Travelodge Novato Hotel - Page 1

The room was clean and comfortable. The housekeeping staff did a good job. The breakfast buffet was ample and the area was clean and neat. The staff was friendly and helpful.

My room was a little bit noisy.

This place is far away from anything in Novato, but if you just need to spend the night before the NASCAR races it will work. Would not bring my family here to stay.

I booked a room for two nights thought the Travelodge website and requested a ground floor, non-smoking room.

When I arrived, the receptionist rudely informed me that on-line reservations were not valid and they only had second floor rooms. The rate they charged was higher than what the Travelodge site claimed it would be, even though I had the printed reservation form from the Travelodge site, they would not honor the rate.

When I went to the room it had not been cleaned yet! There were food containers on the floor and dresser, the bed was unmade, and the coffee maker was still on. I returned to the front desk to request a different room and they insisted the room was fine. Only once I had one of them accompany me to the room to see it for themselves did they assign another room to me. That room had at least been cleaned, if you could call it that, but smelled horrible (as other reviewers have noted), the carpet did not appear to have been vacuumed, etc.

As I was returning to the front desk again, I noted that the Novato police were patrolling the parking lot and there seemed to be some unsavory people hanging around near the far end of the hotel. I'd seen enough!

I drove a few exits down 101 to Inn Marin and was able to get a room there with no difficulty since they had a cancellation. See my review of that motel for more details, but in short, Inn Marin understands customer service and provide a clean, safe place to stay that is not much more expensive than the frightening hell that is the Novato Travelodge.

After I had secured a room at Inn Marin, I returned to the Novato Travelodge to make sure that they had not charged me. The desk clerk insisted that there was no way to reverse the charges on my credit card. I asked to the manager and was told he would be in at midnight. I asked for his business card and was given a generic hotel card. I called the Travelodge complaint desk from my cell phone while I was still at the front desk and they informed me that I needed to have the hotel I was staying at solve the problem. I told the clerk this and she just stared at me. At this point I just had to laugh - how do they even stay in business?

The bottom line: I wouldn't spend a night in that hotel if you paid me $1000 to do it! The only good thing that can be said about the place is that it could make a good set for a "Fear Factor" episode.

The office smelled of smoke, the attendant was unprofessional, and they charged us more than the reservations stated.

The room was next to another being renovated, the loud work persisted until late and started early the next morning. There was wet paint slopped outside our room. The room supposed to be "non-smoking", but smelled of smoke. The dim yellow lights didn't always work when you flipped on the switch. The shower dripped and kept everything wet including the floor outside it. I found what looked like tiny little feces in the bed. Avoid this hotel.

Three co-workers and I stayed at this hotel for four days on a recent business trip. Despite calling and verifying that the hotel had high-speed Internet before booking the reservations, we spent the entire time at the hotel without any Internet access.

Also, the service was pathetic. Upon arrival, our reservations were messed up. During the stay, they wouldn't even let me pay them to mail two postcards to my family back home.

We originally booked four days, but after experiencing traffic on the Interstate, we realized that we would be better off getting a hotel closer to the airport the night before our departure. Before noon the day prior to our scheduled checkout at the Novato Travelodge, we requested to check-out a day early so we could book a hotel reservation closer to the SFO airport. Because checkout was at 11:00, we were not allowed to cancel our reservation. Because of this, we were forced to wake at 4:00 am to begin our drive back to SFO to catch our flight.

The only satisfaction that we have received out of this hotel stay is that our company will be paying for six employees to stay in Novato for business over the next eight months, and that a different hotel will receive our business. The few hundred dollars that they squeezed out of us on this trip is nothing compared to the thousands of dollars they will miss out on over the next several months.

I have stayed at hotels all across the country, and this was one of my worst hotel experiences ever. Avoid this place like the plague!