Hotel, Motel, Days Inn
Written: Apr 04 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Clean, spacious rooms, hot tub, good group rates.
Cons: No pool
The Bottom Line: If you aren't looking for anything fancy this is a good choice. It's clean, comfortable and you get a continental breakfast free.
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| hiphop101's Full Review: Days Inn |
Trying to find a place for 16 college baseball players to stay is not an easy thing to do, but I have to do it quite often. I play for, coach and manage the University of Nebraska's CLUB baseball team (that's not varsity)...and one of my responsibilities is to find a place to stay for our team when we travel. This past weekend took us to Gunnison, Colorado to play Western State College (by the way, we won all three games by a lot, but this is about our hotel, not about baseball).
The week before we left Lincoln I started making phone calls and after talking to people at the only four hotels in Gunnison I could find, I was down to either the Super 8 or the Days Inn. The Gunnison Super 8 told me it would be $65 per night per room...unacceptable for our very low-budget team. So I asked about a group discount. The person on the phone could not answer my question and directed me to their national line. No one was available on the national group sales line so I left my number and someone told me they would call me back soon. In the mean time I decided to call the Days Inn. Andrew, at the Days Inn, told me it would cost $45 a night per room for four rooms, that was the best he could do. So I took it, assuming that the Super 8 would not beat that price. Well, it turned out they did. Super 8 called me back two days later and told me that they could do $42 per room per night. I happily turned them down, however. It was worth the extra $3 per night to have someone deal directly with me and not give me the run around.
With the reservations made, it was time to head to Gunnison, a 12 hour drive from Lincoln, but through some beautiful country. When we arrived, Andrew was a little worried about us. Most hotel owners are when they get a large group of college men, claiming to be some sort of baseball team showing up at their hotel. Despite his worries, he was still polite and showed us to our rooms after reminding us that he would charge us extra for any damages or exessive noise.
After we unpacked it was time to relax a little bit before bed. There was a hot tub on the lower level, but it was closed. So a few of our players asked Andrew if he would unlock it for them. Reluctantly, he agreed, even though it was after hours.
Back upstairs in the rooms, we found pretty good living conditions for the next four days and three nights. There was plenty of hot water for showers, extra soap and shampoo, the beds were comfortable, there was plenty of room, cable TV and the thermostat actually worked. It wasn't like a normal hotel, where you either freeze to death or are baked alive. Also each day we were there, the rooms were cleaned and beds were made while we were out playing. Actually, on Saturday they missed the room I was in for some reason. I don't know if they forgot or what, but the other three rooms we had were done, so it was ok.
As far as the noise factor goes, well, we were of course the loudest people in the hotel all three nights. We didn't get out of control or anything, but we were loud and up late. The nice thing, however, was that the walls were thick and not much could be heard by the neighbors on either side. At one point I left the room next door to me thinking that Andrew would be on his way up soon for sure, but when I went back into my room I could barely hear the loud voices next door.
The whole stay was very comfortable and at an affordable price for us. On top of that, the service we got was great. Even though he was a bit anxious about having us stay at first, Andrew warmed up to us once he realized we weren't going to trash his hotel. He even sat up at night arguing politics with some of us. His only drawback is that he's a Republican...but who knows, maybe he'll learn someday. Anyway, he went out of his way several times to make us more comfortable...he opened the hot tub after hours each night, provided us with extra towels and helped us get a tax exemption since we were with the University and extended the free continental breakfast hours every morning for us.
The only thing that disappointed me was that we left the hotel with no outrageous story about it. On most of our roadtrips we have some sort of dissaster with the hotel, like only one of our three rooms having any hot water, or some of our guys sleeping in the lobby because the hotel didn't save all our rooms for us...but nothing like that happened this weekend. Everything was smoooth. The most interesting thing about the hotel was the man who ran it. So, that's a good thing I guess, no problems, but it just isn't quite as fun.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
hiphop101
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Member: Tyler
Location: Lincoln, Nebraska
Reviews written: 63
Trusted by: 12 members
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