I came down to Charleston to run, and that went well, but I'd run to another hotel if I could.
When we arrived at the hotel at 11pm, the night clerk charged me for what I thought was my first nights stay. I thought this procedure was a little odd and asked her if this was my bill for the night or the week. She told me it was for the week. I didn’t complain and kept my fingers crossed hoping I just received the deal of the century. Two days later I would find out differently.
The room was clean when we arrived and it was nice to have a fully equipped kitchen. But all good things must come to an end…and they did immediately! When we walked into the no smoking room it had a smell that never went away the entire week. You could hear through the walls and ceiling. It was always pleasant to listen to the barking dogs in the room next door! There was no ice machine, no pool, no exercise facility, no breakfast, and no daily room service.
In a brochure that was in the room it commented that Extended Stay Americas either had an exercise facility on its premises or had one near by. When I called down to the front desk to inquire about the matter, the clerk gave me the name of a place, but had no idea about the hours, cost, or location. She flat out told me that she had no idea because no one had EVER asked about this before. I find that interesting since there are 50,000 runners in Charleston right now to run the Cooper River Bridge Run, which started in Mt. Pleasant.
Thursday night we returned to our room we found a bill which was difficult to understand and charges that almost doubled my quoted rate. It said that if I did not sign and return the bill they would automatically charge my credit card. I immediately went down to the front desk only to find out that no one could give me a detailed bill explaining my charges or why I was being charged several hundred dollars more than my quoted rate. They told me a manager would be on the premises MONDAY (That’s 4 days from now and I was checking out Sunday)! After two more stops down at the hotel desk, 2 hours of my vacation time, and 2 phone calls to the on call manager, my charges were reduced to the corrected price BUT I never did receive an itemized bill/receipt that correlated correctly to the charges incurred.
On Friday (3 days into our stay) it was finally the BIG cleaning day! After being gone at the beach all morning we came back to take showers. Of course that is when the maid knocked on our door to clean. We told her to come back in an hour as we’d be gone. She never did. Immediately when we returned to our unclean room, I went down to the front desk and asked why our room wasn’t cleaned. The desk clerk, informed me that if you don’t stay here a week, you don’t get your room cleaned. I argued that when I checked in I was told I would have one cleaning. She hesitantly put my name down for it to be cleaned the next day. Then I had to beg her for some more towels.
This hotel does not have a 1-800 to call, did not have a manager on premises during our entire stay, nor a guest-friendly desk staff that could handle big nor small problems. I have stayed at both the Hampton Inn and Red Roof Inn in Mt. Pleasant in previous years. Both would be a much better choice than Extended Stay America. For the price, anything beats this place.
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC
