I stayed at this hotel awhile back - March 2011 - as a stopover in Crystal River to go see the manatees.

Despite selecting a non-smoking room, we were given a smoking room which, of course, reeked of cigarettes. The room was just disgusting. Bathroom light was broken; stains in the tub; clearly was not cleaned. Just nasty.

I returned to the front desk to see if there was anything that could be done, but she said that she had a full house that night, and that no other rooms were available. BUT, she had a de-ionizer! "Leave that running for 45 minutes and the smell should come right out!" So we left that running (sounded like a jet engine) while we went to dinner (anything to get us out of the room).

When we returned to the room, the smell of cigarettes still remained. OK, one night, it won't be that bad, let's get ready for bed....

Took the sheets off and then the pillows...and what do we have here: two USED cigarette butts laying on the mattress. I dropped what I was doing and returned to the front desk. There, I waited while two other people checked in (wished in hindsight that I steered them elsewhere), then spoke to the front desk attendent.

Now, I know this woman didn't put those cigarette butts there, but the manner in which she behaved almost sent me through the roof. I explained to her what happened and that I'd like a new room, and if that wasn't an option, I'd like a full refund. She huffed at me as if I was putting her off, and asked what room I was in ("sorry to disturb you, ma'am). I told her. Then she asked why we didn't come down immediately when we checked in - I told her we just took the covers off, to which she huffed again and explained that we should have come down right away...I said "listen, there are USED cigarette butts in our bed. We're not sleeping there." She told me that since we booked through a 3rd party, they couldn't offer a refund, but that we could switch rooms.

We finally did get another room, which wasn't much better. Needless to say we checked for cig butts right away. Bathrrom was still a dump and nothing worked. There was a decent view from our room of a small bay, which we would have enjoyed were there not vagrants and gangs in the back lot. Must have been spillover from the Roadhouse bar next door. ugh.

Otherwise, the hotel still was terrible. ONLY ONLY ONLY redeeming quality was that it was close to the manatees.

I don't know how some reviews here are anything but a 1/5..