Hawthorn Extended Stay by Wyndham Decatur

The breakfast was pretty sad: sausage links, pale bland eggs, and two kinds of cereal. They put out cream cheese, but I never saw bagels, and the orange juice tasted off. The Wi-Fi didn’t work either, which is a problem if you need it for work. Staff couldn’t help and just blamed my device. 😑 I’ve done commercial and industrial cleaning for five years at an international airport, and this place grossed me out. The glass was smeared, the remote filthy, the microwave unsecured, and the fridge dirty. There was rust and mold in the kitchen, bathroom, and around the windows. Curtains were torn, dust was thick in spots, and there were dead bugs along the walls and under the curtains. The AC needed service and cleaning, and clumps of old pet hair were in the carpet corners despite the hotel being pet friendly. The smoke detector was practically falling off the wall. The window screens had holes, and there were wasp nests in the bushes outside the ground-floor windows. When they tried moving us to another room, it wasn’t any better. They said we could find somewhere else, but there wasn’t really anywhere else to go. Honestly, every hotel in the area seemed like this. It feels like the whole industry, the town, and its people have given up. If you can find and afford an Airbnb, go for that. We stayed in one and it was the best part of this journey.

There was a dead bug on the bedside table, and the floor and couch were stained. Dust and cobwebs were all over the room, and there was black mold in the mini fridge. The bed was listed as a queen but was only a full, and the linens had stains. The AC made a loud noise whenever the compressor kicked in, making it hard to sleep. My husband booked through booking.com after being assured we’d have a bathtub and kitchen. Instead, we got a room with an accessible shower and no tub, and there wasn’t a full kitchen. The front desk was rude and hung up on both us and booking.com several times. There was no resolution, just being ignored. The internet kept cutting out, so he couldn’t work and I couldn’t watch TV. They also provided no propane for the grill advertised on the website.

The place was dirty and run down, and the $200 incidental fee is a real annoyance. I could barely understand the man at the front desk. Definitely avoid it. Edit: The reservation was under my wife’s name, but I absolutely stayed here. Unfortunately.

This was nothing like the usual Hawthorn experience, and I strongly recommend staying elsewhere. The elevator certificate expired the evening we were there. I’ve included a few photos from two of the rooms. After moving into our second room, we were hit by an odor. We decided we could put up with it for one night. The furniture was dilapidated and needed replacing or a full reupholstery. After dinner, I noticed the kitchen items hadn’t been cleaned, and some things in the cabinet had food stuck to them. Then, when I took my shoes off, my feet got soaked. Either the AC or the rain had caused a leak, and the whole corner of the room was wet. We packed up again, loaded everything into the car, and told the front desk we were leaving for another hotel. He offered a third room, but I wasn’t going to risk another move. He said there would be no refund, and claimed we had to report problems within the first hour, even though we’d already been there for hours. I didn’t argue, but asked for proof we’d checked out. He said he couldn’t give me anything or email confirmation. The next morning I got a notification asking me to check out, so it looked like he hadn’t done anything. The check-in clerk was polite, but that was the only good part. Our first room had a non-smart TV that didn’t work, neither phone worked, several lights were out, the fridge hadn’t been emptied, and there was food in the sink. I reported it and got a replacement remote, but the phones weren’t fixed. That remote didn’t work either. The clerk came up with four more remotes, and none worked. We packed and moved to another room, which he had checked first to make sure the TV worked. I still don’t know how this place has a 3.6 rating.