Check in went well and the room was nice but that is where the pleasantries of this hotel end. I was traveling with my wife and four children. One of my children, a 20-month-old baby, is a special needs child with down syndrome.
At 1:11 am, the fire alarm in my room began going off, waking my family and scaring the crap out of all of us. After about a minute it stopped. We determined that it was either a fire drill or a false alarm. Then, it started going off again. I went to the front desk to speak to a hotel employee. At this point I would provide her name but she was wearing no name tag. Not only was she not wearing a name tag she did not look like an employee of the hotel at all. She was dressed in street clothes, a varsity jacket over a hoodie, sweats and slides. She told me that she was new to the hotel and had no idea how to shut it off. I asked her to provide us with a different room and she informed me that they were sold out and there were no additional rooms. I found this hard to believe as, when I checked the app, there were at least four rooms available. I told her that if there were no other
rooms available that she needed to contact her GM so that they could put us at one of the 12 surrounding hotels in the area. Eventually, she got a hold of someone that knew how to turn off the fire alarm system. She told me that it was fixed and I went back to my room. 5 minutes later the alarm went off again. I got out of bed and went back to the front desk. She told me it was fixed and I went back to my room again. Just before 2:00 a.m. the alarm went off again so I stood up on the bed closest to the alarm and gently removed the front of the alarm as to stop it going off. I brought this portion of the alarm down to the front desk and dropped it there. Even though I was noticeably frustrated I made it perfectly clear that I was not upset with her but we needed to get some sleep and they could keep this part of the alarm until they figured out what the problem was. I then went back to
my room again. 15 minutes later, around 2:20 in the morning, the phone in the room rang. I answered it only to speak to another nameless individual claiming to be the supervisor of the property. They asked me what was going on and I told them. They told me that the smoke alarm had to be in the room or we could not stay in the room. I told them to have the employee bring the fire alarm piece back to my room and leave it outside of my door. Without another word the supervisor simply hung up on me. Things finally settled down and we went to sleep. At 4:08 in the morning we were woken up, yet again. This time it was a sheriff's deputy banging on my door telling me that we have been labeled as trespassers. Ironically enough, an ACTUAL TRESPASSER was allowed to crash in the lobby while we were being ejected. Yes, the hotel called the police and had us thrown out of the hotel at 4:00 in the morning. The hotel never asked us to leave nor did they offer any solution to our problem or additional accommodation. We were given nothing but nasty attitudes. Now, here we are, thrown into the street at 4:00 in the morning with nowhere to go. So, we packed all of our belongings loaded them into our vehicle and drove the 3 hours through dense fog and inclement weather back to our house.
So, thank you avid hotel and IHG for throwing my family onto the street in the middle of the night.
I am a diamond elite rewards member with IHG, staying over 100 nights a year in these hotels and have never, ever been treated so poorly. I have lodged formal complaints with IHG and will be pursuing this to the maximum extent of my ability. If anyone reads this review and finds it to be one-sided, just know that I have invited IHG corporate as well as hotel management to review the security footage of the interaction. In doing so, they will see that I was never inappropriate or threatening to any of the hotel staff. I feel as though me and my family were discriminated against simply because of who we were.
My wife and I are both honorably discharged army veterans and we're both extremely agitated by getting woken up in the middle of the night with flashing lights and loud alarms.
Having a police officer throw us out of a hotel room in the middle of the night also traumatized my children. So, thank you again avid hotel for attempting to ruin our little family vacation. We came to Macon to see Disney on ice, and have a nice evening away from home.
I do not recommend this hotel to anyone, especially white, veteran families. Apparently, we are not welcome here. read more