Our stay at the Day’s Inn in Gainesville, TX was much less than an “enjoyable hotel experience”. We stayed in the hotel for three nights. When we first entered the room, the bathroom floor was quite dirty. It looked like there had been work done on the ceiling and nobody had cleaned it after the work was completed. The hotel staff stated that there had not been work done but in any case, the floor definitely needed a cleaning. The first day the two of us took four showers total, only one of which had hot water. No matter how long the shower was run for, it never got more than slightly warm. If the shower water was left off for a couple of hours, dark brown “gunk” would come from the faucet for a few seconds when first turned on. The inside safety lock on the front door was missing.

The second day, we were given a new room. The water was warmer in this room but the brown gunk still came out of the shower faucet when first turned on. The sink drain leaked all over the floor. The maintenance man did fix it (temporarily – but that was good enough for us). The following day, nobody came to clean the room. I did not have a Do Not Disturb sign on the door as there was not one in the room. I was in the room all day so I know nobody came to clean. At 2:00 PM, I called the desk to ask if somebody could come to clean the room and also to fix the broken toilet which no longer flushed. I was told it would be taken care of.
At 3:15, I called again and talked to a different front desk clerk who knew nothing of this. I was told that it was now too late for cleaning but I could change rooms (again). In addition I was told that the maintenance man would be sent up to take care of the broken toilet. I was also told that I could move any time later as I wanted to wait for my girl friend to get back so we could move everything together.
I left later and when we returned, the maintenance man had never fixed the toilet.
We were also told that the hotel was full and we could not move. The room had not been saved for us as had been promised. We complained and were offered a $3.00 discount on the room – not reasonable. We were told that they could not hold the room as we had waited to long to move (even though we were earlier advised that we could move anytime that night). They said that the hotel was full and if they had saved a room for us, then they would be out two rooms. This of course presents the question that if we had moved earlier, how they would have cleaned the room for another guest since we had been told that it was too late for house cleaning. There seems to be a question as to the accuracy of their reason for not saving the room for us!
We were given more towels as most of the ones we had were on the bathroom floor to try to dry up the previous water leak; the bathroom was really a mess.

The desk clerk told us that the hotel was going to be remodeled. From the outside, it looks pretty nice. Once inside the lobby, you can tell that it is very old. The clerk said that they were upgrading the mirrors in the rooms. I don’t think that will help much. The hotel needs basics fixed first, like the plumbing. New carpets wouldn’t hurt either.

Upon checkout, we asked to speak to the manager but she was unavailable at the time and the clerk was not authorized to give us a discount for the poor service of any amount we felt was reasonable. I said I would like to e-mail a list of the problems encountered. The clerk gave me her e-mail address and said she would forward it to the manager as she did not know her e-mail address and the hotel does not have a direct Internet address. The next day I sent an e-mail as promised to the clerk. It came back as undeliverable – several times. I then called the hotel asking for the manager who was not available, again. I left messages but she never returned my calls. I was eventually given the manager’s e-mail address and I sent the letter to her. It also came back as undeliverable. I called the hotel again and this time I was told to fax my letter, which I did. When I called to see if the manager had received it, I was told that the fax machine had a problem and it was unreadable. I finally called when the manager happened to answer the phone and she gave me her correct e-mail address. This time she did get it and did read it. She did not return my request to discuss the matter. I continued to call the hotel for several days until I was finally able to speak to the manager. I said we needed to discuss the matter. She said she was “not ready” to discuss it yet as she needed to call the corporate office to discuss the rate I was given, which she thought was already a discount rate. This was not true and I did not book the hotel stay through the corporate office; I had contacted the hotel directly to make the reservations. Nevertheless, I waited a few days and did not hear from her. I tried to contact her with no success so I called the corporate office. After listening to my story, they contacted the manager who apparently told them a different story. She stated that the room was not cleaned because I had a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door – very difficult for me to have done since I did not have the sign and in fact, had requested that I be given one, but never was. I also was in the room all day so I know nobody came. She also told the corporate office that the toilet had been fixed – again, not true. The corporate office offered a 50% return on one day’s stay. They said the reason is that if I felt the stay was truly so bad, I would have moved out after the first night. This would be true except that we were offered a change of room each night, with the hope that it would be better. Of course, we never got the third change of rooms.

I think my biggest complaint is that the manager didn’t wish to even discuss it with me and lied to the corporate office about the items of concern. One of the biggest problems in the business world is lack of communication – such as not returning phone calls and this hotel certainly suffers from that. I would not ever recommend this hotel to anybody. I travel a lot for my work and have stayed in hotels all over the world. Some of my stays have been better than others and some of the hotels I have been in have been pretty bad, but I can’t ever remember a hotel with such poor maintenance or lack of interest in their guests as this one. They certainly don’t exist on return customers. The corporate office wasn’t overly concerned about the events either.