Garden Plaza Hotel Inn and Suites Decatur

We went out of our way to stay here and regret it. The room was old-fashioned and smelled awful, like they'd sprayed a whole bottle of Frabreeze just before we arrived. The expressway and the town's busiest truck and car intersection are right outside the window. If you're picturing a nice riverfront place, this isn't it.

I stayed mainly to eat downstairs, but the restaurant was closed. Nothing decent was walkable, so I spent $70 on DoorDash food worth about $35. I could've stayed at a Fairfield or somewhere nicer. A coworker also had an unpleasant check-in with a young female desk agent. The rooms are dark, which I mostly like, but this place feels eerie. The AC units are dusty and very noisy, and the HVAC systems look filthy. They can close the restaurants for events, but apparently can't hire an HVAC company to clean and service the systems.

My room was on the top floor, and the elevator repairs made getting there a problem. One elevator was out completely, while the other worked only now and then, so several times I had to take the stairs from the lobby. Nobody offered to move me to an available lower floor. The stair doors opened to the outside and stayed unlocked, and you didn't need a key to reach any floor from there. That meant anyone from the street could get to any room, which is a serious security concern.

The location and view were good. The rest was a mess. The dated room had an old sitcom feel and smelled like vomit. We drove 10 hours from Ohio for the pool, only to be told it was under maintenance; that wasn't on the website until people complained. The cookies supposedly included with booking weren't there either, and complimentary breakfast didn't exist. Since both pool and breakfast were listed online, we should have been compensated. Those promises weren't kept, and advertising them is misleading. I won't spend money here again. If I wanted a cheap motel, I'd have booked one. Bad business.