Motel 6 Mammoth Lakes, CA — Hotel in Mammoth Lakes

It takes a truly compelling experience for me to choose to leave a review. Checking in at Motel 6 mammoth tonight, that is exactly what I found.

At the moment, the surrounding area has been slammed by snow storms for weeks. After 10 feet of snow in the past month, much of the town is in disarray, with heat, power, and internet being commonly affected. Unfortunately this Motel 6 is currently impacted and is actively undergoing repairs to its boiler. This can happen anywhere.

I think professionalism is best judged not when things are going right, but rather by how things are handled when things are going wrong!

Tonight when I arrived, I found large cleared parking spots in front for check-in (a true feat of its own, given the current state of snow everywhere). I then was checked in by Steven, a true professional who is the reason I chose to write a review about my exceptional experience. I was warmly greeted like a friend and was immediately informed of a current situation regarding boiler repairs. I was informed that they are working to expedite repairs in every way and that the situation is dynamic. Steven discussed some options that are able to be provided to alleviate impacts to guests and he managed to place me in a room that is central to a portion of the property that seems to be less affected than others. The staff is actively tracking the state of heating capabilities across the property and Steven arranged to have me follow up to inform them of current status of our room after we checked in.

Heading to the room, walkways had been meticulously cleared and even the shovels in the office were clean and very neatly arranged in the corner. This aspect may seem trivial but it feels like the type of attention to detail well above what could be expected in most hospitality settings. This staff must have been really working hard to keep things this clean around here.

Arriving at the room, all was found to be functioning in perfect order from what I can tell. The heater is indeed "warm, not hot" as warned but it's entirely fine. I followed up with Steven at the front desk to inform him that all is well here. I was again reassured that I could call anytime if that changes and that anything needed would be done or provided if at all possible.

"Wow".

If you are reading this and want my review, it is my opinion that Steven and his fellow staff are absolutely true hospitality professionals and ultimate examples of why I choose Motel 6 whenever I travel if at all possible.

Boilers can go out anywhere you might choose to stay. If something like this happens at a Motel 6, you'll be happy you have free Wifi, parking, pets, and some incredible people working to take care of you. Really not sure you can guarantee all of those elsewhere!

Sorry to be long-winded but i really can't say enough about this being a great experience among many with Motel 6. Keep it up guys!

(Ps. the picture shows (what I can only guess is?) the pool area with gazebos, absolutely buried in snow. Note how dug out and clean it is around the walkways and doors...

Absolutely terrifying and disgusting experience! Stay away from this place as far as possible!!!

The only reason we ended up staying in this terrible, smelly, old and dirty hotel is because of the 395 road closure during a snow storm. They (of course) took advantage of this situation and charged us $270(!!!) per night per each room (we had 2 rooms). We had to stay for 2 nights because we had nowhere else to go.

The room cards they gave us for one of the rooms had tones of issues and didn’t work most of the time. We ended up using our friends’ room to get into our room, since the rooms were connected. At some point, the door in between our rooms accidentally got locked and we lost access to our room, it was around 11pm.

We went to the front desk several times and tried multiple cards they gave us to open our room, and none of the cards worked! They offered to sleep in a different room, but this was absolutely not an option for us - we were monitoring road closure situation and needed to pack and leave Mammoth Lakes immediately as soon as the roads would be re-opened. Thus, we needed access to our stuff, our phones and our car keys, so that we could pack and leave at any time, possibly even during the night or very early in the morning.

Eventually, they called in a maintenance guy, and he couldn’t open our room after multiple attempts. He ended up drilling a hole in the door that connected our room to our friends’ room, so we could unlock this door from another side and finally get into our room. The kids were terrified and were crying from a very loud drilling and from this whole situation.

We never asked for the hole drilling neither for any other damage, and of course we were never told we would be responsible for this financially (unbelievable anyone would even think of it!!). All we needed was access to our room, for which we overpayed a ridiculous amount of money.

They called us in the morning and tried blaming us for the door damage and charge for it!!! We refused to pay of course. Additionally, the front desk worker (female) was beyond rude and unrespectful, and treated us like criminals threatening to take to court.

The way this place treats their customers is beyond unthinkable, they simply do not deserve any...

Well we checked into the Motel. We have stayed here before around 2017. So we thought this should be okay. Now the room seemed okay apart from two things firstly the cost had gone up tremendously since our last visit. It was a little short of $160 a night and a lot more expensive than other Motel 6's. While we were there the temperature was just 48 degrees and the second night it dropped to around freezing. This would not be a problem but the Air conditioning unit was only kicking out cool air. The next day talking to some other guests they said they had the same issue so it seemed as if moving all our gear to another room for one more night would be just another struggle as the Motel had no elevator and there was no guarantee that another room would have warm/hot air. What we did not know was that overnight the temperature was going to drop to around zero and the room was freezing. We had to turn the Air Con off because the cool air was just adding to the misery. So we took clothes out from our suitcases and put all over the bed just to keep warm. The next morning while carrying out suitcases and bags to the car a guy asked us how was the room and we replied freezing he said same here and $160 bucks for that. As we checked out we noticed entering the reception area how lovely and warm it was . I said our room had no heating and it appears it is the same for other people. She replied sorry about that as if she didn't really care just sitting there in her nice warm reception. We couldn't wait to get into our car and turn the heating on. I therefore could not give this Motel a higher rating for the two major points, no heating and well overpriced. I would look elsewhere in Mammoth Lakes as this Motel is charging way too high for what it is offering and nowhere near as good as it was...