TERRIBLE hotel!!!!
Nobody should pay a penny to stay here! I only wish I had checked out the reviews before I made a booking!!!
1. The guy at the front desk just stared aimlessly at me as I struggled to carry my suitcases through their very tricky front door. He no attempt to help me, even though I'm a woman.
2. When I asked the guy at the front desk for recommendations for a restaurant downtown, explaining that I just needed a general idea of where to go to for my GPS it took him literally about 5 minutes to understand this very simple request (his English was absolutely dreadful). Then he just kept directing me to look at brochures, even though I'd clearly told him that I'd never been to the area and just needed some very basic advice.
3. I HAD TO CHANGE ROOMS 4 TIMES!!! The first room would not lock from the outside - no good for leaving my luggage there. The second room's door was getting jammed so I couldn't shut it enough to lock the door, and I actually got trapped inside for a while. It took the front desk guy hitting it with his full body weight to get it open. The third room's electricity wasn't working on all the accent lights (and they dared to say it was my fault for supposedly plugging in my laptop, even though I'd never plugged anything into that room.) The fourth room's electricity socket didn't work, and wasn't the layout I'd requested. At 11pm I just gave up. Most of this happened between 10pm - 11pm at night, and the front desk guy expected me to wait for maintenance to deal with the electricity, despite having had a long travel day! When I finally got into bed in the final room he then disturbed me at 11pm on the phone to ask me about the electricity in the prior room. Unfortunately it was far too late for me to go anywhere else at this point.
4. The corridor smelt AWFUL, the paint on the doors was peeling off, and the paint on the bathtub was peeling off. They told me my room was non-smoking, but it stank like smoke.
5. The air conditioning machine in my room was extremely loud - like trying to sleep next to a hair dryer.
6. The manager was nowhere to be seen throughout all this, and they weren't even able to get her on the phone, not that night, nor the morning afterwards.
I called the chain's customer service to ask for a refund after the front desk guy refused a reasonable refund for all this hassle (he offered me 10% - approximately $4.50 for the hotel night from hell!) It took me a half hour to get through. They said they would contact me that day to let me know what progress they'd been able to make with the manager as they don't have the capability to do refunds, but I never heard back from them. I tried calling again, but they weren't picking up.
This hotel is supposed to be under new management. I don't know how bad it used to be, but the only hotel I've been at that was worst than this was in Mexico, and five times cheaper. If you have the choice between staying here and sleeping on the sidewalk, I'd seriously recommend the sidewalk.
Don't spend the $50+ they are charging per night - it's borderline a con. You wouldn't pay more than $10 in a hostel for this kind of crap.