Travelodge by Wyndham Barrie

Our room was fairly large and quiet, at least, but we won't book here again. There are no elevators, so carrying bags and coolers up three flights of stairs really sucked. The hotel was used to shelter homeless people over the pandemic, and they still hang around. Several people were in the lobby and my family felt unsafe.

If you're travelling with young children or minors, I wouldn't stay here. We were 17 families travelling with minor athletes for the South Simcoe U16 Hockey Tournament. Over both evenings, several incidents involved people who weren't registered guests or behaviour that made guests concerned for their safety. On Friday, people who weren't registered guests stayed in the lobby for over two hours after trying to get a room. No extra security measures were put in place, and families eventually left the common areas because they felt uncomfortable and unsafe. On Saturday, a registered guest's disruptive and aggressive behaviour escalated, and police were needed at about 3:00 a.m. Families felt they couldn't safely use the common areas through the weekend. The overall environment didn't feel like the safe, secure setting you'd reasonably expect when travelling with youth teams. The front-line staff were professional, but it was clear they were dealing with situations beyond the support and security resources available to them. This raises broader duty-of-care concerns for guest and workplace safety. When we tried to raise our concerns with the franchise owners, they said nothing could be done and, basically, that this can happen at any hotel. After 20+ years of travelling for tournaments, I've never experienced this. I wouldn't recommend booking this hotel or any Travelodge for a sports team travelling with minors or a family with young children if this is how safety and security concerns are handled.

Three of us in our group were charged an extra 429$, and the hotel couldn't explain why. There was no record of it in their system, and I'm still waiting for a call back about getting my money returned. Check your credit card after your stay. The hotel wasn't very clean either. The washrooms were dirty, and the outside garbage bins stayed full all weekend and were never emptied.

For the same room price, I've stayed elsewhere and had much better service included. The breakfast here was like any other. In my personal experience, the rooms weren't great, and both the towels and bed had a rather unpleasant musty smell. I hope they improve. Maybe they've made some repairs, but management needs to focus more on hygiene and pay much closer attention to inspections.