Comfort Inn & Suites Tavares North — Hotel in Tavares

I had such a shockingly negative experience with management and ownership after our stay that I have to warn others. Please read on.

My wife and I stayed one night at this hotel in late January, 2023, as part of our move to Florida. It was a fine, typical stay with no complaints. We had a Chili's takeout stake dinner in the evening, slept fine, and after an average, but hot breakfast, which was nice, and checked out in the morning with nothing out of the ordinary.

A little over a week later while looking through my credit card transactions I noticed that the hotel charged us an extra $100 on the day of our checkout. I didn't know what the charge was for and assumed it was an error, so I called the hotel to try to sort it out.

I spoke to the manager and explained that I found an extra charge and wasn't sure what it was for. She explained to me that I had been charged for incidentals because housekeeping had noted that I had smoked in the room.

Now let me take a side step to explain that I don't smoke and I never have. I have deeply-held religious beliefs against smoking, and I am also a physician and I know very well all of the reasons to not start smoking. I have never tried a single cigarette in my life!

I explained to the manager that I didn't smoke at the hotel and never have smoked. She asked me to hold on, and I could hear her conversing with the general manager in the background. I had fully expected for them to check the notes, find an error in the room number or something similar, and the issue would be resolved. But then I overheard the manager say, “He says he doesn’t smoke.” and the general manager replied to her, “That’s what they all say.”

At that moment it I realized they had already decided that I must be lying. Unbelievable! They said they would check into it and for me to call back in the morning. Again, I was hopeful they would look into it more seriously and discover the error that had (obviously-to-me) occurred and get the issue settled. Maybe she mistook our steak dinner for the smell of smoking? Maybe they accidentally wrote the notes for the wrong room?

When I called back in the morning I talked to the same manager, and she, with a much colder tone, informed me that the housekeeper said that my room had been smoked in, that it was my word against the housekeeper’s, and that I would not be getting my money back. Again, I was totally shocked! I don’t smoke! Ever!

From a business perspective, the generally-accepted policy is that “the customer is always right.” The saying is obviously not true, but it is good, kind customer service and is good for business. These managers seem to have, instead, embraced the idea that the customer is probably lying. That may be true, even frequently, but it is a bad assumption to make because then you condemn the innocent at least sometimes. Thus, assuming the customer must be lying is bad customer service and bad for business.

Not knowing what else to do, I asked to talk to the owner. She informed me that he wasn’t in, but would be in the next day. So, I called the next morning, and the same manager answered the phone. I asked, “May I please speak with the owner of the hotel?” She said, “He is not in today.” I responded, trying to maintain a kind tone, “Do you know when he will be in?” Her answer, “I don’t know when he will be in.” What?! She had told me just the day before to call today to talk to him! I explained that I was told to call that day to talk to him, and then she responded, “Oh, he’ll be in later today.” “Do you know what time?” I asked. “No, I don’t.” was her response.

Due to Google's character limit, I will post the rest of this a second posting, possible under another account if...

This is the rest of my bad experience I posted under another account. Please read that one first, then continue here.

Wow. I clearly was not getting anywhere with this approach, so I decided to call Choice Hotels corporate line to formally file a complaint and hopefully get someone willing to at least entertain the idea that maybe I wasn’t lying and maybe an error was made. The corporate representative was much more understanding, less accusatory and cold, and tried to help. He put me on hold and called the hotel himself, and then told me they also to him they refused to consider any kind of refund for me. He then told me he would file the formal complaint, which would go to the hotel owner and his corporate superiors, and that there would be an official investigation done and I would hear back within 24-48 hours. I felt heard! And hopeful again!

But, after several days, I never heard back. So, I called corporate again, talked to a new representative who was also kind and understanding, but he had no report of any investigation or anything else substantial to tell me, so he added more to the notes of the formal complaint and sent it to the hotel owner marked as urgent so he would see it immediately – and this time they added my cell number so the owner would call me directly.

It has now been over two days, and I have heard nothing.

