Knights Inn Gretna New Orleans

I drove five and a half hours to New Orleans and was glad to find a Choice hotel on the Westbank. The front desk lady was very sweet, though the manager on duty seemed nonchalant. After checking in for a $90 queen room, I went to the third floor, at the far end of the huge building. The heater blew freezing air, two of the three pillows had blood stains, there was no phone, and there was trash along with a key bearing the Sugar Bowl advertisement from almost two months earlier. The room looked decent at first, but the baseboard was ringed with mold, and the carpets looked terrible and smelled worse. I went down the three flights and drove around to the front. The manager didn’t acknowledge me. I tried to be understanding, thinking they might not know what was wrong, and they moved me. The second room had no heat either, and the heater/AC wouldn’t even turn on. By then I was pretty upset. The desk lady handed me a gift bag and apologized, but it had a 99-cent bottle of water, a 75-cent bag of chips, and a small packet of crackers. That felt very unprofessional. They moved me a third time. The heat worked, but the unit smelled horribly, like something had died inside and was burning. There was only a shower, no tub. All three rooms had mold and looked like they hadn’t been properly cleaned in months, maybe a year or more. I got my money back, but nobody offered compensation for the two hours I wasted there. The location felt sketchy, and the rooms were disgusting, with no real accommodation for guests. Don’t stay here.

My family of four got to the Quality Inn the night before the rest of our group, which is about 30 people who take a cruise together each year. Even with nobody waiting, check-in took half an hour. They had our two-night reservation down as one night, then put us on the cruise shuttle list for the wrong day. Getting to our room meant walking to the back of a dark building, past piles of trash stored along the side. The room was mostly clean, except for a few hairs in the bathroom. There were only two towels for four of us, and the receptionist wasn’t friendly when I asked for more. The breakfast tables were filthy. I wiped one down myself, then watched an employee push the mess off the other tables onto the floor with a towel. When the rest of the group arrived the next night, people waited in line for over two hours before being told the hotel had overbooked by nearly 15 rooms. We’d planned to visit New Orleans that evening, but the wait and overbooking ruined that. Most of our group had to drive another hour or more to find a vacancy after already driving 12 hours to get there. Others slept in their cars in the parking lot. In the morning, we saw the room next door was open even though it had been slept in the night before, so it seemed like the hotel didn’t know which rooms were available. If you want an organized, relaxing stay, don’t come here.

The room was new, nice, and clean when we arrived, and the front desk staff were friendly. They gave us good tips for staying safe in the French Quarter, and the shuttle to the dock for the ferry was great. Both the shuttle and ferry were free, which beat paying for a cab and let us see New Orleans the way we wanted. But the front desk line was always very long, and everything moved slowly. The lobby and restaurant bathrooms were nasty and repeatedly ran out of toilet paper for days. Service at the diner and bar was terrible and slow, and breakfast was too. Staff seemed to stand around doing nothing. The worst part was that we stayed two nights and nobody cleaned the room. I thought a multi-night stay would at least mean fresh towels and a made bed, even if not a full cleaning. For the price, that’s what I expected, or at least a heads-up so I could save towels. After a long, hot day on Burbon street, we came back wanting showers and had no towels. Calling down took forever, and they brought fresh sheets without offering to make the bed. I wouldn’t stay here again.

I usually read both good and bad reviews and take them with a grain of salt. I’ve stayed in all kinds of hotels and think I can judge them pretty well. Choice Hotels, and the Quality Suites line in particular, are generally basic but clean, with the usual amenities. A few weeks ago I saw a poor review saying the shuttle back from the port had stopped running. Since the shuttle was one reason I booked this hotel, I knew I’d need another way back, which already disappointed me. I’d also read the pool was closed for repairs, but thought it would be back open by the time we arrived. I was wrong. The staff were kind to me, and I was kind to them. I found out the pool was still closed and the Wi-Fi didn’t work in any of the rooms. So nearly every plus I’d booked for was gone, except free cruise parking. Our first-floor room was okay, not fancy but not bad. There was just one plug by the bed, it sometimes worked, and the plugs slipped out while the outlet pulled away from the wall. I worried it could be a fire hazard. The room was old, but at first I wondered why people complained so much because it wasn’t as bad as they’d described. After the cruise they let me check in early, which was a nice touch, but put me in a third-floor room. That one was awful. It smelled musty, had a water damage stain on the wall near the ceiling, and black powdery mold behind an outlet. There were plenty of plugs, but the lamp fixtures seemed like a fire hazard too: the part holding the bulb had separated from the base and hung down the side. The lamp worked, but I feared the wires were exposed. The two rooms were completely different. It looks like the corporation may have bought an old rundown Ramada Inn, hurried to clean the grounds and do basic repairs, then had to open before the work was finished. This hotel left a bad taste in my mouth. I wouldn’t write such a harsh review if it weren’t true. I’m not expecting a white-glove hotel, but this place needs major cleaning and repairs. Think twice before booking right now. Maybe they’ll get things in order with time, but you don’t know what you’ll get. I honestly don’t know if I could trust this particular Quality Suites again. It’s sad because NOLA has become my new cruise port. I really like the Choice Hotel line and hope they get it together. I’m very disappointed.