La Quinta Inn by Wyndham Columbia SE / Fort Jackson

It's a nice, clean, quiet hotel, and we could bring our cat. My one complaint is that the external door card reader didn't work. The parking lot is at one end of the building and the lobby at the opposite end, so there was a lot of walking back and forth.

The bed was nice, but the place smelled awful, like old chicken masala mixed with body odor, or an armpit cooking spicy food for days. The room numbers were 235 and 3-something. This felt like a motel, not a hotel. The TVs were newly mounted but not hooked up, and I couldn't connect devices to them either. The vinyl floors were sticky, like several rooms had been mopped with no rinse. A lamp didn't work and had a frayed, repaired cord. There was only one loose toilet paper roll, a third full, and the paper was like the brown paper towels from an elementary school. The breakfast area was filthy, the Keurig didn't work, and the only cereal milk was lukewarm whole milk. They sell random bags of chips, wine, energy drinks, and other things that looked like items brought from home. Strangers were loitering in the parking lot. There were paint drips everywhere from touching up moldy spots. I don't usually leave negative reviews, and after more than 20 years traveling for work, this is a first. Wyndham should have renovated it to their standards before putting their name on it. My company wants me to use Wyndham when possible. I've stayed about 10-12 nights at Wyndhams for work in the last five months and there's always something to deal with. I dropped my boss at another Wyndham property, then canceled this stay and booked a Hampton in another city, saying I had a meeting there. I've never had that kind of problem with the two other major hotel groups. Close this place, renovate it to Wyndham standards, then reopen it. Don't stay unless you only need a few hours of sleep before leaving. It's no place for a good experience.

The room was clean, and housekeeping did a good job, but the comfort and maintenance problems overshadowed that. Water in the shower never got hotter than lukewarm. Noise kept waking us at night: loud scraping and dragging that sounded like furniture in a neighboring room, until we realized it came from the elevators. They squealed, shuddered, and vibrated, and it wasn't just one elevator. Sound insulation between rooms was poor as well. Several smoke detectors on upper floors were visibly hanging by wires, which concerned us. Renovations seemed to be underway, but the hotel was operating with work still unfinished. Visible duct tape in common areas summed up our three-night stay: things worked, but barely. It may be better after the renovations and maintenance are done, but right now it doesn't meet expectations. Two stars for cleanliness, with comfort and maintenance concerns outweighing that positive.

Good value for the price, and clean and quiet. It's under 10 minutes from the Fort Jackson gate, with plenty of parking, though the lot at the back is a little odd. I didn't try the breakfast, but it looked like a decent continental spread. I'd stay again.