I was scheduled to stay in Columbia for two weeks for business in the surround area and thought I might give the La Quinta in the northeast portion of the city a shot. The service upon check in was decent; not what I would call gracious, but I had no real complaints. Because I finished up my work the day I arrived early I called and asked about the possibility of a early check-in. They told me I could stop by at 2 PM, as my room would be cleaned by then. My reservation was for a standard king bed room.

The La Quinta is located in what seems to be a rough part of town. I was told by a local I made chit chat with at a nearby restaurant that there were problems with gangs in the area, and I myself observed some unsavory types milling about here and there on the nearby highway. I was not what you call feeling threatened, more that I thought it best to be cautious. Plenty of restaurants, mostly that of the fast food variety, are located within a half mile, and a few grocery stores are also nearby.

My room was fine, I'd call it medium in scale, and had an arrangement typical to what I've encountered in many business oriented places of lodging. The king bed was very comfortable, not a pillow top of anything along those lines, but I was still able to get a good nights sleep with relative ease. Before checking in I had read some complaints here about train noise. During the length of my stay I only heard one rumble past (with horn) twice, and it happened around 9-10 PM, and never after. It was a distraction, but only a brief one, and not something I would term a deal breaker in my considering providing a recommendation for a friend or colleague to choose the hotel.

The only complaints I had, and these are not what I could call minor, was that the wireless internet service was incredibly slow. I stayed long enough to know that it wasn't an issue of too many people trying to use it, or that someone was hogging the bandwidth. My guess is that they have a low-quality DSL connection feeding the entire place. In my work I need reliability in having access to the web and to my e-mail, so this became a very annoying burden. The other complaint I have is that the walls seem to be very thin, and/or contain insufficient insulation. There was a very rowdy bunch of people (18-25) occupying the rooms across and down the hall from mine, and on some occasions during their stay (which was 3-4 days) I would hear extremely vulgar language being yelled between the various individuals, them show a complete disregard for the other, regular people who had to be up early in the morning. Of this I cannot completely fault the staff of the hotel, but it does clearly indicate to me that you are taking your chances in who your fellow guest may be, and your room may provide you with almost no sonic protection from medium to loud hallway noise.

The free breakfast is wholly so-so, but in many ways typical of what I've found at most business class establishments (Holiday Inn Express, Comfort Inn, La Quinta) where it feels very cheap. Of course, I know what a continental breakfast entails, but still I do not appreciate a very limited selection of basic items (cereals, breads), and watered down juice just does not do it for me. One sip of the apple and I chucked it in the trash.

Overall, I'd say the place has clear pros and cons. If you don't need the internet or are planning to stay up late anyway, it will be a fine place for you. But if you expect or would prefer a business class hotel that still tries to make things a little more comfortable than that of the status quo, I'd say that you're best bet is to keep searching.