Review: Knights Inn Hotel - Discrimination Against Homeless Veteran and Service Animal My recent experience at the Knights Inn hotel was deeply disturbing and frankly, unacceptable. As a homeless veteran accompanied by my legitimate service animal, I was met with blatant discrimination that violated both federal and state laws. Upon attempting to check in, I was subjected to questioning about my service animal that went far beyond what is legally permissible. The owner demanded "documentation" and seemed to imply my veteran status or homelessness somehow negated my right to have my service animal with me. This line of questioning is not only intrusive but directly contrary to the rights afforded to individuals with disabilities. Furthermore, the general attitude and treatment I received felt dismissive and prejudiced. It was clear that my circumstances were being judged, and this judgment extended to my service animal, who is a crucial part of my daily life and well-being. Regarding the law, it is imperative that the Knights Inn, and all public accommodations, understand and adhere to the following: * Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA): Under the ADA, service animals are not pets. Hotels cannot deny access to a person with a disability accompanied by a service animal, even if they have a "no pets" policy. They cannot charge extra fees or deposits for service animals. Hotels are generally only permitted to ask two questions: * Is the animal required because of a disability? * What work or task has the animal been trained to perform? They cannot ask for documentation, require the animal to demonstrate its task, or inquire about the nature of the person's disability. Service animals must be allowed in all areas where the public is permitted. * California Law: California law aligns with the ADA, further protecting individuals with disabilities and their service animals. California Civil Code sections, such as § 54.1 and § 54.2, explicitly grant individuals with disabilities the right to be accompanied by their service animals in public accommodations, including hotels. Additionally, California Penal Code sections like PC 365.5 make it a misdemeanor to prevent or interfere with a disabled person's rights to use their service animal. There are also protections under fair housing laws that extend to individuals in shelters and those who are homeless, recognizing the importance of assistance animals. The actions of the Knights Inn staff were a clear violation of these fundamental rights. Discrimination against a veteran, especially one experiencing homelessness, and denying access to a trained service animal is not just poor customer service; it is illegal and morally reprehensible. I hope this review serves as a warning to other potential guests and, more importantly, prompts the Knights Inn management to immediately educate their staff on disability rights and service animal laws to prevent such discriminatory incidents from happening again. Every individual, regardless of their housing status, deserves to be treated with dignity and respect, and their rights, particularly those related to service animals, must be upheld without question. read more

Convenient location with shopping and dining options close by! Close to the highway and easy to access.

Excellent hotel; clean, quiet and great staff. Great location near all that one needs. Will stay there again when I'm in town. read more

Amazing customer service. Clean poool and the owner goes above and beyond for his loyal customer

All in all good place to stay at for the price I gave it 4 stars due to the friendly staff the owner is very hands on and gives this pace a small town feel to it the room was kind of outdated but clean which is what's important there was no noise so I slept good if your on a budget and around the Madera area this is a cool place right off the 99 & close to a Walmart , inn N out , IHOP & other Restuarant again the 4 stars are for the service., price & room cleanliness. read more

I'm not sure what to say about this place. First, we were looking for a "middle-of-the-road" hotel for a one night stay. Not super expensive, but not creepy. And I suppose Knights Inn is that? We showed up early and were told bluntly, "Check in is at 2pm." I was very friendly and said, "Yes, I know. We wanted to see if the room was ready so we could drop off some stuff. If not, we could go kill some time somewhere." The guy at the front desk didn't respond, but called into someone to confirm the room was available, which it was. He agreed to check in early. My husband looked to see a coffee pot and said, "Oh, may I have a cup of coffee?" And the guy at the desk responded, "Coffee is for guests only." I turned to my husband and said, "Well [husband's name]. I guess we'll have to wait until 2pm for the coffee!" I thought that maybe the guy at the desk didn't understand we were together. But after seeing we were together, did not offer the coffee. The room was fine. Had a funky smell. Cockroach in the toilet. But nothing scattered when we came back to the hotel later that evening and turned on the lights. My TL:DR is: I guess? read more

Room was clean they let me check in early I like how close it is from the fairgrounds

I know people writing good reviews on this place are full of shit. When you got the police surrounding the place guns drawn for a disturbance with weapons consider it not a safe place. When you find a cig under the bed you know it was not cleaned . paid for two nights stayed one read more

Very nice place for its price ! I was expecting it to be a little less outdated & not all in fact it has it's modern touches !

Very clean, great staff. Can't hold the covid 19 restrictions against them. Will stay here again.

My family stayed at the Knights Inn, Madera, CA. on 3/30/19. This was a nightmare of a stay and we will not return EVER. After we unloaded our car, we realized the door would not unlock with the door card. We returned the card to the front desk where they forgot to reprogram the key. Finally in the room, now 10pm and the room directly above us, the guests were jumping, running and noisy. Reported the ongoing noise to front desk. This noise continued for over 2 hours. Now it's after midnight and we noticed a man walk into the room the noise was coming from. The noise immediately stopped. We assumed, the noise was coming from kids who were left alone in the room for over 2 hours. At 4:30am, we were abruptly woken to what sounded as a physical fight coming from the same room, it sounded as someone was getting punched and their body rolled and hit maybe a wall. Again, we reported this to the front desk and said the guests were getting physical. Another hotel guest came out from their room screaming 'stop that #%# or I'll call the police!' We might have managed to get 2 hours sleep. The manager compensated us for all the inconvenience. However, nothing could compensate for the concern one has for their safety. I frequent the Madera area but WILL NEVER stay at this hotel ever again. The give away was the security guard I saw upon our arrival. I thought the guard was for the guests protection BUT to protect guests from other guests. read more

Last night was my first time sleeping at this motel. I hated how small the bathroom is!

