Travelodge By Wyndham Texarkana

When we couldn't stay in the room without a working smoke detector, we had to pay $20 to upgrade to the Ramada. The hotel said our room was non-refundable because we'd booked through a third party, booking.com. I later tried to get a refund for the original room through booking.com, but their customer service person said the Travelodge manager had confirmed it was non-refundable. Travelodge gave us a room we couldn't legally stay in and then refused to refund us. The first room we were given in late June 2020 had an open window and ants all over the walls and pillows. They moved us to a slightly nicer room upstairs, but its smoke detector had no batteries and chirped every 10 seconds. It looked like they knew, since the speaker was taped over. The front desk said they didn't have batteries. We weren't going to stay without a working safety feature, and I'm pretty sure a hotel isn't allowed to put us in a room like that. Most hotels around there are owned by the same company. Do yourself a favor and book directly with a hotel owned by someone else. This feels like a racket.

We checked the surrounding hotels first because of the ratings, but were really glad we chose this one. The front desk guy was down to earth and extremely helpful, and the beds were the best by far. Don't let a few bad experiences put you off. We'll definitely come back on our way back. It was better than most of the $100 hotels we've stayed at.

We barely slept and left at 4:30 as soon as all of us realized we were awake. We only waited that long so the kids could get some rest. Once the lights were off, roaches crawled on the walls and floor and in the tub. The room smelled strongly of cigarette smoke and something else that seemed to be covering it up, despite being marked non-smoking. There were broken lampshades, a sagging armchair, beer caps and a screwdriver on the floor. The bathroom had no toilet paper or soap, the tub was heavily stained, and the white towels were either stained brown or hadn't been cleaned. Housekeeping seemed nonexistent. The whole place felt like a horror movie: broken windows and crooked curtains outside, then old stained carpet, ceiling water damage and flickering lights inside. Shirtless men wandered the hallways. It looked so run down, with seedy-looking people around, that we should have driven out of the lot right away and hoped for a refund, since we'd already paid.

We evacuated for Hurricane Laura and had quite a bit of stuff to carry upstairs. The woman at the desk was nice and tried hard to help, but once we pulled back the sheets, there was trash and grass in them, and a bed bug was on the pillow. The parking lot already felt creepy when we arrived. When we told the manager, she said they didn't have bed bugs. We left within 10 minutes, and they refused to refund us. BED BUGS, y'all! Don't stay here, run as fast as you can.