I stayed at this hotel for almost $800 for three days and two nights for Austin City Limits. Do NOT stay here. Pay the extra money for another hotel. Our room smelled extremely funny, so bad I couldn't sleep. Plus, the sheets and comforter were DIRTY, gross! I had an opportunity to stay up the street for an additional $200 and didn't take it because I thought this was a better bargain. Boy, was I wrong.

Knock off another $40 and it would be okay. Incredibly noisy. Between the traffic and the rattle of suitcases echoing along concrete walkways I was hardly able to sleep. Also, my room had a hole above the bathtub where water was leaking from the upstairs bathroom.

They did switch my room, and the staff was curteous. Overall though, not a great place to stay.

The overwhelming memory of my stay is the overpowering air freshener smell in my room that lasted all three nights. I presume that it was to disguise the odor of an earlier smoking customer. The room layout is poor - the only window on the room is adjacent to the door so at night you can't leave the curtains open if you want privacy from every person walking along the exterior corridor.

The room was clean however and facilities worked ok. The inclusive breakfast was pretty poor on a few counts. The orange juice from an automatic dispenser was the worst OJ I can ever recall sampling. There was no real butter for the toast, only some sort of half-butter spread. In fact I didn't bother with their breakfast after the first morning - there is a cafe a couple of blocks away on Congress.

Location is convenient for downtown Austin.

Would I stay there again? Only after trying hard to find somewhere else.

The good: The La Quinta close to the capitol in Austin is in a great location, close to good restaurants, the capitol building (obviously), and great shopping. All of the employees I encountered were, without exception, friendly and helpful.

The bad: The first room I was put in was a motel-style room, meaning that the room opened onto a breezeway that was open to the elements-- and to the thousands of Texas-sized cricket-cockroach hybrid monster things that seem to congregate in Austin parking lots at night. Therefore, they were also in my room, waiting for me to lower my guard so that they could fly straight for my head, singing and clicking to each other from under the nightstand. There must have been at least 20 in my room. These things have big fat bodies and make a serious "thunk" when they hit your headboard.

I called down to the front desk around midnight, when I had decided I truly couldn't live with the uninvited roommates, and the woman at the front desk found me a room on the fourth floor-- and this is important-- in an ENCLOSED part of the hotel where the rooms opened onto hallways. This room was MUCH better-- despite the fact that it was freezing & I couldn't control the AC, the extra security lock on the door was broken off, and the shower faucet was installed upside down. I shoved some chairs up against the door for added security, huddled under the sheet and fell blissfully asleep after I confirmed that the bugs had not followed me in.

Cleanliness-wise, this hotel is not stellar, but it is cheap (I paid $114.50 for my room) and, as I said, very friendly. If you choose to stay here, make SURE you get one of the rooms with an entrance into a hallway, not onto a breezeway.