Days Inn Watertown, Watertown

I booked reservations to this motel on July 13th for a stay on July 29th. We requested a room on the first floor due to the amount of heavy luggage we brought with us. The people in front of us in line were given a first floor room, they just pulled in off the interstate, no reservations. My request for a first floor room was denied. I was told the day shift allocated the first floor rooms based on their reservations. I said that I made my request on July 13th. It made no difference. In the morning when I complained again about the 2nd floor room, I was told no first floor rooms were available, because a group of contractors were staying for the whole week, and had the rooms. I pointed out that the people in front of me were given a first floor room with no reservations, and my request for first floor was ignored. It made no difference to the people behind the desk, who do not care about customer service at all. To make matters worse, the bill was higher than the price I was quoted when I booked the room. Bottom line, avoid this motel at all costs. They do not care about their guests at all.

On July 31st, my parents stayed at the Days Inn in Watertown, SD. There was a terrible storm. The room had leaking windows and rained poured in like a flood. My seniorcitizen Dad went to the office. He was kindly given towels to clean up the mess. The faulty windows left black marks on the towels. NOW THEY CHARGED MY PARENTS FOR A DAMAGE TO THE TOWELS. They should have been given a credit towards the room, not additional charge. Don't stay there. Unfair business ethics. Now they have left several messages for the manager, but she can't find the time to call them back.

Pool & Hot tub were cesspools! Juice machine in breakfast area was broken the entire 3 days we were there. Sauna out of service. Pop machine out of service. Video game out of service and our room left unlocked both days after the maid was in it! Read on if you want more details!!!! Upon arrival Wednesday 11/26, were told that our online reserved non-smoking 2 queen bed room was NOT available because we booked via Hotels.com. Apparently, they only guarantee either your smoking preference or your bed choice, not both. So we wound up in a smoking room, which in retrospect to everything else we later encountered, was not too horrible. We were shown 2 rooms and were able to pick the "least smoky". We chose room 210. The beds were comfortable, that's about all this hotel has going for it! The swimming pool and hot tub were like cesspools! I don't think the pool filter was working. You could not see the bottom of the pool and when I was just walking around in it, I had wads of hair between my fingers and the water smelled badly! GROSS. I asked the gentleman behind the desk the next morning how often the pool was tended to, he said "sometimes it goes over the weekend but otherwise, every day". I told him it was a mess and he said he'd check it out. He went into the pool area and threw some liquid, I assume to be chlorine into the pool and hot tub. He then came out and I asked him why he didn't test the water first to see what the pool REALLY needed? He said he was going to get his gloves, then we would do that. So he got his gloves grabbed a sample from the pool and hot tub took it to the back room and came out about a minute later with a scoop of crystal, what I believe to be shock, and threw it in the pool and hot tub. He then took the netted strainer with the long handle and "mixed" up the water! This is why I believe the filter was not working. Additionally, when I was in the pool, I noticed that no water was coming out the spouts around the pool wall. He came out and said "it should be ready in about an hour!" Two hours later we walked by it was still closed and it was nowhere near clean. You could not see the bottom of the pool it was so cloudy. He told me the "PH" was off. I refused to let my kids swim in it again after the first night. Thursday when we got back to the room, our room was unlocked! We reported to the front desk but nothing appeared to be missing. The next day, as we were leaving, I asked the room service lady in the hall to be sure the room was locked after cleaning because it had been left open the day before. AGAIN we came back over 8 hours later to an unlocked room! My husband again went and reported to the front desk, this time he was really ticked off. The gal behind the desk didn't know what to do so she called the Manager, who rather than talk to my husband, talked thru the lady on call. They only offered to change our room for the night. We were leaving the next morning and have 3 girls and a ton of crap to move for just one night so we said "no". My husband then asked for the number to Corporate Days Inn. (which was the incorrect number too) He called corporate and reported everything and they said the manager would call us by December 8th!!!!!!! I would not recommend this hotel to even my worst enemy....well maybe I would but certainly not to a friend. Take my advice, pay a little extra and stay and the Country Inns and Suites across the highway! It's like heaven compared to this hell hole! I reported the pool & hot tub unsanitary situation to the SD Dept of Health!