I don’t usually post business reviews on my blog anymore—now that the era of blogs is mostly over (and has been for a long time) it’s usually more effective to post them on Google, Yelp, Hotels.com, etc.—but this particular experience was so poor that I want to call it out here as well.
I recently stayed three nights at the “Extended Stay America” hotel in Boca Raton, Florida. It was gross.
When I used the bathroom sink in my room the first time, I discovered that it was clogged with a bottlecap, hair, and who knows what other disgusting stuff:
By then it was too late to get them to do anything about it that night. The next morning I left early and forgot to mention it to them. I did, however, mention it to them early the following morning, when I still had one night left on my reservation. They said they would take care of it. They did not.
The tub drain was also clogged, causing the water to back up onto my feet and ankles during showers:
They also didn’t do anything about this even after I complained about it.
When I inspected the room upon arrival I found food left in one of the kitchenette cabinets by a previous guest, and a long hair (definitely not mine) draped over the tub faucet. I.e., the room cleaning done between guests was grossly inadequate.
The items above were in the “completely unacceptable” category, but there was a lot more wrong:
- The bathroom fan and HVAC unit were both loud enough to wake sleeping people. I doubt either of them was that noisy when they were first installed; they were just old and decrepit.
- The walls were paper-thin. I was woken up multiple times overnight by people in other rooms who weren’t being particularly loud.
- The towels were literally threadbare:
- The hotel is located near a highway with loud noise all day and night.
- The bathroom in my room had no toilet paper holder, just a roll sitting on the bathroom counter.
- The phone in the room didn’t work. Why have a phone if it doesn’t work?
- There was only one wastebasket for the entire suite; at the very least the bathroom and kitchenette should both have had them.
- The blanket on the bed wasn’t a real blanket, just a fancy sheet, and there were no extra blankets in the room.
- The front desk clerk couldn’t be bothered to ask me how my stay was when I checked out.
It wasn’t all bad. A couple positives worth calling out:
- The bed and pillows were reasonably comfortable and the linens were clean.
- The overall condition of the property wasn’t terrible.
I booked this hotel through hotels.com, so I contacted them and told them I wanted a refund for two of my three nights: the first night, because the room should never have been rented to me in the condition it was in, and the third night, because I shouldn’t have to pay for the night after I asked them to clean out the disgusting drains and they didn’t do anything about them. Hotels.com offered me a refund for less than one night of my stay. I told them that was unacceptable. They said they would escalate and I would hear back from them within 72 hours. We’ll see how that goes.
I’ve also posted a review about this experience on Google, Yelp, and hotels.com.
Y’all should probably avoid this place.