My wife and i were stranded in Madera after our vehicle quit working on the freeway as we were heading home to L.A.. We had no idea where we were or how to navigate this new journey of being stuck in oblivion. Its so off the beaten path i,had to use binoculars to see the exit sign on the freeway. Nevertheless, after a big rig for some strange reason decided to jump off the freway and began barreling towards us on the shoulder it kind of put thins into perspective real quick, especially since he got close enough that i could not only see into his eyes i could see his tongue as he mouthed the words "oh f***k!" Before yanking his giant steering wheel fortunately not hitting the rig that had filled the gap he made when hevdecided to leave the freeway. We got a tow company heading ourvway but we didnt know where the hell we would go... heres avtip for you if stranded, not having roadside asst from insurance kik in yet we were ass out until i called aaa. If you get stranded and dont have rs asst, call aaa, and sign up and have them send a truck. It cost me $58 and i even got to sign up a second person free for a year. You only get 7 free miles but thats bettervthan going 6 feet under. our driver told dispatch they screwed up and said we didnt go over the limit which was friggin assume otherwise it would have cost a couple hundred. Anyways, we basically told him we needed a place to go for the night and we needed some food. He took us to knights inn and waited until we checked in. He pointed out all the resturants, banks, walmart and anything one would need within walking distance. We were grateul not being stranded at a truck stop. Now the motel, i admit i had my doubts about the place, it seemed a bit on the "seen better days" side but at that point it didnt matter much. When asked if we had a vehicle i stated it broke down and thevowner pointed at the tow truck, and at that moment i was expecting something like, "well you cant leave your car here", but instead he said "that it?", i said it was and gave him a brief synopsis of events and he lent me an ear. I saw some what appeared to be locals and i thought it was going to be a racuous night, not to mention one where we would encounter some sort of looks from the locals as we made our way around getting provisions for the journey we were about to embark onn. The morningof check i called the front desk and asked if i could check out an hour later than normal, not a problem. I went to the front desk to check out and asked the owner for a number to a taxi and he obliged, i asked him if he minded if i left my vehicle in the lot until i come retrieve it after i make my way to uhaul.. Here it comes of course i can leave it, but not too long and make sure it wasnt blocking any other guests and why didnt i go to uhaul earlier, but instead the owner says, "sure, ok no problem take your time, dont worry about it". WTF? Wait a minute you say what? after a pleasant taxi ride with madera taxi (shout out) , i show up with a moving van and one of those car towers. I began practicing backing up with itmin the parking lot, not reading the sticker that says "do not back up", the owner came out and started helping me, he even offered to drive the damn thing. When he found out that it wasnt me that lacked the aptitude to navigate that thing , he called down his handyman and anotger gentleman and we all pushed my car up on the ramp together and that was the initial leg of our trip. The take away from this was there are time when SHTF and as messed up as things have become its easy to become synical and see others before they arrive, meaning we sometimes expect the worst from others when we're having a bad day. We brace for it and forget to breath sometines, but we met and experienced some of the most geniunely sincere people that were small business owners trying to make theirvway through this lifes journey just as you and i. Sure the knights inn was the lavish or even on par with other motel chains, but that doesnt mean that they arent worth staying at. You can be sure that when youmstay at the knights inn you not only get a comfortable bed but you're getting the best that they have to give and they care that you care. Im disappointed thatvsomeone complained about bed bugs, of course thatvisnt good, but do you honestly think they didnt care enough to do something about it? They told you they had a machind to take care of it, so what do you do, write a bad review? You think they put those in the room? Doubtful nexttime go stay at trump towers or go sleep in your car. If you'revever in madera and need a safe place a clean pkace, a place that you can rest assured that you are helping a small local business owner help you stop at the knights inn and you will be doing alot more than just getting a room. read more

I was traveling for work and arrived tired and late (just after 1 am) at this hotel. I will say considering how the outside looked my room was tidy and clean! My poor review is because their computer was down when I arrived and she wouldn't check me in. Her explanation was that she didn't know what they were doing and had no idea how long it would be. There was no apology, no offer to help me get into another hotel (there was another of the same Knight's Inn about 20 minutes away), no offer to take my number and call when the system came back - nothing. She looked like she couldn't care less. Since it was late, there was only an outside window, no lobby or anything to wait in. So I waited in my car. I was trying to call the customer service 800 number but after 50 minutes of not getting through, I went back to see and their system was back on. In trying to check in I was told I had to pay my deposit in cash. Nobody does that anymore so I didn't have cash and it specifically said in my booking confirmation email that I could use a card. So I had to go drive looking for an ATM at 2 in the morning. Then I went back to check in and felt uncomfortable because I got no paperwork, no receipt for my cash deposit but was told that I couldn't get it back until after 9 am. I had to check out at 7:30 am so that was yet another issue. I was tired, got 4 hours of sleep, and all in all that wasn't a great experience. The man was friendly when I checked out this morning. read more

Awesome service !! Love this place it's amazing and great helpful front counter. Very nice staff !!

I booked a two-night stay here and ended up staying with relatives elsewhere. I was charged for the first night which was correct. The next morning around 11 I called and asked if I could cancel the second night. Knights Inn kindly canceled it with no charge. Obviously, a great place to do business with! read more

While the staff was very responsive to our situation, the bottom line is that we found bedbugs in one of the rooms that we had (we had a group, so had 9 rooms- we only confirmed the bugs in one room). I can handle the train noise, the older property, etc, etc, but bugs are an issue. The manager did say that they have a "machine" that he bought (for $6k, he pointed out) that super heats things and they would be treating that room. I am guessing that, if he purchased this equipment, that means that he has had to use one more frequently than one would hope. I also know that you can get bed bugs at even a 5 star resort, but I want people to be able to make informed decisions about where they stay. read more