Got a room here one night as a last-minute "local getaway". This property has great rooms for the price. The prices listed on ChoiceHotels.com were not much more than the Super8 and Red Roof Inns. It would have been a great experience all around if it were not for the unpleasant "upsell" at check-in.

The rooms were decent sized - average or slightly larger than a typical Comfort Inn. Everything in the room was clean and there were NO maintenance issues that we encountered. The King Size bed was comfortable and the linens were fresh and clean. The room had no musty, dirty, or chemical odors. The flat-screen TV worked great. The mini-fridge was OK but should have been a little colder. The room had LOTS of electrical outlets (every light in the room including wall-mounted ones had outlets on them).

The bathroom included typical amenities and had a full bath tub. But the toilet seemed to flush slowly and always gave the impression that it was about to overflow. The curved shower rod provided plenty of space in the shower and the water temperature was good.

I was disappointed in the amount of noise we heard both from the room next door (they were talking in normal tones) and from the hallway. Common areas throughout the hotel seemed cleaned and vacuumed. The free breakfast was good and the dining area was clean (and sufficiently big that you didn't feel cramped as is the case with the occasional Comfort Inn).

Make sure you book the appropriate type of room ahead of time (smoking vs non-smoking) or be prepared to pay extra (more on that later).

The location is OK, not great - it is a few miles away from any of the major freeways. A few hundred yards away is a Golden Corral Buffet (a option for families because everyone can get what they want) and a local bar/grill (Fat Daddys). If you have a car, there are plenty of other dining options within a couple of miles and even more down the road at Crabtree Valley Mall.

We did have one issue that gives me pause on a reccomendation. When we checked in, we told that we would be in a smoking room since we booked through Hotwire. Yuck. The front-desk clerk "helpfully" suggested that for $8 more we could "upgrade" to non-smoking room. We grudgingly paid the $8 fee even though there were obviously lots of non-smoking rooms available (this property has 6 floors of rooms - 1 floor is smoking and the other 5 are non-smoking). And I'm a ChoicePrivileges loyalty member, to boot. Oh well - that is the chance you take with Hotwire or Priceline, right?. But while we were still in the check-in process, someone walked in off the street (an obvious smoker). He was quoted the standard price on the hotel's website for a non-smoking room and a HIGHER price for a smoking room. He paid the higher rate to get the smoking room after the dire warnings the clerk gave him about a $150 cleaning fee if he got caught smoking.

So we were charged a "reservation change fee" to get the non-smoking room we wanted and he was charged extra for the smoking room he wanted? I can see charging more for a room you are in short supply of, but charging an "upgrade" fee for both kinds of rooms? How do you have it both ways? There's something wrong with that.