My family stayed at this hotel for the weekend. During the course of the stay my mom took a nap while the rest of the family left on an outing. Seeing the car leave, someone working in the hotel used a key to open the door to the room, then seeing my mom in the bed, quickly grabbed her purse and ran out of the room.

We filed a police report, but it was certainly an inside job (they had a key), and the hotel did not seem to take the incident very seriously at all. This hotel is really as bad as it gets. I highly recommend that you don't stay there... and if you do... that you bolt your door and carry pepper spray.

My husband and I stayed at the St. James Hotel in Selma during Pilgrimage Weekend. While it is located in the old part of town, that is to be expected in an historic hotel such as this. Our room was spacious and clean. The weather was fine, so we were able to enjoy a glass of wine in their charming interior courtyard and listen to the pleasant sound of its fountain. We had a very nice and inexpensive dinner in their lounge and the servers were friendly and competent. The generous breakfast provided included cook-your-own waffles, fresh fruit, juice, coffee, milk, Danish/bagels/bread. We were very satisfied with the room, with the service, with the staff, and with the food served in the lounge. An additional bonus was that the St. James is located within easy walking distance to the Pettus Bridge and the Voting Rights Museum. Parking, while not covered, was free. All in all it was great value for a very reasonable price. We would not hesitate to stay there again.

The St. James is an old historic hotel maintained by the City of Selma. It's claim to fame is that it was where Jesse and Frank James "vacationed" when they were taking a break from robbing banks and trains. In fact, Jesse is supposed to haunt the old hotel, and there's a second ghost, the lovely Lucinda, whose portrait hangs in one of the downstairs common rooms.

The rooms are all decorated the same--which I don't particularly care for in an historic hotel--but some rooms open onto a long porch overlooking the Selma River, where it is very pleasant to sit and have a drink before dinner. (Note: you have to supply your own drinks--there is no room service on the porch.) The beds are very comfortable and the bathrooms adequate.

One thing we noticed was that members of staff seemed to always walk about the hotel in pairs. We thought this strange and asked one young girl who appeard to be in her early 20s. She asked if we didn't know "this place" was "hainted" and said, "There ain't no way I'm gonna walk around here after dark by myself!" How very charming!

The food in the dining room isn't the best in the world, but it wasn't the worst I've ever had either. On the other hand, the lounge serves a Southern breakfast to die for: ham, eggs, bacon, grits, biscuits--the works!

The only downside to our stay was that one night, there was "live" entertainment in the lounge, but our rooms were on the third floor on the river side of the hotel--far enough from the lounge that we weren't disturbed.

One other thing, parking is free, but it's on the street, not in a designated hotel parking lot.

While I can respect the "historical" nature of a facility, should the mattress be historical too?! This is the worst mattress I have ever slept on in a hotel and based on my travels with personal and work I have slept every where from Comfort Inn to The Four Seasons. Okay, the next morning my husband needed to gently touch up one his dress shirts that got a little wrinkled during packing and the iron left a black mark on his dress shirt. Fortunately, he had another one to put on. I called the front desk for another iron and they said, "okay". Well, they never brought another one. My husband took our scorched bottom iron to the front desk and they said, "We don't have anymore irons". Therefore, I had to go to the local Walmart to pick up a cheap iron similar to the one in our room. Granted often times you don't need an iron when you travel, but occasionally you do.

The only one positive thing I can say about this hotel is we had a river front room where we could sit on the balcony and that was certainly southern charm at it's finest.