I was a little worried after reading all the reviews after Hotwire confirmed this as my hotel. I read the one about Brenda and the others in reference to bad smells and just dirtyness. So when we arrived I was already to look at the room and then go book something else and spend the next few weeks arguing with Hotwire to get my money back.

If you book this hotel with HJ direct you will pay mid $60's during the week and mid $80's on the weekend. I checked in on New Years Eve and the person next to us was paying $89 for the night. For this price I would RUN for the hills. But if you go to Hotels.com its $60 and stay 3 nights and it drops to mid $40's. Book with Hotwire and pick this area and its $38.00 plus fees so about $41.00 per night. For this price its worth its one star.

I booked two rooms and arrived to checkin. A lady was at checkin and I said I had a hotwire reservation and she found it right away and started getting keys. I looked at the name of the duty manager and it said Brenda. I was waiting for some of the problems that I had read about and was surprised when Brenda was friendly and helpful.

We got to the rooms and had 108 and 110. They were both big with two queen beds, 110 had newer carpet but 108 had a fridge. The bathrooms were clean and stocked with towels and shampoo. The beds were clean and comfortable. No bad smells or the infestation of spiders that I had read about.

I was expecting noise and a restless sleep due to other complaints and was actually surprised that New Years Eve was not louder. Last New Years in Vegas there were doors banging all night.

Breakfast was standard pastries, coffee, orange juice and waffles. Came back to the room and had a hot shower with great water pressure.

So these are the good points. As an added bonus if you are coming for a Football game this hotel is on the bus route and only 2 miles away and as we drove by the stadium parking was $40 so right there you saved the cost of the room.

Some of the things I would agree with is the loudness of the shower. If the room above or next door use the shower you can hear it. The appearance of some of the area's could be improved. For instance when you eat breakfast the room off to the side has dirty curtains and you can see all the stuff stored. Above the door to the building again had dirty curtains with boxes stored up against the window. There is a computer in the breakfast area but the printer does not work The keycard door to the building was broken so anyone can get in. But the keycards to the rooms were new and the doors were very secure.

Brenda lives on the property so is here all the time I think between her and her husband no one else works the front. They have small children and you can hear them when you checkin which is a bit un-preofessional. But overall we are at the hotel for only a few hours a night so its really not a problem. After all this is not a resort I did not book to stay at the hotel for my stay.

If you book for $80 your crazy this is a one star hotel possibly one start plus with breakfast. But do your research and check for best prices. We had to stay because I booked hotwire non-refundable but rack rates can be canceled especially if the room is bad or un-safe.

Added bonus # 2 There is a nice sized lake right behind the hotel with a walking track. Very nice. Area seemed very safe. Mexican restaurant attached to hotel was busy all the time and gas station is also on property with store.

So me and my friend had horrible luck finding a hotel, apparently the week we planned our trip to Denver, American Idol auditions were there too. After a sketchy motel 8 expirience we decided to head to the Howard Johnson. The rate was good room was decent....kinda creepy people were lurking outside though. We were staying for two days my friend was going to pay for the first night then I for the second, so naturally they had both our credit card info (IF YOU STAY HERE PAY WITH CASH!). When we checked in the guy working said he didnt know what he was doing and his wife would take care of everything in the morning. The next morning I called the desk to make sure we were all good, she said we were only booked one night but would take care of it. SO, it was my turn to be charged and they said it wasnt a problem. I checked my bank account and there was no charge, however my friend had a charge from the night before, normal, and a new one for 114.82 that was two days of a charge. Thinking it was an easy fix we went to the front desk. Nope it was the opposite the woman, Brenda, said that they never charged for anything and we were lying- funny as to how the charge on wells fargo said it was from Howard Johnson. She told her to call her bank, the bank could get the money back from HOJO however they needed info from Brenda, but she didnt have it, even though she told us she was the manager (which was a lie). Then little did she know I work for the Khan's (a family who owns tons of hotels n' doesnt mess around with stuff like this) they gave me the corporate number (because they own several HOJO's) and chewed Brenda out for not knowing what in the world she was doing or talking about. So Brenda told us the number wouldnt work because it was the weekend, we called: it did. Then to avoid the same issue with my card I told her to delete all my information, of course though i checked my info and was also getting a wack charge only a few min. after. She then told us that Wells Fargo was the one making all of these charges, she would go to any extent to not admit that she screwed up. Wells Fargo told us that, that isnt possible, to get into Hojo's database and charge us off of it. Well Brenda said he was lying. After 3hours I finally got to talk to the real manager who did give us a refund for the mistake, however, it was not immediate, we had to wait until wed. even though we needed that money now, and they charged for all this bogus stuff. Also she screwed up the refunds I recieved my friends whole refund so now I owe her. We had to file claims with bank too. DO NOT GO HERE! BRENDA IS A MONSTER WHO LIES AND WILL ROB YOU, AND OBVIOUSLY CANT HANDLE A SIMPLE TRANSACTION!

*UPDATE- It is now 3 days later, still no refund, but at this point I just dont care. Now the manager lied, however, corporate will handle it and my bank is going through a claim with them. SO I WILL GET MY MONEY BACK ONE WAY OR ANOTHER.

On-line photos and the ad didn't give a clue to the actual condition of the hotel. There were men with grocery carts sleeping in the weeds surrounding the parking lot. The clerk didn't have my pre-paid reservation information and sent me to another hotel. The clerk complained that the booking site I used doesn't pay the hotel on time. She refused to call to confirm my reservation. While I was on hold to the 800#, a permanent hotel guest came into the lobby talking non-sense to anyone who made eye contact.
The hallway light fixtures were burned out. There was a strong stench in the hallway and the room. The chair cushions were strained. The carpet was filthy. There wasn't even a place where a bathroom exhaust fan was ever installed. The standard room amenities like an ironing board, hair-dryer, etc., were completely missing.
The first morning the maid never appeared and the room wasn't cleaned. The second morning, the beds were made and a few clean towels appeared, but the carpet wasn't vacuumed.
This hotel was chosen for location and proximity to destination. The bargain price was not worth the unsafe, smelly room and dirty grounds.

We chose this hotel because of location. The first thing we noticed is the building and grounds are a mess--shabby is too good a word. The smells in the hallways and in our room were nasty. Our bathroom stunk and had cracking tile and just looked very old. We had to unplug the TV to plug in the coffee maker. An electric outlet was hanging out of the wall. There were small random holes in the walls. The smoke detector didn't work. (I tried to close the open "door" covering the battery and the battery simply fell out.) The windows in the breakfast room looked like they hadn't been washed in a long time. The staff didn't do a good job of cleaning up the breakfast area--the tables and floor had crumbs on them long after breakfast was over. The food was awful. Worst, they didn't clean or make up our room two days in a row in spite of promising to do it the second day. On another day (we stayed a week) I had to go find the cleaning people and get them to make up our room. We had to empty our own trash and go get our own towels from the office. They kept saying we were weekly guests and they don't normally clean weekly guests' rooms every day. However, we were paying full rate-not weekly rate. I kept pointing that out and they kept saying we were weekly. I asked what "weekly rate" was and the desk clerk quoted a figure half what we were paying!