Late at night at the end of November and we needed a short sleep to continue our 18-hour drive. I hadn't known where we would wind up and so, against my better instincts, we stopped at the Kearney, MO Comfort Inn without researching it. We've had both excellent and poor experiences at this chain. We're over 60 and travel a lot in the US and abroad. Even from the outside, this facility was obviously down at the heels but it was late and we were tired. I don't trust any of the hotel brands just from their names, and we could have checked out the others in Kearney that could have been just as bad and it would have been even later at night. The desk clerk was nice and let me see the room before we accepted at a decent price--unfortunately, I was tired and didn't look at things closely. After we trekked all of our gear into the room . . . I saw big toenail parings on the far side on the carpet (yuk, clearly, no vacuuming in this room). I never go barefoot in any hotel but this was really bad. I then pulled the covers back on the beds and found several hairs, both human and maybe a cat, on both beds. Yes, I should have called the clerk and changed rooms but I didn't give them the chance: the linens otherwise looked clean and unslept in, and I travel with our own sheets and pillowcases for such an emergency. So I put on our clean linens and swabbed the place down as usual with disinfecting cleaning wipes. Bath/shower was reasonably clean though, yes, a long dark hair in the tub. No odors in this nonsmoking room and otherwise things worked and were OK. The clerk had promised a quiet room--wouldn't book anyone on top of or below us--and it was as quiet as it could be so convenient off I-35. Breakfast seemed to have regular folks and the usual lackluster array of foods, with a competent and caring breakfast server. We left early. All I did was nicely inform the very young clerk when we left that the person who'd cleaned this room had done a bad job and they should make sure it was remedied. While the clerk didn't bother to apologize in any way, the breakfast server looked very sympathetic and thanked us for our stay. Needless to say, had I been able to do my usual research we would have headed for the Super 8.
- Kearney Comfort Inn
