Staying in this hotel makes you feel like you're up in one of the fleabag, by-the-hour places up on Aurora in Seattle. Avoid it if you can.
I, unfortunately, couldn't. I booked through Hotwire for the first time, trusting their website when it said that 2 star hotels were quality brand names like Best Western, La Quinta and Days Inn. All three chains have hotels in the same three blocks, so I assumed it'd be one of these or maybe the Holiday Inn Express. But no, the result was that I was locked into the Eighth Avenue Inn -- not a quality brand name or even a "quality independent hotel," as Hotwire told me they carried in their response to my message requesting to be let out of the reservation due to false advertising.
Okay, so, grudge against Hotwire aside. (But I do have to say -- book through Priceline -- I stay in Seattle / Bellevue every week and I've never had trouble with Priceline as they do carry brand names.)
The good (I'm stretching to find it...):
- The sheets appeared clean.
- The towels appeared clean and relatively fluffy.
- The shower had good water pressure and plenty of hot water.
- Supposedly the hotel had free wi-fi (although I didn't want to sit on one of their chairs long enough to find out -- see below -- so I never tried it).
- The tile grout in the shower couldn't mildew because there was no tile and no grout (they'd covered it with cheap plastic).
- Parking was free.
The bad:
- Everything else in the hotel was torn, stained, beaten. Both chairs in my room had stains and rips. The carpet was waterstained and had other stains all over it. Basically I didn't want bare skin to touch anything in the room, so I was very careful to make sure it didn't.
- The walls were really thin, so I could hear the TV and couple next door until 1 a.m., and the guy upstairs doing jumping jacks (or who knows what) at 5:50 a.m.
- The elevator was upholstered all around with torn grey carpet, and hadn't been renovated since the 50s (and there were more modern elevators in the 50s).
- The motel backs up on a 24-hour restaurant. There aren't many of these in Seattle, and so you can imagine who they attract at 4 a.m. and how likely they are to yell, scream and get in fights right outside your window.
- I had to wear earplugs to sleep. Without earplugs I wouldn't have slept.
The basics are clean, so the hotel has its place for those in their late teens / early twenties trying to save money (I've been there, somewhat recently, and can see it throught that lens). But for anyone else, just the appearance of the place will make you question your self-respect.
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