Having done many travels, and needed a room, I've become fond of Motel 6. So I looked online for one close by. Found one. Kinda close. Motel 6 East, down town Chattanooga. right off 24, and about 15 minutes (supposedly) away from where I needed to be. I made the reservation online.
This would be at I-24 West at US 11/Broad Street, Exit #178, 2440 Williams Street in Chattanooga.
Amenities include:
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So as we start to unpack, we notice this room literally the bare essentials. A counter for placing belongings, a small cabinet/closet that's about 7 feet tall, with an angled top where an old model 25 inch TV sets on top for our viewing pleasure of the "Free Expanded Cable". From that corner another counter top about 3 feet tall by roughly 6 feet long runs along the window sill and is over the standard air/heating unit. Not bad usage of the space, but this isn't fairly braced, of where I'm sure people will commonly sit.
The bed itself was a queen size bed. No headboard. Just mirrors on the wall, and the two fluorescent lights directly above it, WITH THE LIGHT SWITCHES BEHIND THE PILLOWS. I capitalize this because it's literally RIGHT THERE! I see immediately that this will be a problem...
Mounted shelving/countertops on either side of the bed for night stands. Complete with bible and phone book. Not too bad.
So, I step in to the bathroom, notice 2 of the standard "complimentary" bars of Motel 6 soap. One on the bathroom counter, one on the bath tub. That's it. No Shampoo/Conditioner. No hairdryer. No Iron to iron your dress clothes. Towels, rags and floor towel for wiping your feet. The light switch consists of a plate with 2 switches and an electrical outlet, in which the place is cracked. I discovered later as I unplugged my phone charger that the place was rather loose and the plate and socket will indeed come out if you're not careful. Yeah, no electrical hazard there...Oh, and the second light switch didn't work. Could have just been a blown bulb or it may have operated something down the hall. I'll never know.
Anyway, we unpack our few belongings, and I step out to grab my drink from the truck and ask for a couple extra pillows. Within 5 minutes, Housekeeping has knocked on the door with 2 pillows for us. Thank you, very fast and courteous.
We unwind for a little while, do some reading, check emails on our phones using our data plans since of the 5 Motel 6 Wi-Fi connections, we couldn't connect to any...at this point, I recalled reading something somewhere about it costing 3 dollars a day for Wi-fi (and yes, it was pertaining to another Motel 6 location, I looked at but at this point I didn't recall...). I also want to note at this time that the even numbers (example: our room was #112) are on the right side, which faces the main busy street. So, we were succumbed to listening to traffic running up the street all day and night. If you're a light sleeper I strongly advise asking for an odd numbered room to avoid this. Also we had a pretty creepy noise from the wind whipping around the building going on.
Later, we decided to go visit the down town area and the Chattanooga Choo-Choo for a bit before on to the memorial service. Conveniently we were only about 5 minutes from our destination, so it didn't take long to get there.
After the memorial service and dinner, we retired back to our room. Pulling in to the parking lot it was a bit fuller, so evidently they'd done some business while we were out. (On a side note, this doesn't seem like a really safe and secure location of town, so be sure not to leave any valuables in your vehicle as they have signs in the parking lot saying guests are responsible for their own vehicles.) We follow another couple in, which smelled very strongly of a pot smell, and only added to the rough smells of the hotel. I noticed at that point, a very nice, large, flat screen TV mounted on the wall directly across from the front desk, and a very portly man sitting behind the counter watching. Meanwhile, the ancient 25 inch TV sits on top of the angled closet looking like it's going to fall at some point...I really hope this thing was secured.
As we're getting ready to crash for the evening, my wife needs Kleenex. None in the room. She calls room service and asks if they have any. No. Don't most rooms have at least some generic Kleenex in them?? Anyway, no go there...
We've unwound and relaxed a bit, now time for bed. We drift off to sleep, me finally with having to fight the sounds of traffic on the street outside, and the occasional voices. At some point during the night, my wife, and myself in rolling over managed to turn the lights on no less than 3 times (remember me complaining earlier about the light switches being mounted at the head of the bed??) in which caused a very rude awakening with the lights being beamed directly down on us...yeah, not so fun.
I wake up rather early in the morning, in which I do every morning...yeah that part sucks sometimes...but I decide I'm going to take a shower while the wife sleeps. Fortunately I always pack extra toiletries so I can make sure I have enough soap and shampoo. I get in the shower, notice that the shower head is actually taller than me, THANK GOD!! That's one thing I hate about a lot of hotels is that the shower head is usually just about my chin or chest level. Apparently I'm a giant among hotel stayers...but back to the story. I look at the shower head and notice it could REALLY use a good cleaning. In the process I notice it's also a bit loose. I turn the water on and let it warm up, pull the shower plug and step back so I don't get that icy cold blast of water. Almost instantly it's good hot water! And very nice water pressure. I enjoy a nice long hot shower, and I will say at this point there were no temperature changes from searing hot to icy cold and back again. A good solid temperature all the way through, and great water pressure! One of the nicer showers I've taken in a hotel! Top marks for that!
I get out and dry off, and get dressed. I turned on the TV, if anything just to have a little background noise while packing and all. I didn't do a lot of channel surfing but I didn't find anything local to check news or weather in the 10 or so channels I looked at. So I turned it back off. I wake the wife, she dresses and we pack up our belongings and check out. I've had my 'complimentary coffee', which was lukewarm, although a decent flavor, and now I'm starving. At this point I'd even welcome a continental breakfast of breads and cold cereal, but nothing there. Nobody there to see us off. Just drop the card in the basket and out you go. Off to find food.
So, all in all, this is a tough one to rate for me. If I were there to actually visit the down town attractions, I'd say this place was a very convenient stop for me and could be worth the cost of stay. But we weren't. I also note that the price seemed to be a bit higher for the particular weekend I stayed than another weekend I looked at so I could gather info from the site...maybe something was happening in town that weekend I wasn't aware of? Maybe the cost goes up if you reserve the same day? I don't know. I didn't feel like this was a very safe place, mainly due to the neighborhood. I really enjoyed the shower, and the bed was pretty comfortable, albeit the issue with the light switches in a BAD location. I didn't really have enough interaction with the staff to say if they were friendly or not, although I will say they certainly didn't go out of their way to talk to us or be courteous. There is a machine in their 'vending area' that sells toiletries, but you'll pay about 200% more for the little tiny bottles than you would if you just swing by a store on the way.
All in all, I'm going to say this gets 2.5 out of 5 hammers. I'm really torn because the shower was so good...but the rest just brings it down.
I don't know that I'd recommend this particular Motel 6 to anyone unless you're literally pulling in to crash and leave as soon as you wake up...definitely not one of the better Motel 6 hotels...and I most likely won't go back to this one.
Till next time,
Thank you drive through.
