The receptionists were young, immature and unprofessional, at least the ones that were there in the evening. I met the owner and he was nice.
Rooms were clean and although out-of-date I was comfortable and the pillows were good.
Overall I can see corners being cut and it not being the kind of experience that would keep me coming back to them when there are other options.
I wanted to use the hotel's computer one night and it was unplugged with no Internet.
The receptionist made no attempt to help but said, "my manager unplugged it".
For $80 a night I would not expect that kind of service.

Look around before you stay here.

Good location, comfortable bed, good price, clean.

I've stayed at the Aiken Sleep Inn for the past 5 years and was sorely disappointed on my latest visit, in July, 2011.

It seems as though the management is cutting corners. Front desk service is helpful and friendly as long as the owner/manager isn't there. He's a taciturn guy, not at all pro-actively helpful and certainly not welcoming. The staff, while still pleasant and efficient, has turned over in the past year; I didn't see one familiar face.

All the niceities that made the Sleep Inn special seem to have taken a nosedive. No more cookies, the "orange juice" from the dispenser in the dining room is truly rank - tastes nothing like orange, fewer options at breakfast, and though the entire hotel is supposed to be non-smoking, it was obvious that someone had been lighting up on the 3rd floor.

So sorry to see this place go downhill!

I first stayed in this Sleep Inn in 2001 for a Conference. I was so impressed with how clean, welcoming, affordable, and well-staffed it was, that I began what has been a 10-year history of staying with them, usually twice a year, whenever my husband and I travel to Aiken. We live an hour away, and we like to bring our bicycles and ride in the Aiken countryside when we stay.

Also, every year, a relative of mine travels south from Philadelphia, and we spend close to a week at the hotel, catching up, visiting the restaurants, and enjoying the city of Aiken. She has often commented how wonderful it is to find a hotel that offers so many extras to make its guests feel special -- especially for the price.

Sadly, we have noticed that the rate of attrition has accelerated in the past 5 years. However, since we usually like to focus on the positive, we decided to overlook some of the changes. Especially as we know that it is expensive to keep hotels up these days without raising the price too steeply.

However, our most recent visit will probably be our last. The hot cookies that were once out on display by the front desk are long gone, as are the little bags of pretzels and snacks. We used to have access to water from the front desk, which also disappeared several years ago. The breakfast bar went from being something we enjoyed in the mornings before our bikerides -- to one which we now avoid because of the inferior food and lack of options.

Almost all of the regular staff (including our favorite, "Miss Betty") has left this past year, which told us a great deal about the "new management." Those staff members who were there, while very kind to us, but they seemed very subdued with their heads down and very few smiles. We were told that the new management took over last August. It is not quite a year since this change -- and this may be one of our worst stays we've had anywhere this year.

Again, all of these can definitely be overlooked. However, this year we met the manager that was referred to in another review as: "...lazy and rude. He doesn't care about his guests, or guest compaints," and we felt exactly the same way! And we are not high maintenance guests. We learned to avoid asking him almost anything because of his short and rude responses.

The final blow was the shower I took the second night of our stay. The water temperature had obviously been turned down so that the water never really got warm enough to stand directly under the water during the shower! This is ridiculous and totally unnecessary.

Fortunately, after reading the review about the vandalism, we didn't encounter any problems in that regard.

We are sorry to take our business elsewhere, but unfortunately, that is the route we've decided to take.

We hope the company pursues our complaints -- and those of some of the other reviewers on this site. It is sad to see yet another American business lose its "class" because of a lack of care and to save a few dollars.