Columbia Inn Motel — Hotel in Sonora

This motel has recently been sold to new owners and suffers badly from inconsistent customer service in that your experience will depend on the luck of whom you book your reservation with. For example, when my husband and I called to reserve a room two weeks before our arrival and we requested a ground floor room because we are elderly and my husband has back problems and cannot easily or safely navigate stairs—especially if toting luggage. The fellow that we spoke with, “Andy” (obviously a pseudonym) then assured us that we would have a ground floor room. The morning of our departure to Columbia, we once again telephoned to confirm the ground floor room. We spoke with “Andy” and he again confirmed our request. BUT, when we arrived at the motel, “Andy” stated that he “forgot” to reserve us the ground floor room and so none were available. It was only when we suggested aloud that we would look elsewhere for accommodations that he offered to help us carry our luggage up the stairs. But, this too proved to be VERY unsatisfactory because the room was plainly not ready for guests. Upon entering the room we saw a big screen TV sitting on the floor, clearly not hooked up. It took another two hours for it to be wired up to operate . So, instead of being able to relax and cat nap after our long journey, we had to remain in the room unable to rest while four or five guys wrested with setting up the TV. “Andy” was not one of them, instead he recruited a few of the long term tenants of the motel to fix this problem and bail him out of this total mess. One of these folks, Danni, is the new manager and she is an angel and has an excellent sense of customer service. She sincerely apologized for this complete fiasco, offered to help us carry our luggage down the stairs when we departed, and gave us her personal phone number to use for booking a room when or if we returned in the future. This we will do. We will never try to book a room with “Andy” and we suggest that you too ask for Danni if you want competent, reliable, and trustworthy customer service. The motel itself is very nice. The whole place has been recently renovated and the rooms have very decent amenities and are spotlessly clean. The beds are pleasantly comfortable. The new owners are very fortunate to have Danni for a manager. This woman understands great customer service and is a redeeming and super valuable asset to the business. Over the past thirty-five years we have stayed at this motel many, many times. We have seen several owners come and go. The last ones--Rob and Cheryl-- were great! If the new owners truly value their customers and have even a modicum of business acumen, they will fire “Andy” and provide Dani with a competent, service oriented assistant. Had we done business only with Danni, we would rate the motel...

This past weekend our friends and family booked 9 rooms for our wedding. I also reserved a suite with 2 rooms for my DJ and his mother. For starters reserved rooms were erased from the books and manager Dani had to come to the rescue on Friday. This first night, televisions did not work in 2 rooms. The next morning I showed up to pay for the suite I reserved. Surprise IT, amongst several other reservations had been erased. The guy at the counter played the I don't understand English card so I asked for Dani. He walked away yelling for Dani who was across the way putting out fires from the night before. She was dealing with a service tech and another gentleman when this counter guy started yelling at her and even physically pushed her. He told her to deal with me. I was soon informed the reservation I made a month in advance and confirmed the day before had been given away. Dani said someone erased the book. The counter guy, whom I assume is one of the owners had a oh well attitude and offered to put a roll away in a basic room. Not satisfactory, after a not so nice conversation I was given 2 rooms for the price of 1. To add insult to injury he attempted to over the charge me $20. To summarize the inadequate performance of this establishment: 9 rooms of which 2 more had to be compensated bringing the total to 11. 5 rooms had NO television. 2 rooms had NO HEAT. I will submit one positive note, Dani did make an effort to overcome the overwhelming chaos. She passed me a handwritten note apologizing for the mishap and said she was resigning the next day. I HOPE she did. This place makes our...

Please disregard the other reviews that give this location more than a one-star review. Here are a few of the things we encountered during our three-night stay: (1) The room had a strong, foul, musty smell that can only be described as a combination of human body odor, dirty socks and boiled cabbage; (2) the room was filthy. The wall behind the bathroom door was covered in yellow streaks as if someone had urinated on the wall and it ran down onto the floor, and the carpet was covered in hair and lint and dust; (3) the shower did not work correctly and it was very difficult to obtain any hot water, plus the shower drain and the bathroom sink drain were both clogged, permitting very little outflow of water; (4) there was no maid service at all during our entire stay and I had to go to the front desk to request some clean towels at the end of day two; and (5) there was an abandoned car in the parking lot with two flat tires, and which was stuffed with garbage and other trash. These are just the highlights, plus we paid $120 per night for the privilege of enjoying all these amenities. I understand Columbia, California has no other places to stay, and that the Columbia Inn has a monopoly on the market, which is staggering to me because it’s a nice little town, and it seems that the City Council or the Chamber of Commerce would wish to do something about the deplorable...