Pet Friendly Lodging Reviews

The hotel was nice. The suite was a single room, but it was larger. Staff was great. Manager didn't know own policies and that caused some issues. We paid the pet fee when checking in, but then it showed up on our card a second time. Manager told us the charge was weekly. We had to have them look up with paperwork we signed regarding the pet fee where it states very clearly that it is per stay. The hotel had just had a new computer system installed and he said it was charged automatically. I did get refunded, but I expect in the future the charge will be weekly for real, instead of per stay. We also had a surprise charge for concessions, which was apparently implemented with the new computer system. We were not made aware that we would be charged beforehand and the charge showed up almost 2 weeks into our stay. It was $25 and refundable so no big deal, but it should have been communicated before being charged. Lots of miscommunication and confusion around room cleaning. We asked to have the room cleaned once per week and asked for a 5-10 minute notice so we could put the cats in their carriers and take them out of the room for the duration of the cleaning. Our cats are afraid of strangers and we didn't want them escaping the room during the cleaning, but also we didn't want them stressed out about it the whole time either. The manager agreed, but then didn't communicate that out to staff. We agreed to a time for the following day, but the cleaning people didn't show up. We waited nearly 2 hours and put the do not disturb sign back on. The manager came up and was upset. Again it was all because of his inability to communicate clearly. But most frustrating is that he tried to turn it around on us. At any rate, between the experiences with the manager and the room not being a true suite and us needing more space, we checked out early. The new place we checked in to doesn't have any problem with the 5-10 minute request before room cleaning and it's been over 2 weeks since the move so in the end this was a better hotel for us and our cats (Fairfield Inn & Suites - Salem, VA). All that to say that they are more used to dogs.