I've stayed in a lot of hotels in NC and SC and frankly this was the worst.
First impressions were OK. It's kind of hidden away from the road though, parking was fine and there are plenty of "fast food" restaurants very nearby.
Service on the front desk was very good - I'm afraid I don't remember the mature gentleman's name, Jim? But he was truly helpful and friendly - definitely the best thing about the place!
The first problem we (me and my fiancee) had was that there was an iron and ironing board spaced shape in the cupboard, but neither item was there... Jim (I'll call him that) was duly contacted and sent one of his boys scurrying around the vacant rooms to locate both with no promise of finding either, despite both being advertised as included in the room and a pretty basic amenity. An ironing board and iron were duly found by a young staff member with the rather worrying comment that "the rooms in this corridor have been playing loud music, let us know if they do it again". As it happened, this would be the least of our worries! (read on)....
The iron duly leaked over my fiancees clothes, though by her own admission she may have over filled it. We'll call that a neutral! I was more perplexed by a huge cupboard in the corner of the room. I was sure I'd find our missing ironing board and iron and possibly Lord Lucan in the cavernous contraption but the long metal front refused to open. I then noticed a small button console on the side - it was the air conditioning! I cannot BEGIN to describe the sound this thing made when turned on! If you have travelled on a large passenger jetliner you know the sound the jet engines make - it was kind of like that. The next room could have been playing Eminem at 10000 decibels and we'd have been none the wiser while our air-con was on.... Now THAT didn't bother us as it was like a constant drone which made us feel kind of sleepy.
HOWEVER. Firstly the A/C made barely any difference to the room temperature and secondly, when the night temperature actually dropped to 60 degrees (the lowest default temp. on the beast in the corner) the thing FINALLY reached it's set temperature and....switched off! Of course then the temperature raised by 1 or 2 degrees and the thing would fire up it's Boeing 747 engines again...and switch off...and on...etc.
The other thing that struck me about the place was the pool. Forget it!
We were there in June and it was hot! We both like swimming. It has a pool! Yay! No!!! We eagerly escaped the A/C roar to take a dip in the hotel's pool. Now I can stand a few leaves floating in the pool, but trash and cigarette butts are too much. Jim was duly called and expressed similar disgust, with the promise that the pool cleaner would try and get there tonight but he's usually in first thing in the morning otherwise.
We went out to the pool the next day and the same trash and cigarette butts were floating in the pool. I've never seen this in a hotel before and it's really not acceptable.
I think I made a rash decision with choosing this hotel. For the same money I'm sure I could have got somewhere in the same locale with a fridge and microwave, a clean pool and normal air conditioning!
I would certainly never go back as long as there are other hotels to try in the area! I rated this hotel terrible as they advertise a pool which is unusable and the air-con (in our room) was like nothing I've ever seen, even in a cheap flea-pit! . Jim was a star amongst it all...
