Western Inn

This whole mess took about three hours, and then I was still waiting for a refund on the 13th. I paid $73 including tax on my card for a room booked through Expedia for a little over $60 plus tax. The last hotel's desk clerk said the reservation should time out and the pending charge would go away if they hadn't officially checked in. Instead, the charge went through two days later. Expedia is now handling the refund and says it can take 7-10 business days. I think they may have been trying to push the charge through, but I don't know. I'll check again in a few days. It started Sunday, Aug 3. My daughter and her boyfriend were coming to town later that afternoon, so at 3 pm I got their room ready to save time. I didn't go in. They picked up the key at 7 pm, went to the room, and called to say they were scared and needed me to come back for a refund since I'd paid. The photos were horrible: toilet paper stuffed in the peephole, no lock on the door, a bed leaning so badly you could roll out of it, and a smell like it hadn't been cleaned in months. They were also worried about bed bugs. I went to the desk, and they didn't want to refund us until my daughter's boyfriend said they were calling the police. Then they backed down. We hadn't known Highland Inn had the same owner, so they moved to the next hotel. At the desk, the man said my card had been denied and I had to call Expedia. I knew it wasn't my card. Expedia put us on hold and called the desk. We heard him whispering that we wanted to cancel, which wasn't true. It turned out he didn't like that we'd booked through Expedia instead of paying them $90, and he was trying to add taxes and fees to make up the difference. The woman at Expedia told him he couldn't do that and had to accommodate us under the contract. He kept telling her to cancel. By then we were furious and didn't want to stay anyway. I asked if Highland Inn had the same owner as next door; he said yes. I told them to cancel regardless. The Expedia agent said she was filing something that could lead to a fine for breaching the contract. I don't know what it was. She booked us an upgrade at Cajun country, a room costing about $131. There was a problem there too. I don't know if it was affiliated with the other two, but the guy acted shady, like he'd been told not to let us stay. He said the code or something wasn't right, then came up with something else. While we were there, another guest got a room, returned a few minutes later to say people were partying by it, asked to move, then came back from the second room saying it smelled so bad he wanted a refund. By then it had been three hours and my daughter and her boyfriend were tired, so we canceled. The next day I called to make sure they were refunding us. The manager could barely speak English, kept hanging up, then stopped answering. I had to call from four different phones and then contact Expedia. They had to call the hotel to verify that my daughter and her boyfriend never checked in. The rooms I saw were disgusting and seemed unclean, and the desk dealings felt shady. I think they tried to double tax us. There has to be a rule saying these rooms need a lock. Never again. I'll report them to the BBB and whoever else I need to.

The rooms looked good, the price was reasonable, and the customer service was pretty good. The pool water was green, though, so it needs cleaning. I do not recommend getting in.

This deserves minus five stars. The lobby was locked, and after waiting half an hour there was still nobody at the desk. Don't book this place through a third party site, they simply won't help you.

The TV in our room was so loud that my seven-year-old couldn't watch cartoons. When I tried lowering the volume with the remote, it just got louder. I went to the office to tell the woman at the front desk, and she said she had to talk to her manager. Nobody ever came to check it or help us, and she didn't move us to another room. That's not how a complaint should be handled. My family and I are on a budget, moving between hotels with reasonable prices. I work from Hampton Inn in Gonzales, and sometimes when the other hotels are booked we have to stay at Western Inn. I recently moved back home in August, and it's hard to find an affordable place to rent, so Western Inn is sometimes my last resort. They make enough money from me and other repeat guests to update the appliances and rooms. They need to make people feel welcome and comfortable.