Stayed here and the lounge was so loud it woke us from a deep sleep. That's after we asked to have a quiet room! The owner wants to sell drinks rather than beds. I doubt many in the bar ran a tab equal to what we paid for the room. Add in dirty carpets and a generally trashed hotel and you get a dump. Go somewhere else.

I stayed at the Clarion Hotel in Yakima from August 26-29 because that's where the two-day seminar I was attending took was held. If I had to do it over again, I would have stayed at the Best Western across the street and just walked to the Clarion for the conference.

I'll begin with the positives. For starters, the food is pretty good. I was expecting terrible food to go with the terrible hotel, but the cooks do a pretty decent job. It's not going to win any awards, mind you, but for hotel food I'd put it at above average.

Second, the bar (Misty's Lounge) is almost always empty and the service there was great. Very friendly bartender/hostess, multiple tv screens, wide array of drink choices, and fair prices.

Third, the housekeeping service does a good job straightening up early in the day so things were back to clean by the time I returned to my room for lunch. That's about where the positives end.

Upon checking into my non-smoking room (as all rooms are in Washington State) I found at least a dozen cigarette burns on the carpet in my room. Since smoking was banned in the early 2000's here in WA, that means they haven't replaced the carpet in at least 10 years.

Water stains were evident in several places on the popcorn ceiling, and the beds were very heavily used. As in, there wasn't a lot of spring left. I was told by a local that this particular building had been swapped by hotel chains at least three times since it opened and that it was one of the older hotels in Yakima. That was quite evident by the exterior of the building.

The first night I decided to order room service, I found no guest services directory in my room. I called the front desk to ask them where it was usually kept and they said some rooms don't have them. I asked if they could have one sent to mine since I wanted to order food. The front desk said they weren't sure if they had any extras but there wasn't a room service menu in it anyway. I asked how they expect people to order room service if there's no menu in the guest directory. She said I could tell her what I wanted and she could find out if they make it. No kidding. That's actually what she told me. I told her never mind, that I'd come down to order in person.

Once I got down to the front desk and was able to read a menu, I was told I had to place my order in the lounge. Once I did that, I was told there would be a two-dollar service charge for the food delivery. I asked if that was cancelled out since I had to come down to order the food to begin with. After a few moments, the lounge hostess agreed that it wasn't fair to charge the fee since I had to come down myself and she took the charge off. That was very nice.

Two minutes after the food arrived (which, as I said above, wasn't half bad), a hotel employee arrived with a guest services directory they had scrounged up. Better late than never, I suppose. Oh, and when looking for an ice machine, I found one that was broken, two that were missing entirely and finally found a working one down on the main floor closest to the lobby. It was quite a hike from my room, and there was never any explanation as to why the others were broken and/or missing.

The next morning, having read in the guest services directory that there was complimentary coffee in the lobby, I came down to get some. Seeing none, I asked the front desk girl where I could find it and she directed me to the restaurant area. Once there, I asked for coffee and was given some...for $1.90. I told the waitress that I thought it was complimentary and she told me that was only for guests. I told her I was a guest and she told me that there were two different staff meetings that week, one instructing employees to provide free coffee to guests and another denying the free coffee since there is already coffee in the rooms. She had to call the front desk girl, who was literally thirty feet away, to find out which policy was currently being enacted. Fortunately for me, the "free coffee for guests only" policy was in play that day. I really wonder if the employee apathy has more to do with the management or the run-down facility.

Finally, to address my "death trap" comment in the title, When entering and exiting the building from the "G" entrance, you walk past a small chain link fence with privacy slats inserted between the links. On closer inspection, you'll find that they are hiding the industrial-sized dryer vents from one of the hotel's laundry rooms. Spilling out onto the ground surrounding the vents are inches upon inches of dryer lint caked onto the wall and ground. It looked as if the vents had never been cleaned. It also looked like one carelessly-tossed cigarette would ignite the entire thing, likely leading to an incredible loss of property and probably lives too. It's scary to think how neglectful this hotel is about its maintenance and its hospitality and would be better served by a bulldozer than by customers.

Without hesitation, I would never stay at this hotel again. There are half a dozen other hotels within a mile (most of which are equally bad or worse), but it would be worth the extra drive down the highway to stay in a much more reputable place. Avoid the Yakima Clarion at all costs.

This Clarion is a favorite for my wife and I. I guess one big reason is that it is a former Red Lion. Maybe its heyday was 30 years ago but the rooms are still big. The rooms are clean, the king bed is good with nice quilt and selection of pillows and the central air is quiet. The room refrigerator & microwave work well as does the free WiFi. The 23" tube TV is a bit dated and in truth, the building and grounds are showing their age. But in the summer when the Seattle weather isn't cooperating, the Clarion and its two pools are a nice economical getaway.

We paid $71 (including tax, AAA rate) for a nice, clean room with king size bed. Wifi worked perfectly. It is a big, sprawling place with a confusing layout, so make sure you get clear directions on which entrance to use. There's a pool, but we didn't use it. They do not include breakfast with the room because there is a full-service restaurant in the building (we went elseqhwew). Everything was fine by me.