Over Thanksgiving I stopped at the Comfort Inn North halfway through my trip. It was conveniently located off I-64. The outside was clean and the front desk staff were friendly. However, once I entered the room, I realized choosing this motel was a mistake. There was pet hair on the floor. The bathroom mirror was smeared with what appeared to be shaving cream, and the toilet seat was dirty. I tried to turn on three lights before finally finding one that worked. I turned down the bedding and there was hair on the sheets. I turned around and walked back to the front desk for a refund. I would not advise staying here for any reason. I drove about 10 miles further into Evansville and stayed at the Drury Inn, which was spotless.

Conveniently located off the highway north of the city of Evansville. Personally, I have stayed here before when it was new years ago. The staff was very friendly both at night and in the morning. My room was clean. That being said, the common areas were decidedly NOT clean. The elevator walls were very dirty from the numerous contractors who leaned against the walls in their muddy clothes. The decorations on the walls were frayed and worn and I was nervous about my room but it turned out to be ok. Surely in the mid-economy class and the price was reasonable. Breakfast quality was sub-par for this level of motel. Sleeping was near impossible with the drunken low-life guy yelling at his girl at 1 am. Not the motel fault but most decidedly a rough crowd. Not the usual quality of a Comfort Inn.

We decided to stay in Evansville during a trip from TN to Chicago and selected this Comfort Inn due to the reputation of Comfort Inns. I called their reservations office several hours in advance and was confirmed a king smoking room. The call was made from a pay phone very near a Sleep Inn. Too bad we didn't opt for the Sleep Inn. I chose the Comfort Inn rather than the Quality that was located next door. Another mistake. We arrived and were given room 103, a smoking room for the handicapped. The first thing we noticed was that there was no coffee maker nor hair dryer, even though the directory stated that they were in all rooms. We called the desk and the clerk said she would bring a coffee maker to the room. A couple of hours later (after dinner, etc.) we went to the desk and picked up the coffee maker as the single clerk was very busy. Then, we noticed some more problems with the room and, the more we looked, the longer the list became. In addition to the lack of coffee maker and hair dryer, the bedside table had a thick layer of dust. There was 1/4 roll of toilet paper with no extra roll. There was garbage in the waste basket as well as garbage inside of the laundry bag thrown on top of the clothes rack. There was no clean bag. There was a microwave but no electric outlet in the area (How could a handicapped person be expected to possibly use this?). There was no bulb in the corner floor lamp and the shade was in pieces. There was no bulb in the wall lamp above the TV set. There was Scotch tape on the TV screen and a thumb tack in the lamp shade above the TV. The walls in the bathroom were filthy with some globby substance on them. Also, the floor tiles were dirty. There was dirt on the rug, the blanket binding was frayed, there was a hole in the sheet, the handicap shower attachment was missing, there was peeling wallpaper in both bedroom and bathroom and the seal on the right hand outside window was broken so the window had a thick white inner coating and you could not see out of it. As this was now late at night and there was a single overworked clerk on duty, we decided to wait until morning to make our complaints. In the morning we spoke with a gentlemen whose business card said "General Manager" and he finally agreed that there would be no charge for the room and that our 8,000 points used for the booking would be refunded. He would work with "central reservations" to have that done. He said that the room should never have been rented and a family with four children had been staying in the room for a month and had checked out that morning. Two hours had been used to clean the room. It should have been two DAYS! He showed us three other room that were clean and quite nice to prove that all the rooms were not like room 103. He gave us his card with the notation "no charge". After returning home I found that the points had not been refunded as promised and filed a complaint with Choice Hotels International. Some two weeks later we received a letter from the manager of the hotel, not the person to whom we had spoken as he was the "General Manager" of Sales and apparently had no authority to grant a refund. The manager's letter stated "Had we known that you were not pleased with your room, we would have corrected any problem areas right away." (In our case, this would not have been possible as we had the very last smoking room in the hotel.) This, I found out, is the official Comfort Inn "satisfaction guarantee" policy. The manager said that the points would NOT be refunded and offered a $10.00 discount on our next stay in that hotel. NO WAY! The policy of Choice Hotels International is to defer to the local hotel's decision as they are independently owned. The policy printed in the Choice Hotels International directory is quite vague and leaves the local hotel completely in charge of what compensation, if any, a dissatisfied guest may receive.

In addition to the above room-specific items, it should be mentioned that the towel and wash cloth had black stains like they had been used for polishing shoes. Also, instructions for using the wireless internet were vague and the connection, when established, was intermittent.

The comfort of the bed and the breakfast were OK.

Pardon my long post, but I believe all the details should be given for this much less-than-satisfactory hotel stay.