I am not sure whether the owner just hasn’t heard my concerns about the incident or my negative interactions with his management, or if he has somehow already gotten on board with the idea that I must be lying, but either way, the corporate team’s hands seem to be tied, the owner is totally unresponsive, and I am left having had $100 unfairly taken from me because of an accusation of something I didn’t do.

Who’s to say they won’t just accuse anyone of anything if they want to keep the extra $100? I don’t know their internal system of dealing with potential errors. But, they could have called me the morning of our checkout and explained they smelled smoke, and maybe we could have had our conversation at that point when a manager could have double checked the smell or room number. But they didn’t call. Ever. I just happened to discover the extra charge a week later.

At this point I am resigned to the fact that they have chosen to adopt a customer-must-be-lying approach and that it’s very unlikely they’ll even consider they could have made an error, let alone refund the money. Everybody makes mistakes. Not everybody digs their heels in so deeply to avoid admitting the possibility of a mistake. They could, and should, have handled this so differently.

At this point, I will never stay in the Comfort Inn in Tavares, and I will likely avoid all Comfort Inns and Choice Hotels. Who knows what they will accuse me of and charge me for next?

I could push harder to get the money back, but it’s not worth the emotional toll having to interact with these people any more. Plus, I recently read Luke 6:30 and realized I just need to let it go.

But, I also felt like it was important tell my story and give a clear warning to anyone considering staying at this hotel. Please choose any other hotel in the area and avoid Comfort Inn and Suites in Tavares...

Room size and comfort - 4/5 Accommodations - 2/5 (see below) Breakfast - What breakfast? It's grab and go and it's basically just blueberry muffins. Thanks covid. Gym - talked to a coworker, he said that the gym was really nice. I never saw it though. Wifi - 0.13 Mbps, couldn't even open email the entire 4 days I was here. Had to eat up my entire Hotspot. Was on the phone with tech support for hours. You're welcome, management.

The room size and overall maintenance is fairly good. I like it. It's why I stay at these year round (full time travel for work).

The Accommodations are lacking. Partially due to Covid, partially due to neglect. There's no breakfasts available, but when there is, it's very pitiful and not worth stopping in for. The Gym's are all closed and have been since February. And the Wifi is the absolute worst I've seen in literally ANY hotel. Motel 6 has better wifi. So does McDonalds. Let me explain below:

Every Comfort Suites wifi, especially this one in Tavares, is unusable. The speedtests will show download speeds of around 0.3 Mbps. That's not enough for netflix. It's not enough for email. It's garbage, and I'm still paying full price for it. For reference, my Cell Phone gets around 35 Mbps, and even 8 Mbps on hotspot. We should simply not be having the issue where a CELL PHONE has better speeds than a dedicated modem / router. It's 2020. Get it together. You can fall behind the the times on the sink fixtures, but technology needs to be updated once a year, not once a decade. Thanks.

For the record, the hotel staff said "Oh well it probably doesn't work because we are fully booked and everyone is using it". I'm sorry but, how exactly is that supposed to be MY problem?

I'm a diamond member, and between my employees and I we spend about $14,000 a week at hotels. I expect more from "Choice Hotels". These things definitely aren't going to be my choice much longer.

Edit: Post- Reply from the owner.

Access points only serve to further bog down the network with split up traffic. They also tend to create issues where the devices connected to them switch between access points so often that packet loss occurs. If too much of the signal is overlapping, that's also bad as it creates severe interference. If you have a ton of access points all over the property (20 alone is likely too many, much less adding 20 in addition to whatever you had before), I would suggest switching your signal to 5ghz ONLY and completely removing 2.4ghz. 5ghz is much shorter range but much stronger and faster. Typically, you'd use 5ghz only in the staff lounge / front desk area.

Also, it would probably help if you paid for higher speeds instead of skimping on that like every hotel does. Traveling for business is very problematic these days due to the poor wifi offered by these large chain hotels. I suggest you put some thought and effort into making sure you're not just another Comfort Inn &...