Landed at Jacksonville late in the evening so wanted to stay close to the airport. Had stayed at others in the area and had not been pleased so decided to give this hotel a chance. Arrived at the hotel around 10 p.m. and assigned a room. Up to this time it was okay.

Upon arriving in our room, turned on the tv, it didn't work. Tried to call the desk, the phone didn't work. Upon checking to insure everything was plugged in, found food crumbs around the night stands (ick) so had not been vacuumed very well for a long time. There was food around the chairs, just not very pleasant. It appears it was just vacuumed in the walkways around the bed. Walked down to the office and told them of our problem, they gave us another room,which was better, but not great. The rooms, both, were in need of a good cleaning/vacuuming. The room was heavily spray with deodorizer which makes me think they do this to cover other odors.

The reviews of this hotel are all over the place. I now know why. It's all about expectations.

Compare this Wingate to a typical Days Inn, and you will be pleased.

Compare it to a Hampton Inn or Marriott Courtyard and you will be disappointed.

The pricing is aggressive at this hotel, so it's usually completely full. The breakfast is mediocre and the area extremely crowded. This would not be a problem if they made the coffee cups bigger, but they give you tiny 6-oz coffee cups so everyone goes back for coffee several times -- creating even bigger crowds. Hard to get a table between 7:00am and 10:00am.

Lots of kids on weekends. This hotel is used by all the youth travel sports teams. Often there will be soccer teams, hockey teams, baseball teams, etc all staying there at one time. It can get quite rowdy.

The rooms are clean, albeit old.

The towels are clean and plentiful, but thin.

Showers are fine -- as good as you can expect from this class of hotel.

The front desk staff is pleasant, although often harried.

Over all, a better choice than the Red Roof or Microtel, but not near the quality of Hampton or Marriott Courtyard.

This is a very nice hotel for the money. When they are offering their $62 rate, there is no point to staying anywhere else. We are Jaguars season ticket holders and stay at this hotel on Saturday nights before
home games. The rooms are nice and clean, the staff is professional and the location is great. The free continental breakfast is nothing special but adequate and better than many other motels.

We needed a room while traveling to Florida for vacation. The hotel is nice and clean. There are only a couple things that I would change. 1, Better Pillows: They give you three small soft pillows on a king bed. 2. Staff needs customer service skills: We told the desk clerk that our room, which we had just entered, the thermostat on the wall had no digital display and was not working. The reply was, "It has a motion sensor and will come on when you more around a bit." Of course, we humored him to find that it did not work, so we changed rooms with no problem. Later noticed a different clerk talking on the telephone in the back while the phone at the front desk continued to ring. Everything else about the hotel was good. I enjoyed the continental breakfast with eggs and sausage links. It also had a belgium waffle maker. We paid around $69 a night, which I thought was good for the hotel.

Pros: Good price for a nice hotel. Breakfast, and Very clean and updated. Has a small business room that you can use, and wifi internet for the rooms.

Cons: Poor customer service skills

Conclusion: I would of given it 5 stars if the staff had not been so poorly customer service oriented.