Travelodge Fairbanks

The hotel staff were kind and accommodating, but I would not bring a family here, especially with small kids. In my opinion, it's a transient hotel. We left within half an hour of checking in. The room was over 100 degrees, with only a box fan provided. The smell and condition mentioned in other reviews were there too. I can't imagine what was renovated nine months ago. Grout was missing from many lobby tiles, and the fruit loop breakfast another reviewer mentioned was still on the floor. I could say more, but you get the point.

The only part of the stay I appreciated was the helpful front desk employee, who let me check in four hours early. The building seemed old, perhaps converted from apartments, and the exposed plumbing gave it a strange feel. There are plenty of shops and restaurants within walking distance, and it wasn't my worst experience, hence two stars. My room had large dark stains on the floor, and I don't know what caused them. Cleaning seemed poor in other ways too: a previous guest's socks were left behind, and the room wasn't cleaned during my weekend stay from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning.

We paid a low rate, but the quality was still below what I expected, and I wouldn't return. The first room we were given hadn't been cleaned after the previous guest. There was a newspaper over a week old, though I'm not sure it meant anything. The second room was made up, but calling it clean would be a stretch. On a sunny day it got warm, so we turned on the air unit. It wasn't cooling well and appeared iced over. The filter was filthy, with so much dirt and dust that washing it in the tub released at least a cup of grime. It's reusable, without a cardboard frame. The coffee maker still had the previous guest's filter and coffee in it. The old building has wood floors, so the guest above us paced and the creaks and squeaks followed them all night. Furnishings were worn and needed replacing. Breakfast was a joke: two cereals and two juices, plus biscuits and gravy. The gravy looked like slightly thickened milk, not standard biscuit gravy, though I don't eat it regardless.

The room was nice, though a bit dusty. The bathroom was the best part, with free soap, shampoo, and conditioner, and the fan worked well. WiFi was unreliable and stayed down until the morning I checked out. The person handling breakfast on my second morning was inattentive too.