I was on tour with a group of fellow musicians and we were looking for a low cost hotel within reasonable distance of our performance venue. I didn't get any answers from my local contacts when I asked them to recommend a hotel for me, so I was on my own ...

The staff seemed friendly enough when I called a couple of weeks in advance to book the rooms. When we arrived, there was quite a noticeable odour of cigarette smoke in the lobby. What was most alarming was that posted just behind the front desk, there was a sign that read something like "once you've checked in, there will be a penalty worth 1/2 day if you check out again". We thought "what can this possibly mean?". Well, once we arrived at our rooms it was obvious. My colleague found a mess of matted hair on his duvet cover, and my bedding had strange stains and marks on it. They smelled clean enough, perhaps they were just old, but still ...

So, we were stuck there - no checking out without a penalty. Fortunately it was only for one night. I think an even bigger shock than the hairball was the checkout policy ... we had to be OUT OUT OUT by 11:00am, or again we would be charged a half day penalty. There was nobody in the lobby at that time so we had to ring to summon somebody to give them back our keys.

There may have been 3 or 4 other guests in the Inn besides our group of 4, so it's not like they were in a big rush to have us leave so they could prepare the rooms for the next guests who were beating down the doors to get in ... it seemed more like rather than cleaning up their act and becoming a decent hotel, they make their money by milking and strong-arming the few hapless customers they get with weird strict policies.

That all being said, I don't think it's the very worst hotel in the world or anything. The bathroom was reasonably clean (though the mechanism in the toilet was broken and the water kept running on and off all night, keeping me awake), there was no mold or bugs or anything, so it wasn't really horrible. It was just not great, and it only cost about $40/person per night, so maybe we get what we pay for.

Anyway, I'd shop around first if I were you, but if you're stuck here for the night, you'll likely survive unscathed :)