I'll start by saying I have never written one of these but felt compelled to write this to save you from a similar experience.
I stayed here due to it's proximity to a 3 day seminar I was teaching down the road in Warren as well as the price. I have stayed at other places in the valley with nothing but nice things to say and figured I couldn't go wrong, but it blows my mind how far from the truth that was.
When I went to check in, I had to walk around, knock on doors, and wait for about an hour until someone showed up. No lights were on anywhere and no other guests were there. The place appeared to be out of business. Take into consideration I called twice ahead of time and informed the owner when I would be checking in. (3pm) The entire driveway and parking lot was a sheet of ice/not shoveled or plowed.
First, the pool is a fiberglass 70's above ground pool that the hotel was built around. If you stay downstairs, the back bedroom's wall is the pool, if anyone is in the pool splashing around, you hear it like being in an MRI. Around the pool, the plywood floor has rotted to the point that new plywood has been placed over the holes and welcome mats have been placed over this.
The room layout and bathroom set-up is extremely sub par. There were no lights in the bathroom/shower area; not that I even felt comfortable enough to take a shower. All of the furniture/dressers look like they were obtained from the dump, and some drawers would not even open. The smoke alarm was attached to a light switch with exposed wiring, the refrigerator knocked and made horrible noises all night, there were literally holes drilled through walls and ceilings for 2" rusty fire sprinkler pipes to run through as an afterthought, ceilings were about 7' high with the sprinkler pipes being at a convenient height to bonk your head on (I'm 6'3"). A power strip had mystery plugs in it that ran through holes in the wall to other rooms, the plumbing pipe for the hot water literary came out of the floor under the bed, ran across the floor and into the bathroom next to the bed. There are freaky one-way trap doors in the vestibules outside your room and some other sketchy things going on that leave you feeling very uncomfortable. All in all, the place has the look and feel of a place built by tripped-out high-school students in the 70's using fischer price tools.
The mattresses were very comfortable, but I still didn't sleep due to the sounds coming from all over. This was all night long, whether it was the fridge humming/knocking/buzzing, the sounds of arguing upstairs at 3am, running/scampering noises from the ceiling and walls, scratching clawing noises from the bathroom, and CONSTANT walking/creaking all night long overhead. I also smelt cigarette smoke in whiffs here and there through the holes in the walls for the sprinkler pipe, as well as dog/cat feces. I tried sleeping in the back bedroom to get away from the noise but it was even worse.
There was also a nice pile of doggie presents right outside my door which wasn't nice after returning from dinner with nice shoes on. If your allergic to cats, there is reason enough to not stay here, as I had fur all over my pillows.
The final straw that broke my back after staying there for one night was that "service" (which I didn't even want) only made one of my beds (remember, I had to move to the back room to try and get some sleep), turned the thermostat off while I was out (I had it set to a very reasonable 55 degrees in december???), and went through my stuff I had on top of the counter top and on my suitcase. I immediately went to the owner and politely asked for a refund for the next two night's stay and was called "nuts" for thinking about it since it was after check-in time. I could see for that coming night, but for the third night? He seemed completely unreasonable to deal with so I just chalked it up to a "never again" and left.
- Garrison Hotel Waitsfield
