HoJo's goes So Low.
Written: Oct 16 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Looks pretty on the outside
Cons: 'That 70's show' could use this as their stage.
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| grneyedcwboy's Full Review: Howard Johnson |
Last year, my aunt passed away and my husband and I wanted to stay near my mom's house when we arrived for the funeral. We opted for Howard Johnson because it was the closest hotel and I remember it as being clean and well-kept.
My family used to go to Howard Johnson's restaurant about once a month when I was a kid. They had the best ice cream there. Of course I said HAD because now you don't go to Howard Johnson's restaurant anymore. It is usually a restaurant that has no affiliation with the hotel itself. So much for our ice cream trips.
We arrived for our two night stay on and checked in. The rooms were $45.00 per night before taxes. I remember telling my husband that it looked as if they had remodeled the front of the hotel since the last time I was there. We went into the lobby and I was a bit taken back by the appearance. It seems they had put a ton of money into remodeling the exterior but they put zero dollars into the interior. Oh well, I shook it off, we checked in and went to our room.
We had to climb some stairs to get to our room because they didn't have an elevator that was working. Thank goodness it was only one flight up. While we were walking, we noticed a bunch of trash all over the place. There were empty soda bottles and candy bar wrappers on the floor and the stairs. The paint was coming off the walls and handrails. The halls smelled like urine or some other bodily function.
We got to the room and hoped that maybe it was in better shape than the hotel itself. We opened the door to find this....
The room hadn't been re-decorated in about 30 years. The 70's decor wasn't near as bad as the fact that the bedspread and sheets were that old too.
The sink was dripping, as was the shower.
The toilet ran like a marathon runner.
The bolted-down phone and lamp made the nightstand impossible to use.
We only had one large towel and a washcloth between two people.
It was definitely like something you see in a cheesy B-movie. I was looking for cockroaches and spiders the whole time.
To boot, the front desk called us immediately and told us that we needed to come back to the lobby. They said the credit card machine was not working and he had lost the card number. He needed us to come back and give him the card so he could swipe it again.
Needless to say, we seriously considered just checking out right then and there. This would be a perfect way for us to get out of it. Upon closer analysis, we decided that we would be spending very little time in the room and it would be such a hassle to move to another hotel, so we decided to stay.
BIG MISTAKE! The following morning, we were woke up by someone that decided 4:00 a.m. was a good time to do some fine tuning on their car engine. The revving noise that came from this man's car was unbearable. It sounded like a cat in heat, howling at the top of its lungs. We both looked out the window and saw the smoke billowing out of this car. Then, it stopped. Thank goodness, maybe we could get some more sleep.
Not so. About an hour later it started again. This time it didn't stop until about 10:00 a.m. Well, since sleep was out of the question, we decided to dress and go eat. I will say that we did NOT eat at the restaurant near the hotel. I don't think I would have felt safe eating there.
When we were done, we went back to the room to dress for the funeral. While we were there, we decided to cut our stay short. That meant that we would be driving late at night and we would both be exhausted when we got back. BUT...it would be better than this. We went to the lobby and we said we were checking out. The man at the desk wanted to know why we were leaving before our scheduled check-out. I looked at my husband, took a deep breath and said, "We just need to get on the road earlier than expected."
Do you ever get the feeling that even if you vent to management about something...it would do no good? That is exactly how I felt. I wanted so bad to tell them that the hotel was so disgusting. I wanted to say I didn't see any cockroaches because even THEY have standards. I wanted to say a lot...but I said nothing. I was just relieved to be out of there.
Thank you for reading.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
grneyedcwboy
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Member: Teresa Whitaker
Location: LaCygne KS
Reviews written: 107
Trusted by: 101 members
About Me:
I have a tendency to show up here at the strangest times!
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