Howard Johnson Inn Albany

My family has been staying here for nearly 20 years, and I’ve joined them the last two. They need a hotel near Saratoga Race Course which is where they go when they come to the area. I find the management here to be very nice but the housekeeping service poor and the reason for this rating. Twice during our/​their stay this time, housekeeping has not come to our/​their room. My elderly father has had to go to the front desk to get toiletries and ask for new towels and making the bed twice. That is a bridge too far. I usually stay in hotels that cater to business travelers when I travel for work. I understand this is a motel and not a hotel like Courtyard or Hampton but there’s no excuse for a lack of basic housekeeping. The breakfast is adequate (wish they had yogurt or fresh fruit) and the outdoor pool area is nice (pool isn’t heated). I agree with others that the outside appearance needs some work. The area is close to lots of stores and a few restaurants. Much more on nearby Wolf Rd. I’m not sure that our family’s loyalty has been rewarded and given the high number of hotels in the area we may look elsewhere for next year.

We stayed on Aug 8, 2015. It was clean, had nice hot water and water pressure, very friendly staff. I called to book a room and she made a reservation for me even though they don’t usually do that when you are still 1.5 hours away from arriving. Breakfast was great with very friendly and attentive staff. Beds and pillows were comfortable and smelled nice and clean. Flat screen TV with working remote, HBO & the air conditioner worked and wasn’t loud.
Two thumbs up!

Beware. Do not book a room here. I stayed last night at this place and i got bit six times by bedbugs. At 5 am i managed to turn the light on and find one running across the mattress. Discusting. After looking at the other bed i noticed the sheets had blood stains on them. Not only did i get bitten, and lost a nights sleep, to make matters worse the manager, didn’t apologize. Instead she said maybe i bought them with me in one of my bags.
By far the worst experience ever.

In the recent past, I’ve been using HoJo’s and this one needs some major improvement. They have been renovating the rooms, but it is much lower in quality (which is pretty shabby) than other HoJo’s. For example, they provide only the shampoo and one bath soap as compared to the standard shampoo, conditioner, lotion, hand soap, and bath soap as is standard with all HoJo’s.
A huge timesaver and high point is the Thai restaurant in front of the HoJo’s is a little gem of a restaurant to be visited.
Make sure to ask for the WiFi password upon check-​in as the front desk manager isn’t always at the front desk.

We were looking for a decent hotel near Saratoga for the races. I chose this place online not knowing the area. When we arrived I was very disappointed with the overall appearance of this place. The faded paint on the stucco exterior didn’t look nice, for a discount hotel I would expect that so I looked past it and we went inside to check in. The lady behind the counter was REALLY nice and they let us check in at 8AM for $ 15 with no prior notice. We chose a smoking room and they gave us our key. Our room had an exterior entrance in the back of the hotel which was kind of shady looking to begin with. Once inside the room the smell was horrible, this was my first time in a smoking room so I thought that the smell might be typical and it would subside with the a/​c on. I turned on the a/​c and started looking around. The room was standard size for a discount hotel but the carpet was very dirty as well as a ring around the tub, the counter had visible water marks and when we pulled the comforter off the bed, it had 2 big yellow stains on the underside (about 2’x2’ ea. stain). To top it off the a/​c unit would go out about 2 minutes after turned on everytime. We decided to leave immediately and went back to the front desk. They said they would put us in another room but we declined, They were VERY VERY nice and didn’t charge us anything. I’m sure the other room would have been better but we were really looking for a little nicer look for our place. We ended up going down the street to the Days Inn on Wolf Rd. and it was pretty much the same thing but the smell wasn’t as bad and the place was clean and in a more conspicuous area with restaurants and such nearby. They were under construction but after Howard Johnson we did not mind at all. It’s amazing when you book online because it’s hard to realize how close these places are too each other. Howard Johnson is next door to Americas Best Value Inn which looked alot nicer for the same price minus the pool. I didn’t see the pool at Howard Johnson but I’m sure like the Days Inn it wasn”t much to write home about which is expected from a cheap hotel. 1 star hotel but 2 stars because they were really trying to make it work for us but the overall atmosphere of the hotel didn’t work for us.