When I went to the main hotel desk for check-in, the customer service person had a pierced nose with a stud in it. That was an ominous beginning to our stay at the Radisson Hotel Clearwater Central. We were told to park in the rear and come through the breezeway to get to our room. The door to the hotel laundry (where housekeeping washes the linen) was also in the same breezeway. Looking inside as we passed by the door, my wife was amazed that the washing machine hadn't broken as a result of all the laundry they had managed stuff into the washer (she could see through the glass window of the upright washer that the laundry seem to be struggling to just turn around one complete circle). We then wondered if the laundry could really get clean under those conditions.
When we opened our room door, it was disappointing to see the dingy carpet, insects flying around, and the desk and armoire that had areas where the paint had chipped off. I turned around to put the security latch on the door but it was broken. The room was very warm so we cut the thermostat down to the lowest setting (about 60 degrees) and waited and waited and waited for the temperature in the room to go down . but it never did. The thermostat must have been a special order model because it was the first thermostat I have seen that did not have an indicator to tell you the actual temperature in the room. Out of curiosity, the next morning (after running on the maximum cooling overnight) I went over to Target and bought a digital thermometer to see what we had endured - 80.7 degrees was the reading.
The bathroom was very small and the tub had stains in it. But that went along with the missing part of a tile in the suspended ceiling over the sink and the stained ironing board and iron. In all fairness to the hotel, the housekeeping staff put forth a good effort to provide a relatively clean looking room with what was available for them to work with. The beds looked nice as was the pictures on the wall. But all in all, the room just simply looked like something I would expect to see in a Motel 6 hotel. I would not recommend this hotel to my friends . or enemies.
The only bright spot was that the Radisson had inexplicably left a notice on the desk that said if there was a problem with the room that they could not make right; the customer would not have to pay for it. The hotel told us (after we requested another room and told them of the problems with our present room) that there were no other rooms available. I was, at first, skeptical of this statement since the parking lot was no where close to being full. However, since ultimately after speaking with Orbitz (that had made the arrangements) we did not have to pay for that night (or should I say nightmare), we called it just a lesson learned. What was the lesson? Don't ever book a room with a Radisson anywhere and at any time.
The next day we checked into the Marriott Fairfield Inn just a few blocks away and were just happy to get into a hotel that was amazingly better than the Radisson for just a few dollars more. No stained tub, iron, ironing board, or carpet. No malfunctioning air conditioner or security door latch. No front desk personnel with studs in the nose and no insects.