La Quinta Inn & Suites by Wyndham Effingham

The breakfast area was clean and organized, and staff kept the trays filled when needed. The lobby was tidy and nicely decorated, with the trash cans looked after as well. My spacious room had a jacuzzi and was very comfortable. Everyone I interacted with was friendly, courteous, and professional. The awards displayed in the lobby are well deserved.

I've stayed here many times over the last 10 years. The lobby is clean and inviting, and the rooms are spacious, but the property is starting to show wear and the staff didn't seem equipped to handle problems. In our 1 King Bed Executive Room, the pullout mattress was severely stained. My son had been looking forward to sleeping on it, but when we opened it, he folded it right back up and said he guessed he was bunking with me. I showed the photo to the front desk. The attendant wrinkled her nose and asked, "You mean there was no sheet on the mattress already?" She didn't seem to have the authority or resources to address it. That response made me wonder if the usual practice is to cover stains and hope no one finds them, instead of replacing the mattress.

We brought our whole baseball team here, and it was a terrible experience. On arrival we found out the pool had been closed for maintenance for a week. Then the TVs in our rooms wouldn't work, supposedly because of storms, even though there weren't any. Our other stays here have been great, so this was a real disappointment. Do better.

The rooms were clean and our king room was bigger than most. The hotel is near two major interstates, but that also meant significant road noise in our king room, which faced them. All the king rooms are on the interstate side. We had four rooms for three nights, and service was poor enough to make the stay frustrating. Staff seemed unable or unwilling to make simple decisions, and basic supplies kept running short. I discovered the wall-mounted hair conditioner was empty while I was in the shower. After drying off and getting dressed, I asked the housekeeper to refill it during room cleaning. She said I was “lucky,” which didn't feel lucky when I was left with tangled hair and had to track housekeeping down. She said she couldn't replace body wash either because the franchise had been out for weeks. I asked for a small bar of soap in case our body wash ran out, but was told the hotel had done away with bar soap. When I asked what we'd do if we ran out of soap altogether, she just shrugged. They were next door to WalMart, so I wondered why they couldn't get a temporary supply while waiting for more. Other shortages piled up. Fresh cookies were only partly available one of the three afternoons. One family member got a Wyndham rewards welcome bag at check-in, while the rest of us who were rewards members didn't. It took four calls to get our wifi working. The desk clerk kept telling us to enter the last name and room number, without figuring out why it failed. When I finally asked her to check the spelling, our name was correct, but the hotel had added a lot of extra information. She said we had to enter all of it exactly and wouldn't fix it. She talked down to me as if I must have been doing it wrong. She didn't even say something simple like, “that's strange, I'm sorry, but glad we got it figured out.” Breakfast ran out of gravy for the biscuits one morning, and there wasn't time to wait for more. Apple juice concentrate ran out another morning. I also heard a guest ask about the waffle machine. An employee said it was too early to be out of batter and moved on. About 15 minutes later, after other guests asked about it, they finally confirmed the batter was gone. After our first night, my husband and I came back from a long day, rode the elevator, and walked down the whole hall only to find both of our separately stored key cards deactivated. We had to go back and wait for the clerk to reactivate them. The same thing happened to another family member. Finally, when a family member asked a nearby maid for fresh towels and said the room didn't need cleaning, she refused, saying, “you're not on my list.” The price wasn't worth it.