La Quinta Inn & Suites by Wyndham Katy

The location was convenient, but I wish I’d paid a little more for better amenities and more variety. We stayed a week and couldn’t use the pool because the heater was broken and the water was ice cold. Breakfast was the same each day and pretty tasteless: tortillas, potatoes, powdered eggs, sausage, refried beans, waffles, and mystery bagels. Our first room smelled badly of mildew and we found a cockroach, so we asked to move. The new room smelled bad too. I assume it had to do with the rooms being over the pool area.

The service was nice, but I’d strongly suggest staying somewhere else. There was grime and dirt around the shampoo and conditioner containers, and what looked like blood on the toilet. The mildew smell was much worse on my floor than when I first walked in, and it got even stronger inside the room. I thought I might get used to it, but after about 10 minutes I was dizzy and nauseated. Turning on the heater made the whole room smell like burnt mildew. I’d be concerned about my health staying here. I wish I’d listened to the reviews about mildew. The booking app said the place was clean.

Our son is autistic, and we plan a December getaway each year. With money tight, we chose somewhere local this time. The location was great for shopping, dining, and seeing what katy has to offer. We walked from the hotel to Coca-Cola classic christmas. The building seemed clean and new, with no strange odor, and the woman at check-in was kind and friendly. Breakfast had a good range of choices, and the dining staff were helpful too. The indoor pool was a real plus because our son loves the water. The problem was the keycard. After breakfast we went upstairs to change for the pool, but it wouldn’t open our room door. My husband went down for a replacement card, and it still didn’t work. We tried pushing and pulling while the light flashed red and green. He went back down and was told to “yank” the door. That didn’t help either. After three trips up and down from the fourth floor, we all went to the desk. I was running out of patience, and instead of showing concern, the receptionist insisted the door was fine. She also said there was no maintenance person on duty because it was Sunday. I said we needed someone to help, or I’d call the fire department. Fortunately, she found a man who wasn’t in uniform or employee clothing and asked him to check. He got the door open and said he’d report a problem with the programming. All the back and forth had made our autistic son anxious. We work hard to plan a calm trip and a nice Christmas experience, and he can’t help how he reacts. If you think he was just acting up, try being autistic yourself for a minute. Later, I stayed in the room while my son and husband went to the pool, worried the door would fail again. I missed the time we’d planned to enjoy together because I wanted to be there to open it for them. This may sound like a small incident, but for an autism family it’s a big deal. We’re in survival mode every day. After almost two hours at the pool, they returned and the keycard still wouldn’t work. Never again. Beware.

We didn’t pay a fortune, but there were still a lot of problems. We were on the ground floor at the far end of the hall, and the young woman told us the emergency exit right beside our door didn’t work. If there’d been a fire, I guess we’d have had to break it with the room’s one chair. The window shade also stopped 2-3 inches short of the bottom, leaving the room visible from outside and letting in a bright light at night. We stuffed things along the bottom to block it. The shower was accessible, with a ramp and black stains along parts of it. My husband used most of the other towels after water ran down the ramp and left about 1/4" of water across around 2' of floor outside. The room had a strong, strange smell as soon as we entered. He sprayed cologne around because it was the last room and we didn’t think there was any point complaining at the desk. We checked the mattresses for bedbugs as usual, and this one passed. I’d booked at the last minute after getting my surgery time for the next morning just 2.5 hours before we arrived, which was also how long it took us to drive there. The booking said only one room was left.