Sahara Motel

We’re staying here for three days right now, and this is the worst motel we’ve been to. I’m a 12-year-old girl writing this review. The room looked like it was from the ’60s, even though they said the rooms were clean. The kitchen was outdated, there was graffiti on the door, and the window was bent. There was a fly in the bathroom, and when I opened the AC, two baby roaches crawled out. I think this is a roach motel and they need to update the rooms. Thanks for reading :)

The beds were actually fine, believe it or not, and there’s a microwave and mini fridge. But there’s no coffee, only tap water in the rooms. The furniture is mismatched, very old secondhand stuff, the walls are marked up, and grout is smeared across the tile faces. Half the outlets don’t work, and some are so loose your plug falls out. The peephole had been removed and stuffed with paper that looked dirty. There was also a dirty sock in the corner. People hung around loudly in the parking lot until 1 or 2 a.m. on three of the four weeknights I was there. With the thin windows and blinds, it was hard to sleep. One guy in a headlamp was scrubbing his hearse at 10 p.m. I wouldn’t want my wife staying here alone, if you catch my drift. They take cash in person. I can understand that given the crime-adjacent vibe, but they trusted my credit card for a $400 charge, then made me find an ATM for a $20 cash deposit for the TV remote. Bizarre, and they don’t warn you about it in the information. I wasn’t even going to complain online about that part. Not every hotel is the Hilton, fine. But my three interactions with the owners, who seem to be a husband and wife, were rough. You can’t enter the office, so you ring the bell at any hour. They’re ESL, so communication is mostly in very short sentences, which isn’t a problem by itself. The wife, who I dealt with twice, immediately escalated to a 7/10 when I calmly asked a small clarifying question about their strange policies. I tried to be extra friendly and got rudeness back. The guy was mostly cordial, but definitely not friendly. To the owners: professional courtesy would go a long way. I don’t need them to be extra friendly, just to tone down the aggression. The rooms could use some care, like scrubbing the walls and replacing missing or broken hardware, but they’re not beyond saving. Maybe turn away some of the shadier-feeling customers, since the $200 they pay isn’t worth the damage to your reputation.

Water leaked from around the toilet base whenever we showered or flushed, leaving the whole floor wet.

The furnishings were so old I didn’t want to touch them. There was a dirty sock in the corner, the hairdryer didn’t work, and the walls and doors were dirty with several spots needing repairs. There was no security lock on the door, and they charge for ice from the machine. They also require a $20 cash deposit to get the key and TV remote, but the TV wouldn’t go loud enough to hear from the bed. When we checked out at 7 a.m., we had to ring the bell three times and knock before anyone came. She looked at us like we were awful for checking out that early. No customer service. We’ve stayed in plenty of budget motels, but this was one of the worst.