Econo Lodge Whitehall Near Michigan's Adventure

My family and I spent a month at this property, and it was a nightmare from the start. Choice Hotels Corporate said in writing that because it’s an independently owned franchise, they can’t make it issue a refund. We’re pursuing a full chargeback through our bank for breach of contract and filing a Title III ADA discrimination complaint with the Department of Justice. Go to another hotel in Whitehall. We booked a premium King Whirlpool Suite, but on arrival the desk refused to honor the guaranteed booking and said the room was “under construction.” When we showed the confirmation, staff blamed us, wouldn’t accommodate us, and put us in a lower-grade room. The advertised outdoor pool was out of service and neglected all month. Green chemical or pest-control signs warned people not to enter certain doors, but staff gave no safety information to guests staying down the hall. Staff had been told repeatedly that my child is autistic, yet they targeted, harassed, and threatened our family with eviction over ordinary daytime family activity. During a rainy afternoon checkout window, my children stayed inside while I finished booking our next stay after my work shift. They used this to refuse future stays and tried to charge a $50 fee or deposit without an itemized damage receipt or explanation. Less than an hour after I posted my review, the front desk woman told my husband we couldn’t stay anymore. I said I was recording and had reported the matter to the ADA. She cut me off, ignored the issues, and said it was because we hadn’t paid on time, though we paid through Priceline, and hadn’t checked out on time. We’d been told we only needed to leave by 1 p.m. and that a $25 fee would apply after that, which we accepted. There was no solution to any of our problems. After we raised concerns and tried repeatedly to resolve them, she called the sheriff’s department and said we were “trespassing and they want us gone.” Other people witnessed it, and the conversation was recorded. It felt like retaliation for speaking up. There are no-smoking signs, yet the front desk woman and man smoked right outside the hotel, despite the signs saying guests would be fined. Choice One and Priceline tried to help. Econolodge took the problem out on us instead of looking into the employee’s behavior. This was the most inhumane treatment I’ve ever experienced from an organization.

Things seemed fine at first, but then a large vent kept coming loose from the wall, and a torn lampshade really should have been replaced. The shower curtain was filthy, and my son thought it looked like it had feces on it. There was no housekeeping, so we took our trash out to the dumpster. When we asked for fresh towels, we were told to bring the used ones to the desk for washing. Only one desk staff member was friendly.

The front desk woman was very helpful, but I was upset to find the online price of $50 had become more than $70 at the property, which wasn’t in our budget. We made it work, though. They also still haven’t returned the money they held for the room. There was no shampoo, conditioner, or soap in the room.

I gave it two stars because it was cheap, quiet, and only 15 minutes from our event, with Walmart right next door. Still, I wouldn’t recommend it after how the smoke incident was handled. It was a scary, disappointing end to our weekend, even though fortunately nobody was hurt. We’d paid $205 for two nights, and there were other small problems we’d planned to overlook. The carpet was grubby, the beds uncomfortable, and the supposed café area was just tables, chairs, and a coffee pot. There was no breakfast. Around 1 a.m., after we’d just gone to bed, I heard a beep in the hall. When I checked, smoke was quickly filling the hallway from a room three doors down. We got the kids into shoes, packed the important things, and went looking for staff, but couldn’t find anyone. Another guest was already calling 911. We ran out to the car and moved it from the side exit, right beside the room the smoke was coming from, to the front of the building. The man in that room had been cooking something, fell asleep, and made a lot of awful-smelling smoke. The fire department appeared to clear the hotel of smoke and danger around 1 a.m. They left, and after seeing a couple of people go back inside, we assumed it was okay to return. Nobody on staff had told us it was safe. Some guests apparently never left because they didn’t know what was happening. The two exit doors nearest our room, including the closest emergency exit, were extremely hard to open. The outside handle on one didn’t work, and if a rock wasn’t propping that door open, you couldn’t get in through it. On Sunday morning, when I handed in our keys, I asked if we could get some reimbursement for Saturday night, not the whole weekend. They said they’d put our room number on a list and contact us. No one called, so I called them. The front desk staff member was very rude and said nobody would get any money back because the hotel wasn’t at fault. Our luggage and belongings smelled horrible, and we hadn’t even been able to notify staff before evacuating. After a four-hour drive home, we couldn’t just leave that night. I never expected the evening to turn so bad, and the response of “oh well, not our problem” was unacceptable.