“Filthy inside; the staff acts like they hate customers once they have your money.”
Traveling back from the SF Bay Area having one more business stop in LA the next afternoon, we should have stayed in the higher-priced Santa Barbara area when we stopping there for dinner and we turned down a rather uninviting, overpriced beach-type motel. I convinced my wife that I could find a lower priced, nicer motel closer to our destination where we could sleep late and still make my appointment on time. Figuring that the airport area would have a good selection I drove down Century Blvd. looking for an inexpensive motel, that was clean, safe and especially not run down.
Getting there sometime well after midnight, I did not have the time or the energy to do any comparisons, so I just glanced around for the first place that looked good. Compared to the other places I just passed - the Rodeway Inn and Suites looked like it would suffice as my wife was already asleep in the car. I did not feel like driving back towards the airport or any further up Century.
The last room available was a suite on the top floor directly in front facing the street; since it seemed easy and an upgrade over grabbing just any plain room I immediately pulled out my credit card as all I wanted was to just get some sleep for tomorrow. Since I checked in so late at night, (actually so early in the morning it was about a quarter to 2), but couldn’t stay too late (noon would have made me late) I asked the friendly old man at the counter if it would be alright if I don’t have to worry about checking out at exactly 11 am. His told me no problem – 10 or 15 minutes, don’t worry if you go by noon.
The suite was spacious with a separate bed room with a second big TV in the back, other than the wireless working fine it was about the only positive. The room was a non smoking room, but smelled like it had years of built up smoke with a strong chemical perfume (an attempt to mask the tobacco). The stained and dirty furnishings looked like they were from decades ago, as were the walls, the carpet and everything else. I had to lay newspaper on the scratched table (that looked like a second hand store reject) because there was sticky stuff on it.
The refrigerator did not work, I hoped I could use it to cool off some soda cans in the car, and the microwave had a heavy sickening smell pouring out of it as soon as you open the door. There was only a small excuse for a deadbolt on the entrance door and the cardkey needed to be swiped several times to unlock the very worn door handle, so if you are in the room you cannot keep out the staff as in most other motels that have some sort of an inside hook/chain setup that is not accessible from the outside.
Hair was all over the bathroom, in the sink, the tub and all over the floor. The bed was king-sized, but the mattress was very old and lopsided with several long strands of hair in the sheets. Around 4 a.m. there was a loud diesel engine in the parking lot that woke me up followed by constant yelling. I finally got up to make sure my car was not being touched and there were several workers that were parking some trailers in the parking lot that were traffic signs (one was a radar speed indicator and the others were electric arrows that you see around street construction). They were loudly cursing for almost half an hour in the parking lot before they left. Then several times after that I was awaken by police sirens.
When I finally got to sleep, the phone rang at about 6:45 a.m. and whoever it was hung up as soon as I answered, so I just left the phone off the hook. I couldn’t get back to sleep so I went to get some coffee – the brown water barely had any coffee flavor as it tasted nasty. The packaged pastries were dried out at the edges, so I tried an orange, but it was barely the size of a tennis ball and was half dried out inside. I just threw it all away and opted to leave earlier than planned to go to a coffee shop.
Taking a shower wasn’t bad, but the small bath towel was so worn it barely absorbed anything and had a chemical odor to it. With the terrible smell and dirty surroundings I just wanted to get out of there as fast as possible so I was ready before the 11 a.m. check out. I was packed and about to leave when at 10:52 a.m. there was a desperate knocking on the door. They knocked for a long time (probably 30 seconds). Then they went next door and knocked, and then a few doors down and knocked before coming back to my door to knock again. At first, I didn’t answer unsure of who it was, thinking how dare they after I asked about not making it out by 11 when it wasn’t even 11 yet. When I looked it there was a shabby dressed woman who looked angry and I figured it was the maid by the cart in front. I came out to tell her that it was not 11 a.m. yet and besides the man who checked us in said it was alright to leave a little late. The maid did not pay any attention to me and just kept knocking back and forth on the other two rooms, then finally told me that her boss ordered her to knock and pointed down towards the office.
I then saw the same old man that checked me in standing outside the office observing everything. He then walked to the bottom of the stairway staring at me like he wanted to confront me about something. My wife and I then grabbed our bags and went out to our car, as I passed the old man I asked him why were they urgently disturbing everyone when it was still 5 minutes to 11? He just mumbled that check out is at 11 a.m. and he will charge extra if you don’t get out. Then I reminded him that I checked in at about 2 a.m. that morning and he himself told me that it would be no problem to leave a few minutes late. He twisted my words and argued that I have to tell him if I wanted to leave at 2 o’clock which is not what I had said.
He then claimed it was after 11 when I showed him my cell phone said 10:55 a.m. (which I cannot set myself - it is automatically set by the airways and is quite accurate). After trying to correct him a couple of times as he misquoted my words (he acted as if he did not understand English), I just left as it was not worth my time to continue any form of communication with him.
Plain and simple – this place is a dirty, smelly dump with a sleazy staff that couldn’t care less about the customers comfort or feelings.
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC
