Trails West Motel

I’m pretty lax when it comes to expectations of hotels. We don’t ever book high-​end places and we like to frequent locally-​owned establishments, but this… this was the worst experience I’ve ever had with a hotel.
In short, BE CAREFUL! We stayed on October 14^th, 2011. I visited their website 1 week before booking and located a special deal for a Queen bed for $ 34.99/night.
I called, and I reserved a room with a credit card number. I thought I had gotten a fantastic deal — sure, I didn’t expect the best hotel in the city, but hey, that’s a heck of a bargain these days! I figured we could have a special breakfast with the money we’d saved.
SO, we arrive about 10:30pm and go in to get our room and are charged $ 62.00. (that included taxes and everything but was WAY over what I’d expected.) I questioned why the rate was so high and the nice old geezer (who acted like his nap had been interrupted) informed us that «those rooms have already been taken». WHAT??! Apparently, there were only 2 of them — a party or something came in and they got them. (Like I care! I booked their special rate a week ago!) We never got a receipt, either. I felt ripped off and was really ticked. As we turned to go to our room, exasperated and too tired to argue, I figured it would be ok for that price. WRONG. I looked down to see a single, lonely, small roach creeping across the floor. From there, it didn’t get any better.
1. When we walked in, it stunk like covered-​up smoke. It was disgusting. I’ve experienced this before in hotels and I can live with it. I’m not a smoke Nazi. Still. Gross. It felt dirty just from the smell. 2. There were burn marks on the ancient phone. Again, not a big deal but still, phones are really cheap these days! Can’t you replace it? 3. There were stains all over the carpet and the old sofa in the room. Ick. (You can see this greasy residue on some of the other photos posted here. 4. They advertised «free internet». DID NOT HAVE INTERNET. Well, the signal was so weak it didn’t work 10 yards away from the main office. That pissed me off even more. It’s important to both my husband and me when booking a hotel. It’s a deal breaker. They shouldn’t be advertising this. 5. The plastic around the little disposable cups with the ice bucket felt ancient and sticky and crumbly. Um, how often do you clean your rooms and replace those disposable items? 6. There were holes in the towels. Not teensy little holes but big — like golf ball size. I will upload photos, if I can on this site, so you can see. 7. Beds were terribly, terribly uncomfortable. At 5am (three hours earlier than planned) I awoke for the third time and gave up sleeping. Neither of us could get comfortable at all. 8. We couldn’t find the thermostat — well, I couldn’t. My husband did in the morning. All night long it was really hot and then freezing and cycled back and forth — this misery adding to the discomfort of the bed was frustrating. The heater is built into the air conditioner as one unit, by the way. And it’s really loud. Perfect white noise for those who like it, I suppose. They should advertise «WHITE NOISE MACHINE IN EVERY ROOM rather than free internet. 9. Weren’t enough blankets. Or pillows. 10. There was a wadded up dirty hand towel behind the bathroom door. SERIOUSLY. I had to ask my husband twice if he put it there. Nope — all our our shower towels were accounted for. (Photos of it too.)
Enough said. I woke up even more furious than when I’d checked in, sore and tired and once the shower (which was decent) was completed and we were dressed and ready to face the day, my husband and I went to see if we could do anything about the bill from the night before — explain and get the difference back.(Mind you, we weren’t asking for a whole refund — just the overcharged part.) Guess what we found — a hungover owner who flat-​out refused to give us anything back, admitted he was out partying the night before and didn’t care about our problem. Told US to «be more careful» next time. What a jerk. I will post poor feedback ratings everywhere I can on this place. They could have refunded us $ 15-​$ 20 and made us content, but he was a total jerk and we left disgusted and will never, ever go back.
I know there’s a lot of good feedback about this place (which is why I ultimately decided to book here) but I question how it’s getting there. I wonder if the owners aren’t posting the feedback themselves. Really, something was very, very wrong here. (Check some other websites and you’ll find what I’m taking about.) I’m pretty sure the owners posted the majority of the photos on this site too. They look too «perfect» to be from the average visitor.
This place is a nightmare and looking back, I wish we’d demanded a refund when we checked in and it was overpriced and gone somewhere else.