Colonial Motel — Hotel in Wisconsin Dells

The service at this motel was great. It does have a heated pool which is nice, but I did not use. They still have tube televisions with the digital converter, so most of the T.V. channels were blurry/static. Not a big deal to me as I didn't go to the Dells to sit around a motel room and watch T.V. all day. The towels were pretty small but it still got the job done so that wasn't all that big of a deal for me either. The rooms were kinda small, but again I didn't go to the Dells to hang out in a motel room all day so that doesn't matter to me that much personally. They did have WiFi, just thought I would say that since I read some reviews that said they did not have WiFi. My room did not get HBO, I don't know if that wasn't included like the sign out front says but not a big deal to me personally since I didn't stay there to hang out and watch HBO, I just needed a place to sleep in between running around the Dells all day. Didn't have any issues with the owner being rude as is said on a number of the reviews I have read. Only real interaction I had with the manager/owner was him asking me if I needed maid service or towels or anything, as I wasn't the one of our group to book the room. I wasn't expecting it to be super fancy or anything as it is a economy motel. No fridge in the room which kinda sucked but can be worked around. It did have microwave but without a fridge for food storage I don't know what I was supposed to use it for. My only real complaint is the mattresses. Very stiff and uncomfortable, I could not get any sleep on them. If I knew how stiff and uncomfortable the beds were beforehand I would have looked for a different place to stay or would have brought an air mattress to put on top of the bed. After trying to sleep on the mattress for one night my back and shoulder were very sore and caused me a fair amount of pain, and I started to get shooting pains down my left leg which I think is from trying to sleep on my side on that mattress. I get it, It's an older building and the options are to make the best of it or tear it down and build something new, which is probably too much of an investment for the owner to justify. Still they could and should look into getting some better, actually comfortable mattresses. While laying on the ones that were there I could feel the springs pushing through on my back. I could've just slept in my car but at that point why even bother getting a motel room. Now my rating is based on the fact that the whole reason I got a motel room was to get a good nights rest, so it is a core reason for getting the room in the first place and weighs heavily on my reason for giving it 1 star. If not for that I would have given 4.5/5 stars as I'm not that hard to please, especially given that it is an economy motel room. All I was really looking to get out of it was a comfortable place to sleep, not a place to hang out at or watch T.V. all day.||||Again to be clear, my only real complaint is the beds were way to stiff and uncomfortable. Given how I could feel the springs in the mattress on my back they're probably overdue to be replaced anyways. Even if my shoulder wasn't jacked up it still would have been challenging to get comfortable enough to get a good nights rest, and that's even taking into consideration that I was absolutely exhausted when trying to go to sleep for the night as I didn't get very much rest the night prior and still went to Noah's Ark and some other attractions all day. It's very frustrating wanting to just sleep but not being able to fall asleep because of how uncomfortable I found it to be. If not for that I would give 4.5/5 stars for what it is, an economy motel, nothing fancy, just a place to sleep after being out doing stuff in the Dells all day. All I was looking for was a good nights rest. I ended up leaving a day early, cause I was not even going to attempt sleeping on that horrible bed again after what it had done to me...

My expectations: a bed big enough for myself and my 2 daughters, an adequately outfitted bathroom with a bar of soap, a microwave and a mini fridge, and a swimming pool on the property. ||Potential concerns based on other reviews: extremely rude and disrespectful owners who cheat their clientele, dirty room with an old TV. ||My takeaway regarding the husband/wife owners: they were actually very accommodating and helpful. We had been given a 2-bed room in error, but the wife gave us the key for the room we wanted, and then hauled a mini fridge from an upstairs room into the new space on the first level. While we were sitting at the picnic table at one point, the husband must have noticed me struggling to put up the umbrella, and came over to put it up for me. ||Facts: the room was small, but clean and satisfactory. We didn’t use the tiny shower, so I can’t speak about that. The TV was flatscreen, so that’s one update since the negative reviews about the old TVs were posted. My only complaint about the room is that the mini-fridge was set too cold, which caused some things to freeze. But I’m not going to hold that against the owners. ||More pluses: the location really is great! It’s super close to a park with a playground, and everything on the strip is walkable in 10 minutes or less. The pool is perfect! The kids loved the slides, and another pleasant surprise was that the owners’ sweet children played so well with my girls in the pool. I know that definitely added to their experience of this visit. (I wonder what it’s like for them to see so many different kids come and go during the years...)||Thoughts based on my experience versus the very negative reviews: This is a motel, not a high-end resort; of course it’s not going to have a blow dryer! This is a family-owned and maintained business, and their pride in their property was quite evident to me. It’s okay for them to expect their rules to be followed. Also, I find it really disappointing to read complaints in different ways about the fact that the owners are immigrants. That’s shameful. ||Finally: I recommend the Colonial Motel Wisconsin Dells if you want a clean place to sleep and swim in between exploring the fun downtown strip. Oh, and have reasonable expectations, be respectful of the rules, and don’t...

As a business owner myself, I try hard to give independently owned motels my business. Unfortunately I wasn’t even given a chance at this motel. My husband and I were traveling home to MN from a week in Key West, and when we realized we needed to get off the road and rest we specifically chose Wisconsin Dells because of the several independently owned lodging choices.

We called the Colonial in advance, gave our name, phone number, time of arrival and asked if they would like our card number. They were pleasant on the phone, quoted us a rate and said we could take care of it when we arrived. Upon arrival my husband went to the office, they did not let him in (it was 7 degrees outside), asked if he was a local.. and when he said no, they asked for a $150 cash only deposit. ???? We were very tired, so while he didn’t expect the deposit, he asked if they would put it on our card. They declined and said cash only. He asked if they mentioned the deposit to me on the phone, they said no. He asked if he would get the deposit back, and they did not answer. So then admittedly my husband had a couple of choice words for them… and we left.

We originally were going to book through a third party, and no mention of any deposit there either in the terms. We called direct because we know third party booking sites take up to 15% of the room rate, and we’d rather give it to the business owner. We were also arriving around 10pm so wanted to make sure they would still have their lobby open.

We found another independently owned room down the street, and had a very pleasant check in. We travel by road all over the country. Nothing like this has ever happened to us. It was a very odd situation. I teased him that he was profiled because of his beard… but he thinks that they actually did profile him. Sure, we were road weary from being in our truck for MANY hours. Places of lodging should be used to that though. If we turned away every customer from our restaurant that looked a little scruffy, we’d be out of...