Poor for La Quinta
I've stayed at a number of La Quintas around the country in the past couple of years and have grown to like them more. They offer somewhat no-frills accommodation at a reasonable price, but the room is clean and things look and work as they should. This is one of the poorest La Quintas I've seen.
This is the third hotel by the Indy Airport I've stayed in. There's a reason that they're generally cheaper here than in the rest of the city. They're old and mostly run-down. No exception here.
We stayed here for park n' fly. You have to book the special park n' fly rate to get 14 days of free parking (so don't just get it on Hotwire and expect the parking). It's over $20 more than the regular rate, but it's about on par with other park n' fly hotels. The plan was to park for the mid-day flight and then use the night stay when we got back in at midnight. We got in and the shuttle showed up about 15 minutes after I called. The driver mentioned that the clerk couldn't locate my reservation, but I thought that might be their misspelling my name (easy to do). We waited another five minutes for another passenger. Overall, the shuttle worked out fairly well.
When we got to the hotel though, the clerk was able to find the reservation, but it was not for that night. Turns out that, because I had written notes in the reservation about our arrival date and how we'd like to park then and stay when we return, someone had changed the reservation for the night we departed. So I had been charged for the room. It worked out fine in the end because they had plenty of rooms and the clerk just gave me one for $0, but it was annoying (and very disconcerting) that no one had asked when I actually wanted the reservation for and just changed it without my knowledge, then charged me for the room because of the no-show. I mean, what if it had snowed and the hotel was full?
Going to the room, you could see the worn, stained carpet and the dated nature of the hotel. That continued into the room as well. The bed was clean and fine, the furnishings were outdated, save for the TV which looked maybe a year old. The bathroom is what got me. It was tiny, but had this horrible, old pattern floor tile. The shower curtain rod looked to be at least 20 years old and had rust all over one end. The worst thing though was that the toilet seat had these orange-ish stains on it. It was 1am by then, so I just cleaned it myself and went to bed. Pretty gross though. Had issues with the hot water in the morning and realized just how old the tub was. Lots of rust, stains and maybe mold. Everything was just old, so it was hard to tell what was dirt, rust, stains, or just the nature of an aged surface. The towels were also thin and scratchy.
Sleep quality wasn't great. It was very noisy in the morning as the maids got going fairly early, even though I had the fan in the room on to try and mitigate the noise. Sheets were a little itchy.
I've had very good breakfasts at La Quintas, but then they often have breakfasts like this, and I don't know how to find the pattern. You can ask if they have anything hot aside from coffee and waffles. If they don't, then you should just eat somewhere else. It's also in their old style of breakfast rooms, which are always tiny and jammed up against the lobby and the front door, so you get the brunt of the cold when it opens.
There's a La Quinta practically next door but, since they share a shuttle, offer the same park n' fly rate and seem to get similar reviews, I wouldn't hold out hope for that one being any better. This one should definitely be avoided though. And if you're coming to Indy to visit, don't stay in this area. There are worse hotels than this.