Super 8 By Wyndham Portland Me

The room key kept losing its magnetism, and the lock didn't work properly. Inside, the sink was clogged, the blind's glider was broken, and the room phone seemed dead, with its message light flashing but no dial tone. Oddly, it rang twice after I connected my phone to the Wi-Fi, stopped, then rang again about ten seconds later. That happened when I returned too, but didn't repeat during my three-day stay. The hallway smelled bad, especially of pizza and smoke, and some doors had holes above the handles, as if they'd been forced. One afternoon I came back from sightseeing to find four police officers in the parking lot, apparently frustrated with whoever had called. They returned about 15 minutes later and arrested a man, telling him to stay away from a certain room while the front desk watched to see what was going on. I picked this low-budget hotel for a vacation week because it was handy for Portland, but the value felt just as low.

Getting a receipt after my stay was a dead end. I couldn't reach the front desk, kept getting sent to call centers in India or bots, and my emails went unanswered. The room smelled strongly of cigarette smoke and other things. The smoke detector kept beeping because it was out of batteries, and staff took ages to fix it, reluctantly. Guests in nearby rooms were blasting music and yelling at each other. Avoid this place, or stay at your own risk.

The Super 8 Wyndham has been a quiet, clean, welcoming place for me, and the staff feel kind of like family. It feels more like home than anywhere I've had in years. The price is decent too, and I'll miss this place. I've been moved around a lot, and at 11 I'm really homeless. Now I have prostate cancer and secondary progressive multiple sclerosis, and I need somewhere to stay until I can get into my final home, where I won't have to move again. Ugh. I wish past guests hadn't messed up rooms here. I grew up having a much harder time than most, on the west coast in the 80s and 90s. The world was different then, like night and day. I love the staff, clean rooms and beds, and having what I need to sleep.

After several hours of driving, we arrived to find the hotel wouldn't check us in because of a payment issue. We'd booked two rooms through Booking.com. Booking.com initially demanded a higher amount, then confirmed the original price after a lot of back-and-forth calls and an escalation. It was a very unpleasant process, and Booking.com handled it poorly.