The Red Rooster Lodge — Hotel in Sonora

DO NOT STAY HERE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!!! THIS IS NOT A HOTEL OR LODGE, BUT AN AIRBNB THAT IS POORLY LOCATED, INFLEXIBLE & UNETHICAL.

I normally do not take the time to write reviews, but in the case, I feel that it is absolutely necessary to warn people to stay away from this "hotel". If I could give them a 0, I would.

Despite finding them on a hotels website, I'd like to start by nothing that this is not truly a hotel, resort/lodge, etc., but more of an airbnb at someone's home. Apparently that also means poor location, difficult to find, inflexible check-in arrangements, and apparently poor customer service.

Last night (12/1) I had made reservations for the hotel. When my flight was delayed 7 hours, I immediately called the hotel them around 7AM to let them know that I would not be able to get to their location until about 9PM, maybe 9:30PM because their website states that check-in ends at a certain time, but you are able to call for a late arrival. The woman that I spoke to was very friendly and seemingly understanding and stated that because I called they would make sure that they left instruction on how to get to my room on the table and that we could do the paperwork in the morning. Great, right?!

No.

After spending over an hour trying to find the hotel location in the dark without any cell phone reception, I finally confirmed that I found the right place around 11:00PM. Please note that Dexter Lane does not have a street sign, that the "lodge" does not have any road signage, or welcome sign that would indicate that you have arrived. The lodge does not even look like the pictures listed on the hotel website. You truly have no way of knowing that you are there, and they are DEFINITELY off the beaten path.

There were no lights on except for the motion sensing spot lights, all the doors were locked, and there were no notes left instructing me how I could enter. Because there is ZERO cell phone reception, I could not call them to let them know I had arrived. Nobody answered the door. I was essentially 100% screwed. After almost 22 hours of traveling, I ended up sleeping in my rental vehicle at a gas station.

When I called the hotels website in the morning to request a refund, they noted that the hotel refused because they had already charged me. When I tried to contact the hotel directly, they did not answer, nor did they return my call. They told the hotel company that they could not refund me because they waited until 2:00AM to let me in. That was clearly false. I can handle a statement regarding their policies, but I absolutely cannot handle being blatantly lied to.

Please, please, please do yourself a favor and DO NOT STAY HERE!!! I promise you that the low pricepoint is NOT worth the hassle--even if you can find the hotel and are within the check-in time frames. You can find better places much, much closer to town...

Driving from Yosemite Valley, it took 1 hr 18 min to arrive at the property. There was no service and we ended up getting lost since the gps lost signal at one point. The property is off a dirt road that didn’t feel like a place where a “hotel” would be. When we finally arrived, it seemed more like a hostile than a bed and breakfast and was definitely not worth the money paid. There were absolutely no restaurants or stores around the property- it felt like a ghost town. The closest sign of life was over an hour drive away.

In addition, the room purchased was behind a curtain that hid a hallway. In the hallway, there was a king room, bathroom, office, and an additional room. The property owner, Adam stated that when the curtain was closed, we were given complete privacy and that “no one would enter the area…” and then proceeded to tell us that he would peek in and out of the additional room in the hallway once in awhile but “we would never know he was there”. Later, I read other reviews that had poor experiences at this property and found out that the bathroom that was supposed to be PRIVATE, is to be shared amongst the other customers!

When initially greeted by Adam, he was very friendly and covid conscious. He appeared very easy going, but also a bit unprofessional. When reading and signing an agreement after entering the main room, we noticed that “management may enter the room without notice” for cleaning and repairing purposes. That made us quite uncomfortable in addition to many other “agreements”. When visiting our room, we noticed that the lock on the door didn’t even work, which led us to the decision to leave immediately!

He stated that there were 3 other groups currently at the property, but there was no one to be seen besides himself, two cats and a dog. To put it lightly, it looked like a great place for a horror film. It was eerie and uncomfortable.

In addition, I was charged for the full price of the room 2 days before our stay, but it states in the description that no prior payment was necessary and that payment was to be paid at the property. We didn’t even care about receiving a refund at the time, as the only thing we wanted was to get the heck out of there. However, this is something I will be looking into now.

Overall, we agree that we would’ve felt safer sleeping in our car at a gas station or camping than staying at the Red Rooster Lodge. We are lucky to have arrived before dark so we were able to book a stay at the nearest hotel- which was an hour away.

Simply leaving a review to warn others. The pictures shown are not realistic. It’s unfortunate that we did not share the same experience as many of the top reviews. If you really want the full picture, keep scrolling when reading...

I made a reservation through booking 4 days prior to the arrival date. I message the property same day I did the reservation to check in and make sure everything was fine. They answered confirming that everything was good. I arrived into he date that I was supposed to and the person that we checked in with claim that there was no reservation done under my name. It quickly became clear that he was intoxicated and was having a hard time trying to figure out his system. I asked him if he has wifi available because my phone didn’t have service in the area. He took offense as if I was saying it didn’t have wifi and still didn’t have me the wifi information so I was able to pull up my booking app to show him. I told him yet again my name, and that it was for one night. He then proceeded to make fun why I would only book for one night. He then proceeded to say that I was weird for doing so. We ended up leaving due to the fact of horrible customer service and getting ahold of booking.com directly. I will definitely not recommend staying here due to the horrible customer service.

I want to add that they charge us and they HAVE NOT returned us our money. Booking is working on getting our return, but the merchant did NOT return the money that he took from our card after NOT BEEING ABLE TO ACCOMODATE US, even thought we had a...