Super 8 By Wyndham Medina

Meh, at best. The reviews had led me to expect more. I had no idea the DEA was watching the location, and at first it just seemed genuinely weird. There was blood on the bathroom wall, and the AC/heater unit was so loud it sounded like something was stuck in the blower fan. The WiFi wouldn’t work, so I had to stream TV from my phone. For the price, well, they could do way better. Way better.

The front desk was friendly, and the bed was comfortable. The room was clean, which is really what I want from a budget place. Breakfast was the usual basics: waffles, coffee, juice, cereal, toast, bananas, and snacks. Thumbs up.

For $69 with tax, the price beat what I was finding on Hotels.com, and parking was easy. The owner's son checked me in and was friendly, helpful, and accommodating. The beds had plenty of pillows and were nice. The TV worked fine, but the channel selection was limited, and the Smart TV feature for using your own subscriptions like Netflix or YouTube TV wasn't working.

The air conditioner gave off an odor, and my nephew ended up feeling stuffed up, coughing, and dizzy. We couldn't just close the window and run the AC because of that. Breakfast was disappointing too, just cold cereal and bottled goo for the waffle maker. People were playing loud music in the parking lot at 3am, and early in the morning there was loud beeping. We were on the second floor, and later found out it was the first-floor microwave beeping when people used it. Never again.