I have to admit that I read the review of Macon's Hawthorn before booking, but I thought "it can't be as bad as it sounds." I must sadly admit, I was wrong; it was just AS BAD AS IT SOUNDS. This hotel is simply an off-cast of the Holiday Inn next door and, quite frankly, it just doesn't measure up. I used Hyatt Gold Passport points for the stay -- only 3000 -- and, in spite of that, I felt cheated. The room -- a regular double double and NOT A SUITE, as reserved -- was dirty with bare/unfinished patches of sheetrock; there was no high speed internet access as promised; there was no on-property pool; part of the food for Hawthorn's normally good breakfast was left out from the day before. To top it all off, when I was ready to check out, the entire stay had been billed not to my Gold Passport account, but to my AmEx. The only thing that speaks well of this hotel is its staff which did their best to appease guests in spite of what they had to work with.

I checked in to the Hawthorne Suites in October 2004 for a two night stay. After hauling my luggage up the stairs and unpacking I received a call from the front desk that there was an error; my room had been promised for the next night and I would have to check out.

At checkout I stood in a line with 3 others who has "lists of concerns"; these included plumbing problems and smokey smelling non-smoking rooms. The next day I realized in my haste to repack I inadvertently left my bathrobe in the room. I placed a call to the hotel and was told the manager was "unavailable". I explained to the clerk what had happened and she offered to check on it and call me back. She did not.

I phoned again the next day and was told the manger was out. A different clerk assured me she would handle the problem and call me back. She did not. I called again later and was referred to the housekeeping manager who stated he did find my robe, took it to the laundry, would talk to the laundry manager the next day and return my call. He did not. I called again and he stated the laundry manager could not locate the robe.

Long story short, I finally reached the manager several days later who had no idea what was going on but agreed to "get to the bottom of it and call me back." She did not. I placed a call to Guest Services on Monday (they are not available after noon on Saturday) who agreed to contact the hotel on my behalf. What they actually did was get the manager on the phone and connect me to her. She stated she had questioned everyone and no one knew where the robe was. A further message left at the hotel corporate office was not returned.

Guest services says the hotel policy is that they are not responsible for items left in the rooms. I understand their policy but feel they do have some responsibility to a customer when an employee finds an item, does not hold it in a LOST and FOUND area for a reasonable time, and it is not returned to a paying customer.