The Good:
The people who work there are truly friendly and worked immediately to handle concerns. The Breakfast --which is advertised as a buffet style breakfast-- was really a typical continental style breakfast with a few extras. The extras were nice though. They included to hot breakfast items that were different each day. These items --while I stayed-- were sausage and omelets, ham and eggs, and sausage patties with biscuits and gravy. Each item was cooked to perfection and would make any southerner proud. The neighborhood was also great. Just a couple blocks from 5 points which is where all the fun is.
The Bad:
I hate to report bad but the stuff I list below is so serious that I would be doing wrong by not reporting it.
The day we arrived the elevators were not operating because they caught on fire. Naturally our room --thankfully only 3 floors up-- smelled like fire. Our rooms television was broken, but not replaced. They just hooked up a smaller television next to it. We could not get it to work either. The hotel staff showed us that both TVs had to be on for the small TV to show us a picture. Our room was not what we requested either. We ordered --and I may add, payed for-- a suite with two bedrooms. We specifically requested one bedroom with a single bed and one bedroom with two beds in it. We got two single-bed bedrooms. One of us had to sleep on the tiny couch that night. The hotel was so overbooked that they could not move our room that night. The furniture looked chewed on and torn. The metal in the bathrooms was rusty and painted over. The rust was actually coming through the paint. The bathtubs were worn and showed age strongly. The shower walls have started peeling from the wall behind them and the ceilings plater show signs of leakage from above and mold. When we finally moved to the better room on floor five, all the same problems existed. Except that the TV worked how you would expect, and we finally got the bedroom arrangement we wanted. Might I add that the pictures from the hotel's website misled us into thinking that the TV's were nice. They 24 inch CRTs.
This hotel needs a huge makeover before they should even be called 3 star.
If I had to rate with stars I would give it 2.5 at best. Might I add that they charged like a 4.5 star hotel. Some would argue that it great location makes it better. But lets be reasonable, this is Columbia, SC. Other than the bars at 5 Points and the state college there is absolutely no draw to this city. You could get this kind of attractions in a small college town across the country and not have to pay out of the nose for it.