Econo Lodge Inn & Suites Houston Willowbrook

Here’s a headline: “This was the worst hotel experience of our lives”. Let me explain: My wife and I stayed here while visiting Vancouver recently. First off, the room we were given did not match the pictures that were provided online, but that’s almost irrelevant and was the least of our troubles. The room keys that were provided to us, were quick to fail. “No big deal, I’ll go get new ones from the front desk”, I thought.  When I explained the situation to the front desk attendant, they immediately accused me of “not doing it correctly”, like I’d never opened a hotel door before. I assured the woman I knew how to open doors. She continued insisting I must have been doing something wrong. Eventually she slaps down two new keys and away I go. Guess what? It happened again, after we got back from dinner. Once again, the room keys stopped working. Once again, I had to walk back up to the front desk and go through the same song and dance with another lady. This new woman also seemed to think I didn’t know how doors operated, because she was also defensive and accusatory. Again, I get my new keys and go in for the night. I’ll skip the next few days, as it's basically the same - in total, I had to replace my keys EIGHT TIMES over 4 days. That's SIXTEEN total key cards that failed. Each time I became more and more frustrated at the lack of concern or effort to resolve the issue from the motel staff. However, it was the final time that really took things to the next level. On the eighth instance of this happening, my wife came with me into the lobby. We demanded that one of the front desk attendants would walk out to our room with us, so they could show us how to “properly open the door” and wouldn’t you know it - the door keys failed for them too. Wild stuff. It was at this point, we demanded something be done. This was beyond unacceptable at this point and frankly we had enough. The woman physically stuck her foot in the doorway, forced her way into the room and said that if we were not happy, we could leave the motel.  I turned to my wife and said “we’ll get the (blank) out of here tomorrow morning” (which was our scheduled check-out date). The woman then accused me of threatening her and said she was going to call the police and have us removed. She then retreats back up to the lobby, leaving us in utter shock at what had just transpired. My wife went back up to speak with her again - who began backtracking, saying how we were not being asked to leave. The front desk attendant then denied ever having entered our room. We exclaimed at how unacceptable this behavior was from the staff and how we had never experienced such lack of care or professionalism in our lives. This went on for a bit before they finally offered to change our room - keep in mind, this was NIGHT 4, and the last night of our trip. This should have been done the second time we had to replace the keys. Certainly not after EIGHT sets of failed keys over FOUR days. They also offered us a 20% discount, which we were told would be resolved when we checked out the following morning. We moved into our new room, fell asleep, woke up early and went to check out. This time, the lady at the front desk had no notice of a discount or anything related to our troubles.  We had to deal with her for about 25 minutes just to get $50 discounted. Nowhere close to the 20% we were told the night prior. Absolutely disgusting staff, disgusting behaviors, and an overall awful stay. I would avoid this place at all costs. Best case scenario, you get a nice view of a parking lot with people chain smoking cigarettes. Worst case, you get threatened with police.

Pros: - The front desk girls were so friendly and kind. - The location can't be beat; 10 minutes into downtown, Stanley Park, Capilano Bridge, etc - The pool is great on a hot day! Only 8 people allowed at a time though and you have to sign in and out at the front desk. - Overall clean property/rooms. - Grab and go breaky was decent; the chocolate chip cookies were a hit! Cons: - Seriously outdated and not well maintained. The TV was fuzzy cable channels. As we were checking in, another guest was talking to front desk about the towel bar in their bathroom that was not attached anymore... Very old decor. - As much as I appreciate encouraging composting, a garbage can in the room is still needed and was missing. - The "AC" was not cooling, we all slept without blankets even with it on the highest fan/ lowest temp setting - Hot tub was not working, not sure why? - Smell of cigarette smoke throughout the room, despite it being a non-smoking room so we all woke up very congested. - Pillows were mini, like half-size pillows...