When I checked into the Super 8 in West Albuquerque NM, the front desk help was nice and courteous, the lobby looked nice, and the breakfast area looked nice too and large with lots of tables. The parking lot was pretty well lit. I told them we would take a room on the third floor, but he said the elevator was out so no rooms were available there, only on the 2nd floor.

When I walked into room 230 at the Super 8 in Albuquerque NM on Iliff RD on Dec 3, 2009, it looked great, we did notice the room across the hall had its door propped wide open with a chair and was drying out. I thought that was strange and maybe someone overflowed the tub. Then my daughter noticed water standing in the bathroom floor. I wiped it up and thought it was a bit strange there was water standing in the bathroom, but it wasn't much, so didn't think anything else. We also noticed the halls had a damp smell and needed vacuuming, not mildew but damp. So we thought it was all good on first inspection and hauled all our things in from the car thinking the room looked nice and clean.

After about 15 min, we took off our shoes and immediately groaned, oh no, our socks were ALL WET! I thought what the heck, and felt the carpet. The carpet was soaked from the front door to the bathroom, then all the way to the edge of the king size bed. At first I thought the room across the hall had flooded my room, so I went down and told the front desk that we needed to switch to a dry room, any room would do, even on the third floor. He very politely and courteously state they had had a pipe freeze and break on the 3rd floor the day before because the temp had gotten down to 19 degrees, and that was the reason the third floor was not in service, he also said there were no other dry rooms available. Later I noticed lots of other guests using the 3rd floor, oh well.

This explained why the hallway carpet was wet, and why the door was open to the other room and drying out, and why some of the ceiling tiles were missing in the hallway, and the slight mildew odor I was now smelling. They had had a mini-disaster in the hotel and had gotten the pipes fixed, but there was still lots of water damage now apparent.

I went back up to room 230 at the Super 8, and took 4 towels from the bathroom and started soaking up the carpet, thinking to myself, why is there always something wrong with a room. 4 towels were now wet. I grabbed the bathroom floor towel too, to use it, and it was already soaked? What the heck, the water must have been coming through the ceiling in the bathroom at one time to get it wet too. Now I was starting to get a bit miffed. Later I learned that what I should have done was gone down to the front desk and told them the room was unacceptable and checked out without staying there and went to another hotel, then I could have disputed the charge on my VISA. Well, live and learn.

I didn't have any more dry towels, I couldn't wear my socks or even slippers in the room, had to scootch around the wet towels and carpet. So I thought I would just sit in bed and use the Super 8 wireless on my laptop. Well, guess what, it would connect, but it didn't work well, and then stopped working. Big surprise there. I thought maybe the flood had knocked out the wireless, but I figured they just didn't know how to run a network. I didn't even bother calling the front desk after the non-help I had gotten before. I could see the Motel 76 wireless connection, and I connected to it just fine, and it was a very fast connection even though it was across two parking lots. I was thinking we should have stayed at the Motel 76 next door, maybe next time.

In the morning we had a decent breakfast, although the room was a mess, every table was dirty, I cleaned off my own table, the single garbage can was overflowing with garbage out onto the floor, they really could use 2 garbage cans in the breakfast area, the pam spray was all gone, so the waffles stuck really good to the waffle iron and were unedible, there was no bread left for toast. I asked for more pam spray and some more bread at the front desk and they got them for us. We were near the end of the breakfast time, but I think they could clean up the breakfast area and restock it a couple times during the morning so that it is nice for all the guests. Just because we were later doesn't mean it should be any less of a nice breakfast. If it had been clean and stocked I would rate it a 9 out of 10 breakfast because of the waffles ... yum.

During breakfast I decided I would ask for a discount at the front desk off of my room rate, I explained what happened and the morning staff person was super apologetic, she kept saying they didn't get you a dry room? I said no and I normally wouldn't ask for a refund but I don't think they should have rented us that room at all, if they would have been up front and told me it was flooded and the carpet was wet I would have not stayed here. She took my name and number and wrote it down and said to look at my credit card bill in a couple days. Well, a week passed and no credit, so I called VISA and asked to dispute the bill. VISA said that I should have not stayed in the room and gone to a different motel, then I could dispute the bill. So much for VISA, so I called the Super 8 and explained that I hadn't gotten a refund yet. They took my name and number and said they would get back to me. No one called for an hour and a half, so I called them back. i think they figured out I wasn't going to go away, so they offered to send me a coupon for another stay at this same Super 8 for $30 plus tax. I said fine, even though I was thinking a full cash refund or even 50% would be more appropriate. I'll let you know if I get the coupon or not.

I wish I could have given them a better rating, but they were inept at cleaning up the mess and should inspected every room after a minor disaster to see if the rooms were rentable or not.