One word: Cheap.
When we first arrived we were given a room in the north-west corner of the unit, near the laundry room. This room was a nightmare. The floors didn't look as if they had been vacuumed in months, the walls were dirty, the beds looked dirty, the lights didn't work and there was no remote for the TV that had hand prints all over the glass.
So we asked for another room and were given one on the opposite side of the hotel and on the second floor. This would have been great if it had just been a mix up or something, but as the woman was re-writing our keys, she said "I'll put you in one of the NICE rooms, then." Why weren't we put in one of the nice rooms first? Probably because she figured that we, being 20-something males from out of state, wouldn't care about the state of the room. She was very nice, just seemed a bit manipulative...
So we went to the new room. This was MUCH nicer, but screamed "cheap owner!" All of the problems of the previous room disappeared, but we were then presented with new, slightly more livable problems. The first was a smell that can best be compared to BO. It was everywhere, but didn't seem to have a source. The room just smelled BO'y.
So we were dog tired from driving and thought it a good idea to order pizza. We called the number on the keycards we were given and made a simple order. 45 minutes later, the delivery driver called to say he was at the hotel but our room didn't exist. They were at the wrong one and had to transfer the order to another papa johns closer to us. So 1.5 hours after ordering, we got our pizza. This must be an issue with Papa Johns, no? No. It was due to the fact that this Travelodge had borrowed/been given its key cards from the TL across town which had the number to the Papa Johns on that side of town.
It got dark a few hours later and so we turned on the lights... They were the energy-saving bulbs, which is great, but they were probably the lowest power bulbs you can buy as they barely lit the room enough for reading.
We had some left over pizza and decided to put it into the refrigerator, only to find that it had been set to its highest temperature so as to reduce the amount of energy spent cooling it (the warmest temperature is slightly colder than room temperature). It's smart, but the thing took all night to cool back down and made all sorts of noise in doing so.
The blankets on the bed (under the comforter and on top of the sheets) hadn't been washed in who-knows-how-long as they had hair entwined in their threads and were slightly stained in some areas.
The soaps and such were some no-name made-for-cheap-hotels variety and the shower curtain was cheap Walmart status. Not a big deal, just gets my point across.
There's more but I think I've begun blocking it out because I won't be returning any time soon and I suggest you do the same.
Oh yeah...when we checked out we met "Chad", the manager on duty. He's nothing short of an ass. The rest of the staff was great though. read more