We reserved a double queen smoking room through Priceline.com for the nights of September 16 and 17 for our cancer benefit, Ride For The Ribbon. We arrive around 4 PM on the 16th and were given a non-smoking room. When I told the girl at the desk, she replied that the computer system was locked down & she could make no changes to the room or offer a refund. I mentioned that I would simply contact the corporate office & she immediately offered to change our room (it was 312) to one closer to a door so we could go outside to smoke because she had no smoking rooms available. I explained that I reserved the room (in the name of my business partner) through Priceline.com and she immediately stated, "well the online places aren't any good, it's not OUR fault." She went on to say that there were no smoking rooms left, not even single rooms.

We agreed to go ahead and stay since we couldn't get a refund so she sent us to room 117. We arrived to find the room filthy; it had not even been cleaned yet. We were then sent to room 107 which smelled but were exhausted so we decided to stay anyway. My business partner asked for a safe key as we had a large amount of cash with us for the benefit, and when it arrived, it did not work.

After our event on the 17th, we arrived back at the room around 3:00 AM on the 18th to sleep. Upon arrival, the man at the desk came out and told us we would have to move our car even though it was parked in the same place as the night before. He stated it was "for trucks only," however the area was not marked as such. The key would not work and we were left standing in the hallway while my business partner went to the office, only to find it empty. He had to shout for assistance and finally the man came back and reprogrammed the key. We finally got to sleep around 4:30 after a very long and stressful day and the conditions at the hotel were just deplorable. Even the TV station had been changed by the cleaning staff and we turned the set on to find it tuned to a Spanish Channel when we had left it on the Weather Channel.

Frustrating and aggravated does not BEGIN to define how we felt. Not having the room we reserved, being refused a refund, and being treated like dirt does not give me one reason whatsoever to recommend this particular place to anyone. We chose this place because of convenience and fortunately, none of our benefit participants chose to stay there. We will NOT be staying at another Super 8 anytime soon which is even more frustrating because I normally prefer this chain of hotel. I've stayed at this particular hotel in Topeka before and although the staff has been rude and unprofessional in the past, this experience was by far the worst.

When we are staying on the road, our efforts, attention, and energy MUST be focused on what we're doing for our organization, not if we have to be inconvenienced and treated like third class citizens.