’s Alabama, after all (despite being late November) - but my forearm got lit up by bites. This is the same arm that I normally sleep with over my head (against the raw mattress - because the fitted sheet is loose - and headboard), so my #1 suspect is bed bugs. Yuck.

Overall, I probably would not return. Cleanliness is a major issue, and the location, views and nice value for a 2 bedroom place can’t...