Colonel Williams Resort

While my daughter was feeding her baby, she felt something bite her. It was a bed bug. We took a picture, killed it, and brought it to the office at checkout. They said they’d tell the maintenance person, and someone at the front desk also took a picture. Nobody offered us a discount or refund. Now we have to treat all our belongings and check our toddler and two-month-old for bites.

The price was good, $300 total for three nights in a two-bedroom room. The indoor pool was small but clean. The rooms were okay, though paint was peeling off the door, and the shower water could have been warmer. The kids' playground was falling apart, and the indoor hot tub was about the same temperature as the pool, so it wasn’t hot. We arrived Thursday afternoon and left Sunday, and the room was never cleaned. We didn’t get fresh towels or have the trash picked up. Bags of trash outside the room next door were there the whole time too. Just clean towels and trash pickup would have made me feel better about the place. The people smoking pot next door didn’t help, since the smell came through the walls. I probably wouldn’t stay again.

We came to the front desk with photos and videos of the bedbugs, but they seemed unfazed and said we had to contact booking.com to get our money back. That turned into a whole ordeal, but I eventually reached someone there, who was as horrified as we were. They contacted the motel, and as far as I know, the motel never replied about how it would address the problem. Bedbugs are a serious health and safety concern for guests, and I expected them to care more. We also told a family nearby, and my sister checked their room. Luckily their beds were bug-free, but it’s hard to enjoy a vacation when you’re worried about taking an infestation home. My sister had booked the room through booking.com. I got there about an hour before her and checked the beds, but from where I was standing I missed the clusters and didn’t pull back the mattress seams far enough. When my sister arrived, she found the mattress she planned to sleep on was infested. We were both grossed out. My belongings were already in the room, so I had to quarantine everything. We spent hours leaving the motel and finding another place without spending hundreds more. We were supposed to be on vacation, and we slept badly because we were scared of the bugs. There were other problems too. The carpet was stained, a light in the corner closet area was out, the TV was old, and its back was thick with dust and cobwebs. The HDMI cables were unplugged, so I had to connect them myself. There were dead bugs and spiders in the window sill corners, the screens were damaged, and surfaces had random paint and pen stains. The bathroom ceiling had several black patches that might have been mold or dirt. The sink and tub fixtures looked old, and there was no hand soap, just five bottles of shampoo, I guess for washing our hands. Most of that wouldn’t have been a huge deal on its own. Finding bedbugs made me look at the rest differently. It’s clear they don’t care enough about keeping the rooms clean and safe.

The outside decorations and the resort’s appearance were nice, but nobody was there when we checked in or out, so we had to call and wait. Our room wasn’t ready and had no towels. It was extremely cold at night, and the heat wasn’t on. There was no hair dryer, and the Wi-Fi was bad. They could have done better.