Days Inn by Wyndham Nanaimo

The room smelled like mold. I’d prepaid over $400 through booking.com for a kitchenette from Saturday to Tuesday, but my two-month-old baby was very sick, so we left a few hours after arriving on Saturday. I said I was fine paying for the first night even though we didn’t stay, but they won’t refund Sunday, Monday or Tuesday. The cancellation terms say I may incur a fee, but keeping every night’s payment feels unacceptable. I also still haven’t received my damage deposit back.

We got a kind upgrade to a king room, which was very comfortable, and the ocean view was lovely. The TV was a good size, and the AC made perfect white noise for sleeping. The hotel was clean, comfortable, good value and in a nice area. Breakfast was presented well and my boyfriend loved the waffles. I don’t care much for sweet food, though, so I found the selection a little hard: cereal, waffles, muffins, yogurt, fruit and boiled eggs. I wish they’d had toast, scrambled eggs in hotel pans, and those little breakfast sausages you see at other hotels. Still, thanks for a great stay.

I’ve updated this after hearing back from the hotel. Would I stay again or recommend it? Yes to both. It’s reasonably priced, quiet, just off the main road, and outside the city though near its edge. Some rooms have ocean views. There’s free breakfast, a pool, hot tub, an on-site restaurant and spacious rooms. The building is older, but clean, including the grounds. Beds were okay and the linens comfortable. We needed an air mattress for my 10-year-old, and it fit. We had a microwave, fridge, desk, armchair with footrest and coffee maker. Breakfast had plenty of choices and was clean and well stocked. Ricky's restaurant and the pool and hot tub were nice extras. The pool’s women’s bathroom door was hard to open, and you have to get towels from the front desk, a small inconvenience. There’s no elevator. Some unhoused people were staying long term after the hotel across the street burned down on Boxing Day. I spoke with several and they were friendly. One other guest, who wasn’t a long-term guest, was drunk and belligerent after an argument with his girlfriend, who has four kids. He fought another male guest and at some point pulled the fire alarm. My child and I were in the pool and had to go outside with everyone else. In January, we were barefoot in wet swimsuits with wet hair on the concrete. Staff brought extra towels and offered to let us back in after checking the building and finding no fire, but my child was frozen with fear while the alarm kept ringing. We went back into the lobby after the fire department shut it off. Later I heard shouting and cursing outside our ground-floor window. Long-term guests had taken the man to the ground and held him until police came to take him for the night. They helped the manager keep him there until the RCMP arrived. We returned to the pool, where my child was taking part in a competition and another family was with us. One long-term guest seemed annoyed by the kids’ noise, which upset one of the parents, so we left. The hot tub was crowded with long-term guests too. It didn’t bother me, but for others it felt uncomfortable, more like being in someone else’s space than at a hotel. My child left her new, expensive branded competition shorts on the pool deck. After checkout the next day, I called, then tried again the following morning. They still hadn’t been turned in. On my third call, a friendly man said he’d search himself and call back within two hours. He didn’t, so I called a fourth time. He apologized, said they’d been very busy, and reviewed where and when we’d left the shorts. He planned to check video footage and said they’d mail them if found. I heard back after writing my review: they found the shorts and are sending them at their expense, so I’m grateful and have updated this. My original review wasn’t meant to show bias against long-term guests. I wrote what I saw and heard, what involved guests told me, and what I experienced. I’m sorry I was misinformed and included something I’d been told. The hotel can’t be blamed for a guest’s choices, and it was a decent stay overall.

They charged my card multiple times after I changed payment methods, and now I have to spend time sorting it out. The bank and credit card companies confirmed payments went to the hotel, but when I called, they said that hadn’t happened. The security deposit was higher than the room rate. They should have respected the way I chose to pay.