Iarrived around 230AM very large parking lot easy to get a semi into...ask for late check out and was told I would have talk to staff in morning , checkout is 1100AM but they may let me stay later I have to have 10 hours off due to DOT regs,I went ahead and stayed and checked in the mornibg late check out was not a problem(I had to get up early to check,this messes up my sleeping schedule) since I was up I went to breakfast I stayed her a couple of years ago and remember breakfast being great, not this time I arrived 25 min before breakfast was over..no coffee,no sausage & no eggs...I ask if they were going to put more food & coffee out the guy was nice although said they were out of sausage he did make me 2 eggs but no coffee....also had grits but they were cold...all in all breakfast was not good...on to the room ...it was clean,bed a little hard but no too bad...bathroom - shower were clean...room was a little dark but this is a descent place to stay for the price( even with bad breakfast ) less than $60.00 a nite....well worth the price

The driveway was difficult to locate and kind of uncomfortable to pull in as it was not well marked. The hotel sits behind some other businesses. Check in was smooth. The customer in front of us was there to complain about their non-smoking room being smoky but our room was very clean. It was very large with a microwave and mini-fridge. There were some complimentary soaps and such and their binder offered free items you may have forgotten at home but we were charged $1 for some toothpaste. The complimentary, hot breakfast was rather lackluster. The eggs were delicious but the other food looked like it had been there a while. It was difficult to locate someone to get us some ketchup too. Overall, great room especially if budget shopping!

I travel for business and leisure, and stay in hotel rooms nearly 70-80 nights per year. I was never so surprised at the "atrocity" of this location, called a QUALITY Inn. This hotel was so proud to have signage welcoming parents of ELON Univ students for student move in weekend. The signs should have said "Welcome ELON Univ parents - suckers". The room was dirty, beside an exit door which was used all night, loud music, rats in the trash area where furniture and mattresses where thrown. And to top it off, the Hotel, in their wisdom, booked a motorcycle convention/meeting the same few days as the Elon parents. Loud party to all hours, banging on my door at 3:00am - it was like a bad movie. And the property was filthy. Called the hotel, and still no response. To top it off, they charged me twice!

I picked up this hotel through a Priceline bid, and stayed here for a week while in the process of relocating to the area.

GENERAL:
This was obviously an upscale property at one time, with about 150 rooms, a restaurant (more on that later), bar (now closed), and several reasonably large meeting rooms. As the economy suffered, the hotel’s business has obviously dropped off pretty dramatically. The lobby is large with several sitting areas. There appears to be ample parking, even if the facility was full. There is a pool, but it was not open yet. The property was mostly empty during my stay.

THE ROOM:
I requested a room on a second floor corner, which I received. The room was large, with two double beds, microwave, and small refrigerator. The bathroom is tiny, and while the vanity was large, there was only a single sink. There is a small desk with a power strip mounted into the front.

THE GOOD:
Reasonable value, although there are some other independent and chain hotels nearby that advertised lower prices on their signboards. The room was quiet and multiple building doors make accessing any room fairly easy.

It appears that the interior was updated in the last few years. There is some minor wear and tear, but furnishings were clean and in decent shape.

All rooms are accessed from the interior. All doors except the front door require room key access at all times.

The fitness center is small, but decent. The business center has two computers and a printer available for guest use.

The property was reasonably clean – no smell of mold in the room or in any of the hallways. My non-smoking room had no noticeable smell of old smoke.

Vending was reasonably priced – 20oz bottled drinks were $1.25 in the lobby, although vending machines in the hallways were higher. Snacks are available from the vending machine in the lobby and also appear reasonably priced.


THE BAD:

There is no elevator.

The free breakfast is barely enough to get you out the door in the morning. Hot items in steam trays consist of scrambled eggs, sausage crumbles, and biscuits (no gravy). Eggs were frequently rubber from sitting too long. The sausage looked overcooked to begin with, and I avoided it. Other offerings included self-service waffle iron, cereal choices of corn flakes or Fruit Loops, a limited assortment of pastries, bagels and toast, apple or orange juice from bulk concentrate, milk, and coffee. Waffles are the only decent item, although getting there early before the eggs turn to rubber helps (or if you notice they are running low, wait for them to make some from fresh). Guests are not permitted to take breakfast back to the rooms.

They could have a better breakfast offering (probably at a lower cost) by skipping the hot items and offering more choices in cereal, better quality pastries (warm, maybe?), better quality juices, and some low effort cold selections like fruit cocktail and cottage cheese. The restaurant also offers the breakfast buffet to non guests, as well as lunch and dinner – buffet only. After the poor excuse for breakfast, I wasn’t going to bother with any other meals here. I can’t imagine the restaurant is drawing in anyone other than hotel quests, and then only for the free breakfast. They need to decide either to go big with the restaurant (and reopen the bar), or pull the plug on what’s at best a half-hearted effort.

Quality of the housekeeping was OK, with one exception - on the first day I found a used towel hanging on the back of the bathroom door – it would seem like that’s something that would be on the cleaning checklist. Timing of housekeeping was inconsistent, however. I arrived very late the first day (1:30am) and slept in, and while I was out of the room by noon, I apparently missed my one chance for cleaning (having left the “Do not disturb” sign out). The management knew what time I arrived – my check-in time was shown on my bill – so would it be so hard to point that out to housekeeping? Or to check back a second time, or leave a note for me to call when I left the room? During the rest of my stay housekeeping would come by anytime between 11am and 4:00pm, so trying to plan to be out of the room for cleaning was a little difficult.

The room is very dark, with only a small window in one corner. I thought this might be a problem unique to the corner room, but as I looked at the property from the outside, all the rooms seem to have similarly sized windows. If you’re travelling with family members and are used to having multiple people in the bathroom at one time, forget it here. The air conditioner was extremely noisy when the compressor kicked in (fortunately it was still cool enough in the evenings that the A/C wasn’t needed while trying to sleep).

The location, while convenient, looks run down from the outside. It looks like the landscaping was allowed to deteriorate for some time, and only recently started receiving attention. Bushes and shrubs are severely pruned, so right now they look hideous, and new mulch has the old weeds growing up through it. There are several fixtures and light poles that have been bumped by vehicles over time and tilt at precarious angles. The property is also in an area that’s become rundown. It is difficult to see from the road because the property is situated well off the road behind a Goodwill store, Waffle House, and a vacant business, and next to what was an old K-Mart that’s now an “antique” store. The shared driveway has a large pothole at the entrance.

Fro my room the free wireless internet would stall about once an hour and require reconnecting to another access point. The access points appear to allow other computers on the network to see each other, a security risk.

Beds were reasonably firm, although a little lumpy. Pillows were horrible.

CONCLUSION:
The place was clean and felt safe. Priceline rates this a two-star establishment, which I think is more accurate than Trip Advisor’s 2 ½-star rating. The infrastructure exists to make this a 2 ½ or even 3 star property, but the management would have some work to do to get there, and given the economy of the area right now, I understand them not doing that. I still rated this hotel as “average”. While it’s not really a 2 ½-star property, I think a “poor” rating would imply that it’s worse than it really is.