Extended Stay America review: Hotel hell — "you get what you pay for" — or much worse

This review is for the Irvine location on Technology Drive, with special focus on the management there. However, I have previewed a number of the chain's hotels and found most to be even worse off.

The manager here publishes regular monthly rates at $2250, which is cheap by California standards. The look-and-feel is strictly Motel 6, so that's the high standard for this sort of joint. But it's worth pointing out just what happens after you pay the first weekly (*functionally non-refundable*) payment. Then you drop your luggage on the bed and the place creeps up on you.

The first thing I noticed was that the air conditioning unit on the lower wall entry was running cold and wouldn't stop. There wasn't either a remote control or a thermostat. So I called the front desk. A young lady very kindly came to the room and poked around, finally informing me that I should "download the app" and she would follow up. She then disappeared. The app was, of course, rated two stars, meaning it didn't work at all. The app could not sense the Bluetooth connection for the air conditioner. So it couldn't change the settings. I reported this to the office, which sent such shock waves through the building that the clerk brought in the Boss — The Big Nurse, if you will — a woman with such regal bearing that she looked at you and you could hear her saying to herself, "Did you just fart?" I guess objecting to any feature of the ESA in less-than-flattering terms was considered a class-A insult that needed to be nipped in the bud before the other sheep got "uppity". She started with the "naw.. nawww. nobody ever had no problem with that." I showed her the discovery window with the app; no connection. She could have tested it herself, or the clerk could have done the same. After all, with three phones failing, the problem would at least be proven, right? But that wasn't her goal. It was to stare me down, dismiss me, and show me who was in charge. So they both left. She said I could change rooms the next day, or I could "just leave now". I asked how I would find a new place to stay without notice. "That's not our fault, sir, nobody ever complained about this before". I started looking up hotels on my phone, but realized I didn't have time to do anything that night. I would have to sleep in the frozen room. So I cussed and yanked the air conditioner's plug out of the wall. As fate would have it, the app started working — it knew the sledge hammer was next — and I was able to connect and take the air off of Siberia and back to Southern California. I reported this to the office, where the information was received like, "see, I told you it wasn't broken." Later, the app lost the connection again as well as all of the settings. So in order to survive there, I would have to unplug the unit and reset it 3-4 times a day. Still, not really broken, right?

I turned the TV on. It behaved like it had come it of time warp from 1985. The channel guide barely moved. When I selected a channel, it took 30 seconds to load. The actual video was jittery and the sound was broken. Totally unwatchable. So I shut it off. I didn't want to bruise my tender relationship with the Big Boss over this topic.

The refrigerator had been jammed into a tiny space in the corner with the handle facing the wall. It wouldn't actually open. I asked for a handyman. This was certainly getting me onto the office's official "[censored] list". The handyman and I moved the fridge one inch and the problem was solved. He was a quiet, friendly guy. "Good idea", he said.

I decided to do some laundry. Let me ask you: how much money could charge you to wash or dry clothes that would make you angry? I mean spitting mad? I think ESA did a survey and discovered the number which is — wait for it — FIVE BUCKS. Yup, and for [censored] equipment that was mostly broken. The office told me that "a third party handled that" — remember Nuremburg? "I was just following orders"? Same basic tone to every discussion a ESA. Nobody is responsible for anything there and the theoretically responsible parties are nowhere to be found. The office told me to "call the number" if there was a problem with the laundry. Every machine did indeed have a phone number and a complicated code ID (think Canadian postal service for the confusion level). But there were machines marked as "broken" that had never been fixed. Other guests warned me that certain units weren't working. Nobody wanted to call the repairman because it was too much of a hassle. So over time, the room devolved into a place where it didn't just cost $5 to wash or dry — you had to put the Russian Roulette revolver to your own head to see if you would have to pay another $5 because the dryer was not hot enough.

Then I got my work computer set up and tried to open my mail. Remember the TV set issue? Well it came home to roost. Something was way off with the "free wifi" provided by ESA. I started running SpeedTest.net. The "free" speed was *less than 1 megabit per second*. Apparently ESA makes a lot of dough off of a "premium" internet service that they sell you when you realize how useless their standard service is. Of course, this is also handle by a "third party" over which ESA professes no control or knowledge. Indeed, I had to insist on being provided the tech support numbher for that service, which the office eventually coughed up like a fur ball. Yes, I did buy an hour of expedited service. That's because I am, like all humans, at least partially a stupid idiot massochist that needs to be punished by listening to what people in authority tell me. Premium Service. Yup. it went way, way up to 2.5 mbps. For reference, the crappiest television on Earth requires 5 mbps just to render non-premium channels. ESA couldn't even get to 5 mpbps on their $30-a-month premium wifi. The tech support staff told me that "they were only obligated to produce speeds up to 4 mbps". Which means no TV, no work computer. Nada.

This is when I checked out. I asked for a full refund. The Big Boss recalculated my 72 hours at the maximum rate possible so she could take most of my money. This is what I mean by "functionally non-refundable".

Other nice touches:

* Laundry is a done every two weeks; I asked for every two billion weeks so I wouldn't feel disappointed.

* No ice maker — I think they had to tear the existing one out to make sure we didnt get one, since they are standard with most fridges.

* No dispose-all — so somebody has to pay a plumber to suck the coffee grounds out of the pipes once a month - probably 10x the cost of the dispose-all.