Howard Johnson by Wyndham Winter Haven FL — Hotel in Winter Haven

ATTENTION::: WHEN YOU CALL THE MAIN PHONE NUMBER TO MAKE A RESERVATION, THEY SEND YOU TO AN OUTSOURCED COMPANY!!!! I believe they are called, Reservation Counter. First, this is extremely misleading as they never identify themselves as a 3rd party vendor. So... you "think" you are talking to the front desk person at the hotel. I requested early check in at 9AM, and it was approved with absolutely NO problems. The man from the Reservation Counter was extremely friendly and assured me our request was no problem.

We drove our family of 7, including family from out of state, almost 2 hours to this hotel, and we all needed to check in and start getting ready for the family wedding. Once we arrived at the hotel at 10am, the man at the counter immediately said, NO NO NO, we have nothing of this sort available for early check in. He didnt even ask for my name or reservation number. I proceeded to explain that this was already approved and we needed to access our hotels in which we had already paid for, as we drove 2 hours and have no where to go. He did not care one single bit and immediately said "you can just cancel!" I looked at my boyfriend, with tears in my eyes, and we calmly and kindly explained to the hotel man that we have a wedding, that we need to take showers, iron, and get people ready. He said that I booked through a 3rd party and they do NOT do early check ins. Earliest he could have a room ready for us was 12pm. Which only left us 1 hour for 7 family members to get ready. This was not going to work. I went outside and unfortunately due to the stress over the past few weeks and this extreme shock... I cried. My daughter was the Flower Girl, and I was going to be letting everyone down because we would not be able to complete all the tasks we had to do for the wedding.

This hotel, that man, left a family of 7 stranded, outside, in the cold, distressed, verging on ruinung a wedding and hours from home, with no where to go. The vendor he / this hotel pays to use to help book their rooms should have never made a promise to us that was not an option. I even offered to pay for the extra day but I was assured my request was no problem at all. I even called the hotel the day prior to ask if they had ironing boards and irons in the rooms, they told me no, that none of their rooms have either. Therefore, we had to bring another vehicle to carry our ironing board and lone behold, when we finally got our rooms at 12:15pm, they had ironing boards and irons. The owner of this hotel, and the Howard Johnson should be ashamed of the way they treated our family. We were offered no apologies, instead Howard Johnson would rather cancel our reservations to solve their errors. And I was also charged an additional 40 dollars / REFUNDABLE FEE... for something. . Not sure what, but I was never told about this fee either. I sadly have to say that I would not recommend this hotel, be very careful when you call because you are sent to a 3rd party without being notified. That 3rd party will tell you whatever you want to hear to get you to book. Then, the hotel ower/man was very rude, aarogant and did not try to make it right for our family. Worst hotel amd hospitality...

Over the years Howard Johnson has become the absolute minimum name branded hotel I will use.And to be honest I've stopped really going to them for the most part over the past 5 years.... it just became really gross. I am very pleased to say that this particular Howard Johnson's surprisingly exceeded my expectations. When I look for non-branded old hotels \motels ,I try to look for older ones because they usually have a small bathroom and they take that extra space and they put it into the main room .... it's More square footage than what they have today in modern hotel rooms. This facility, you can tell it's been here for a long time. I could picture my grandparents playing on the shuffleboard outback and not much has changed up till today. The physical plant is in excellent shape The grounds are kept very nice The pool is nothing fancy but clean and aesthetically pleasing and updated. The rooms exceeded my expectations. This is a Marriott branded Howard Johnson's and it has the Marriott signature upscale rooms ,with nice linens and decor and all the modern amenities updated very nicely. As My followers know I'm a neat freak. I was beyond totally satisfied with the level of cleanliness my unit had. I didn't see any bugs at all. The bed was comfortable. The table and chairs were modern and new and I was on the ground unit and had a little patio to go out and sit at in the evening. The staff is efficient and friendly. Due to the age of the doors on each of the units you hear everything in the halls unfortunately at all hours . They have a separate breakfast area and breakfast is included. This is a basic, basic breakfast; pancakes ,yogurt, ) piece of fruit, coffee and juice and a muffin. I'm happy to say they had a breakfast included ,though it's a bit disappointing compared to the competition down the street at two different other venues. But then again.. I'll leave it at that ...and up to you as what you feel about that situation.. I was happy to get breakfast. The location is Central to everything ..there's a Wawa next door that you can walk to at 2:00 in the morning like I did .there's fast food venues that are a 4 minute walk . And less than a 5-minute drive you can be on any one of the freeways going north. south ,east ,or west. very centrally located. I also did not have any worries walking to Wawa at 2:00 a.m. it seems very safe area. I am not familiar with this area at all, so it was new to me. So to sum up... this place exceeded my expectations The rooms are beautiful and higher end, and clean. It was a great experience ,and I look forward to visiting again and I highly recommend it to everyone. My compliments to the owners You're doing a great job I was very impressed. Keep up...

We came here escaping Hurricane Milton as the hotel accepts pets. This motel was probably quite nice 30 or 40 years ago but time and a lack of maintenance has not been kind to it.||||It appears that an attempt was made to renovate the rooms, but our room had an inescapable musty smell for the duration of our stay that was so bad I purchased as automatic air freshener at the nearby Dollar Tree store and set it to spray every 8 minutes to make the room bearable to stay in.||||It may be due to humidity that never seems to leave the room. The bathroom mirror, which looked to be newer, had desilvering around the edges and the hand towel never dried during our stay. The back of the bathroom door had white spots on it which I hope was not mold.||||My family left their shoes on in the room as we never felt comfortable touching the floor with our bare feet.||||The hallways also had the same musty smell. There was a wall unit air conditioner at the end of the hallway that was not plugged in. Even the main lobby was warm and humid. I think perhaps the operators are struggling to keep this location running and are trying to save money where they can.||||On the positive side: the power remained on in our room during the storm and the television service worked through the night, as did the internet. After Milton passed the internet worked for a while although the cable TV stoped - I can’t fault the motel for that - I’m impressed it stayed on as long as it did.||||The motel is located in the business and residential corridor and there was a WaWa station and several restaurants and supermarkets within walking distance, which was helpful. There was plenty of space to walk my dog in the center court where the pool is located as whatever amenities this motel once had are long gone. You can find the remnants of two shuffleboard courts and a large patio pad by the pool.||||In the end, we chose to leave the hotel a day early and return home to Saint Petersburg not knowing if there would be power in our house and under a boil water order as we felt more comfortable facing discomfort we knew over what mysteries might await us spending another night here.||||I believe the staff is doing their best with what they have to work with. With a significant investment this property could be nice again. Sticking a few mid-century modern modern posters on the walls and changing out some of the furniture cannot cover up the infrastructure problems this motel really...