Red Lion Hotel on the River Jantzen Beach — Hotel in Portland

Tl;Dr - attention to detail is a bit lacking and it shows.

Let me start my review by say that both times I've stayed here I was here for the Oregon State Bar Exam. They were likely a lot more strained trying to facilitate so many test takers and getting the spaces ready.

I stayed here in July 2018 for my own bar exam, and returned this July 2019 to support my fiancé while he took the bar.

Check-in: in 2018, this was a significant problem. I had reserved a fancier room, and requested early check in. I arrived around 1:30 (check in is at 4 I believe) and was told house cleaning hadn't gotten to my room. They would need about an hour and would call me. I returned an hour later after napping in my car, they said it still wasn't done. They told me they were moving me to the clean next list (which apparently is different? Idk) and would call me when it was ready. They have my number. I go sit down in the lobby around 2:30. Everyone else starts to trickle in, and go to their rooms. I ask what's going on around 3, and at almost 4 they tell me they'll call me and I should just wait for the call. After 5 PM I get tired of waiting and go up to ask again what's going on. The manager says that apparently my room is and has been done. My entire settling in and review schedule is tossed out the window since I was waiting around for about 4 hours.

2019: again an early check in is requested. We splurge on a suite, request early check in. We call on our way and say we're on our way and we were just wondering about the early check in. The guy who answers says "well, you and two dozen other people are just wondering about early check in"....ok....he says they'll have my room done in the next hour or so. Perfect. Arrive, check in, no problem.

The Room: 2018 my biggest gripe was that the AC didn't work. It was in the 70s the whole time, which for me is way too warm. The room was a bit dated, but had great views and was basically what I needed.

2019: the suite is actually the one we had the most issues with. On the ground floor, we had bugs. All kinds. Spiders, webs, and cobwebs are all over. Flies kept appearing throughout our stay, found a tiny beetle on our coffee table. The AC, again, doesn't work. It turns a fan on, which helps, but doesn't actually blow cool air into the space. The towels, two notably should never have been placed in the room. One was obviously and significantly worn out, the other appears to have speckles of rust?? On it. The pillow cases appear to all be the one same size, so the smaller pillows just have this massive pillow case tucked into it, and they don't stay tucked. The bathtub plug had ANOTHER plug contraption sitting in it pretending to be a plug. They had to call a maintenance guy up and the poor man spent probably an hour trying to find the right plug to fit it. He finally just switched the entire piece with a new one. Overall, we had a lot of small things that cumulated into big annoyances. If it was up to us, we wouldn't stay here again. This is the second red lion that we've had problems with so I think we'll avoid them all...

AVOID This Property AT ALL COSTS - EXPERIENCE - Red Lion, Jantzen Beach, OR This was shared with the front desk rep, front desk supervisor and the General Manager of this Red Lion Hotel without a response or a call back. The rude front desk rep did respond via chat saying there must have been a misunderstanding. Yet, no apology, acceptance of responsibility, or acceptance to the room conditions. The rep also stated that the GM tried calling me, but was unable to reach. I only use my cellphone. It logs all incoming calls answered or not. There were zero calls made to my number during 7/22 morning as she claimed. No voice-mails were received. Seeing the theme here. I use to love Red Lion, but their brand and caring for their guests has gone down the toilet. I have pictures to share of each of these conditions. Think about it. We are in a COVID Pandemic and they did not clean the room, at all.

I checked-in 7/21/2021 to room (rm # left out for now) around 3pm ish. I called the front desk, explained the issues and asked to be moved. Front desk rep (rep's name left out) said it will cost $50 additional to move us to another room. I said, I will not pay that, sense the room has so many serious contamination issues. She still refused.

1. I was told this room was facing the river. Unfortunately, I had to step out on the small balcony and then look right to see the river, sense the room was parallel to the river without any exposure to it via a window or other.
2. The headboards to both Queen beds were greasy from peoples skin rubbing on it. Very gross.
3. The floors were not vacuumed and food particles from prior guests were everywhere.
4. The walls were very dirty. Looked liked the walls have never been cleaned since being wallpapered and painted.
5. The sliding glass door to the balcony was hard to see out of, due to the dirt on the glass.
6. the bathroom lights and top of the mirror were filthy. I was scared to turn the sheets back to see what was underneath. I did not want to touch them, so I didn't.

There were more things I could have noted, but this was enough for us to pick up and leave. Note: We just spent a week enjoying the Oregon beaches. This was a half point for us to sleep overnight, prior to heading back to Seattle. I was so disgusting, we decided to push ourselves to drive an addition 3-hours just not to sleep in that room. This Red Lion place is beyond disrespectful to their guests. Very disappointing couple hours of cringing at the unbelievable living conditions. Red Lion use to be an amazing experience. This Red Lion is older, but the issue is it is so dirty and unmaintained. Elevators were dirty.... Name of...

We recently stayed there, on Monday Dec. 31st, 2018 and honestly, we had a pretty bad stay. When we arrived to our room, we found that the main light for our room wasn't working. I promptly called the front desk and the person who answered said there would be a maintenance person to our room in a "few minutes". TWENTY minutes later, I called again and she said that he would be at our door momentarily. The frustration had already began. When the maintenance person arrive he came to realize that whomever stayed in the room prior had "stole the lighting strip". Now, I would have thought that the staff would have suggested we change rooms, since there were major lighting issues. Nope. So I called down to let them know he had arrived to our room and figured we'd might as well go and have some happy hour while they were fixing the issue and when I called, the front desk told us that happy hour was being served from 3-6, but in the bar area only. When we arrived downstairs, happy hour was not happening for another 1/2. Again, MAJOR frustration. When I went to the front desk to complain about 1st the lighting situation and then the frustration of being misinformed of the happy hour hours, the front desk supervisor apologized, but very insincerely. I asked if it was possible to switch rooms, being our room was being worked on, but only if it was the same as our room, which had a view of the river. She said yes & gave us a new room, but with a bit of hesitancy in her voice. We went to check out the new room prior to packing up and moving our stuff, and I am glad we did because the room was not nearly as good as the room we already had, as it smelled and and DID NOT have a view of the river. We went back to our initial room to find the maintenance man STANDING on our bed trying to fix the lighting. He ended up being in and out of our room for almost an hour total. Then, after all that, he couldn't fix the light. We just ended up requesting another lamp so we could have extra lighting. We went downstairs, had dinner and went back up to our room to TRY to relax after all the ridiculousness we had gone through. Unfortunately, our room ended up being next door to a suite and the people in the room were having a LOUD party until 2:41am, until I finally called down to the front desk to complain. The front manager apologized and took care of it. needless to say I am SO very disappointed with our stay and will never stay there again. I even tried to contact Red Lion to see if they could try to make this right prior to posting on Yelp, but received no response after 1 1/2 weeks of waiting. What a MAJOR...