Days Inn Athens, Athens

This was one of the worst Days Inn that I have ever stayed in. Real disappointment: Beds are glorified cots; no hot water the second day we were there. Instead of taking care of the LINE of complaining guests the owner who lives in Dayton spent his time yelling over the phone at the young man at the front desk. Do not stay in this hotel!!!

Shady and rude ownership. Of the hundreds of hotels I've stayed at over the years, this is the ONLY hotel I've encountered where the owner (not Days Inn) insists on making a photocopy of your drivers license to rent you a room! When asked why he needs a photocopy, what he's going to do with the information, and how he's going to protect it from ID theft you get a "because I said so" answer. This individual (again, not Days Inn -- it's not their policy) even went so far as to create a fake "flyer" that was supposedly stamped by the local police department stating the photocopy is mandatory per the police department. When I called the local police department to verify the "requirement" they stated they don't require any hotel to make a photocopy of a guests driver's license. At the local police department's request, the hotel staff faxed the "flyer" to them for verification. Even after receiving the flyer, the local police department refused to acknowledge they had any such requirement to make photocopies of guests drivers licenses and also denied the validity of the flyer that was supposedly stamped by one of their officers. You've got to ask yourself why would someone go to such lengths to retain your identification -- I find that shady at best. In the end, I refused to allow the hotel staff to photocopy my drivers license and they (specifically the owner) refused to rent me a room even though I provided valid ID and an accepted method of payment. He did however still charge me for the room. The owner was very rude about the whole situation and defiantly told me to "take it up with Days Inn Corporate." I have; and also with the credit card company. Had this "owner's policy" (again, it's not Days Inn's policy) been disclosed at the time the reservation was made, I simply would not have made the reservation and the whole situation would have been avoided. There simply isn't ANY valid reason for this man to make and keep a photocopy of a guest's driver's license. Finally, I concur with an earlier post that stated this hotel (really a motel) was out of the way and in the middle of nowhere. It really is. Even my navigation system couldn't find it. We ended up driving up and down the road for 5 minutes searching for it after the nav said we'd arrived. You can't see the place from the road and there's no signage to tell you it's there. The only reason we found it was because we started looking at building numbers to determine which way to go and we still had to guess it was down the road behind a stand of trees. If you're in town to visit OU, find another place to stay. You'll be much closer to campus and very happy you did.

Not big on amenities, but decent value for the price. My only major complaint is that my room smelled of Lysol. This hotel is more than six years old.... I stayed there in 1999 and it had been there for at least a year or two then. The staff was very friendly and helpful.

In Athens there are no cheap hotels but for the price this was a good stay, all other hotels were booked and I did not notice any smells, I had a non smoking room. Resturants are about 5 min up the road so it was nice. Bed was kind of small and hard but it was ok.