Clarion Hotel & Conference Center Ronkonkoma MacArthur Airport

The snowstorm left us with few choices, and this was the nearest available hotel. I believe it’s close to the airport. The infrastructure seemed okay, but the night was unsettling and felt unsafe. People next door kept banging on the walls and slamming the door, and when I called the front desk to complain, they told me to call 911. Who knows what was happening there, but it made me think the hotel may have serious ongoing issues. The front desk service was very poor. Even at the low price, the stay felt expensive for what we got. Staff were rude and seemed not to care about customers or the business. When I raised concerns, they said I didn’t have to stay. Since I didn’t want to keep driving in the storm, I said I’d take the room and write a negative review. The employee said that wouldn’t affect him and clearly didn’t care about the business. It seems like they rely on location and price rather than repeat customers, so service doesn’t matter to them. If you can avoid this hotel, I’d skip it, even in an emergency.

We stayed on 10/10/25 and 10/11/25, and the condition of the Clarion Hotel & Conference Center in Ronkonkoma, N.Y. was alarming. There were broken tiles, dirty, rumpled carpeting that appeared flood damaged and unreplaced, and an approximately 18-inch flood line painted over throughout the hallways. The bathroom ceiling was unfinished. I believe the place should be condemned. The website photos were not up to date, which I consider false advertising. I worry about mold and poor air quality affecting guests. I wonder if Choice Hotels inspected it within the past year. We had a family emergency and nowhere else to go, yet were charged two and a half times the rate. When I asked the front desk about a partial refund, the employee refused to connect me to the manager or take my information, then hung up. I told him I’d spoken with Choice Hotels six times about this stay. I called back and said I was recording, and he hung up again. It felt like highway robbery, with overcharging and misrepresenting the property. It’s shocking to me that Choice Hotels doesn’t ensure the quality of each franchise or seem concerned about its customers. I plan to contact my credit card company and stop payment. The front desk employee found it easier to hang up than to acknowledge my legitimate complaint or connect me with the manager, “Sam”.

I had to leave early because this place gave me breathing problems in the middle of the night. It smelled awful, and there was mold and hair from previous guests on the toilet and in the bathroom. The front desk gave me the runaround after I filed a complaint. They refunded me, then took the money back out of my account, and I’m still trying to resolve it with my bank. I still haven’t got my money back. Please be careful checking in here. It’s awful.

We’re on the first night of a week-long stay at the Clarion Hotel & Conference Center by MacArthur Airport, and check-in was extremely upsetting and unprofessional. I’m a disabled veteran, so accessible accommodations are essential. We arrived early, and a kind female staff member tried to find a room, but the only one then available was on the second floor. Since there’s no elevator, we agreed to wait until regular check-in for a suitable room. We came back around 7:30 pm. The male front desk employee had trouble with the card reader timing out. Instead of helping calmly, he became visibly annoyed, raised his voice, and told me to “swipe it this time,” correcting how I held the card in front of my guest. There was also a misunderstanding about his name. He introduced himself in a way that led me to repeat it back exactly as I’d heard it, then accused me of mocking him. I hadn’t cursed, insulted him, or tried to argue. I was only repeating his introduction and trying to explain that. Then he told us we couldn’t stay, even though our reservation for the whole week was already made and paid for. He also demanded a $100.00 security deposit in a rude, confrontational tone, making it feel like our lodging could be taken away over something he’d initiated. It felt as if he was using his position and our commitment to the week-long stay to pressure and intimidate us. Being spoken to like that and having our stay threatened over a misunderstanding about his own introduction was shocking and humiliating, especially as a disabled veteran traveling with a guest. The first staff member we met was excellent, polite, helpful, and compassionate about the accessibility issue. My complaint is about this particular front desk employee’s conduct and attitude, and how he escalated an avoidable situation and tried to deny us the stay we’d already paid for. We’re still here and scheduled to stay the week. Management should be able to review the front desk security camera footage from around 7:30 pm to see what happened. I’m posting this so management knows about the incident, especially in light of past or future complaints. At a minimum, the employee needs proper training in professionalism, de-escalation, and treating disabled guests with respect.