This is the complaint letter i had to write to the Howard Johnson CEO Hopefully someone can refund our money, its a huge battle to get it back... Unreal!

My family and I were recently guests at the Howard Johnston Hotel in Edmonton , on the way to Edmonton we booked through Expedia, they told us that for 2 nights December, 20 and 21 it would be $114.00 with taxes. This seemed shady to us so we looked it up on my phone and the pictures looked good seemed like a great safe place for our family to stay at a very affordable rate. We are from Fort St John B.C. and also have a Howard Johnston here that is well kept and we have heard great things about it, knowing it was a chain we felt good about our choice.

We arrived at midnight, we were very tired! the neibourhood was filled with vagrants and people talking to themselves. Once we got in to the hotel the manager was arguing with a man about calling the police and being arrested... The front desk clerk informed us that there is no elevator and that we would have to take stairs to the 4th floor.

My boyfriend and i looked at each other with a funny look and headed upstairs, the place was disgusting the stairwells were were filthy and looked like a jail. Once we arrived at our room we were so tired and it was filthy... dangerous pipes sticking out of the dirty walls, old blood stains on the carpet, the bathtub looked like it had never been cleaned the garbage wall full. The coffee machine was filthy with old coffee stains and stuff spilt everywhere, i took off the comforter because i know in any hotel they get washed the least.. only to find blood and hair all over the blanket below it... that was disgusting we have a 3yr old daughter and she could not even take her boots off, we could not stay there it was terrible! a good place for someone to go and shoot heroin or smoke crack but not for a tired family to stay... Its obvious that someone was in this room to "clean it" because the beds were made and there were fresh towels... the standard of cleanliness at this hotel is lower than that of a homeless shelter. It looked like there may have been a murder in our room the night before, perhaps a prostitite that didn't do what she was told?

We went downstairs and they refused to refund our money. We had to drive around a town were not familiar with, to find a hotel that would be safe for our daughter and didn't find one until 1am.

We spent the next two days calling expedia for a refund but the manager of Howard Johnston Edmonton refused to refund the money, we called and called we even went back but he was very arrogant and refused our refund...

I looked up the reviews online and they are terrible all the other guests have the same complaints as us, some even much worse. This building seems like it should be condemned. It is giving all of the other well kept Howard Johnston hotels a terrible name. We were completely mislead by your hotels pictures online and we wont be recommending it to any of our friends or family, it completely ruined our trip on the phone the whole time trying to get our money back.

Where to start? Let's try the front desk, oh wait..... There is no one there, because they are singing karaoke in the restaurant! Now, let's get to the rooms now that the front desk staff has finished their song. Check in with wait
Time.....21 minutes. First off.... No elevators, secondly this hotel is one of those cheap places that Hojo puts a fancy front on and it is still disgusting on the inside. The stairwells and hallways are FILTHY!!!! The rooms have new carpeting...... once you get past the fact that they havent been vacumned in ages. The rooms have a microwave, not sure why. Oh, hold on a minute, it likely has to do with the fact that apparently the same type of people that staff the front desk also staff the restaurant. We waited for 13 minutes without ANY service before we left. So in short, DO NOT STAY AT THIS HOTEL!!!!!!! It fails on every level, from the ever absent staff to the lack of cleanliness throughout the entire building.

This hotel has got to be the worst place that I have ever stayed and I have stayed in some S#%T holes before. Lets start out by the fact that the elevator does not work. They think they can make up for it by giving you $10 dollars off coupon for there nasty, dirty restaurant. The hall and stairs smell like a dead cat, the front desk staff are stupid and incompetent, the house keepers wake you up in the morning by slamming doors and other stuff. Man the list would go on for ever. But the best of all was a dude was shot at the front entrance door ( It was horrible the blood was everywhere). The cops raided every room looking for the shooter. After that I wanted a refund and go to a better place. And,you guessed it they did not give one. A-holes!!! I almost forgot the internet does not work in half of this hell hole!! LOLOLOLO Dont Spend A Single Night Here you will regret it.

Stayed one night Sept. 2011. Everything smelled like chemicals...what were they trying to kill!?! There was hair in the bathtub and along the baseboard heater, which was also dusty. The sheets and towels were very thin and the bed not properly made. This place badly needed a good cleaning and update.