The room itself was ok, it’s spacious and relatively clean although we did find stains on the bedsheets and some hairs next to the coffee pot. It’s in the middle of nowhere and only convenient if you’re just making a quick stop before a flight or before driving.
The night employee that welcomed us on the 26th of June was nice and he allowed us to have a 2pm checkout because I’m an IHG member. However the next day, on the 27th, as we added one more night, the afternoon staff, a man and a woman, made us extremely uncomfortable and we honestly did not feel welcomed at all. They called and made it sound like it was an emergency for us to come downstairs and check-out in order to check-in again. I asked to come later in the afternoon as I needed to rest and I wasn’t feeling well, however he insisted that they could not let us stay in the room if we didn’t come downstairs again, even though we already paid for the next night. I asked for 30 minutes and he kept saying it had to be done urgently. My friend went downstairs and they asked for MY passport, even though they had already made a copy the night before. I sent it to him, they said I have to come downstairs. I did, and they were behaving like robots, no understanding, no empathy, no politeness whatsoever. Just rules they needed to apply without even letting me talk. They said they needed a credit card for a new deposit, so my friend said ok, however they wanted to see his passport (even though he also gave it the night before). The credit card was still in the room, and they had deactivated our room keys, so instead of giving us an updated key, they made him go upstairs to the room, while an employee was watching him. My friend felt extremely uncomfortable as he was being treated like a thief. And when the employee came back downstairs, he made it sound like my friend had gone back inside the room and stayed there, instead of simply telling me that my friend was just getting his credit card to come back downstairs. All this fuss while we had already paid for the room, and they were being so weird on top of it all. It’s the first time we experienced anything like that in an IHG hotel, or any hotel for that matter. I get that you’re just following protocol but can you do it while staying human and polite please? Do you realize how it feels to be treated this way as a black person in the US, and in this context? We don’t feel safe and we don’t feel welcome, thanks for ruining our trip.
