Extended Stay America – Lexington

We check out tomorrow, so I guess it’s time to write my review. First, I should be clear that we did not book or choose this hotel. My husband’s company booked it for us and as it was a last minute reservation, we had no say in it.
There are pro’s and con’s to staying here, but unfortunately by the end of the week, the list of con’s outweighs that of the pro’s. First, let me point out that while it’s not the hilton, it IS a decent room and for what it’s worth, not terrible. The room is spacious and the kitchen is a plus, and the complimentary «breakfast» is a nice touch. The location is just ok, depending on what you’re looking for and where you’ll be spending your time. convenient (minutes from UK and other landmarks, and right off of KY4) but I wouldn’t say great. It’s very, very noisy– from the highway traffic to the sound of sirens (see my posted videos), to the fact that you can hear every door shut and toilet flush, if you’re looking for peace and quiet, this is not your place.
The staff seemed nice at first, but because it was a business trip for my husband, I guess the room reservation was only made for 1 (even though they knew I was coming), and for our entire trip they followed me around like I was a criminal, and no, I’m not being dramatic. They would call our room to ask who was in there, quiz me on whose name the reservation was made under, even followed me to my car once when I left (our room was 2 doors down from the office). One day when I came back from a day of sightseeing, I tried to enter our room with my key and it had been disabled. When I went to the office to get a new key, they said it was because they hadn’t received payment and wanted me to tell them again who booked the room. even though they had a card on file, and charged it to his company’s account. So, there’s that.
It seems like the rooms have been updated, and kudos on that, but it still feels old and dark, and since we cant open the curtains due to the lack of privacy and safety from the standard, clear glass, slide up and down windows, the option for natural light is a no go. The room was pretty clean, with the exception of a few stains on the tub and some dust behind the recliner, but nothing we felt would kill us, and Lord knows I wasn’t about to call the front desk and go through yet another interrogation.
There are tons of other options, so I would say to be safe, trust your fellow Unilocalers and book elsewhere.

Cheap but gross. I’m going to have to burn my clothes. The smell in the room has attached to everything I brought with me. Avoid at all costs. Spend a few extra bucks to stay somewhere else. Some shady people staying there and I felt somewhat unsafe.

I have stayed at this location three times: in 1999, 2005, and I just got back from my last visit. My first two experiences were fine, and it was a nice place to stay; however, after seeing how this hotel has declined since 2005 into a total shit hole, I will not be going back. I was there for four nights, and suffered through a long list of hospitality industry fuck-​ups and failures.
–I witnessed a maid, while traveling a very short distance from one of the rooms to the office, say the word «bitch» LOUDLY three times while talking on her cellphone (thankfully, no children were around). And why is a maid talking on her phone to her friends while working?
–The elevator was filthy and smelled of urine.
–The carpet in the room was grimy and had wrinkles large enough to trip over.
–There were stains all over the room: walls, ceiling, furniture, etc. There was such a heavy film of nicotine on EVERYTHING – I don’t think the room had been painted in over ten years.
–The veneer was peeling off the kitchen cupboards, and there was only one cup and one glass, even though it was a two-​person room. There was also no dish soap. One afternoon I opened a cabinet and found a large cockroach inside.
–The bathroom fan was broken, there were many cigarette burns on the sink and bathtub, the toilet seat was very loose, there was no towel hook on the back of the door, and the door did not swing properly on the hinges and was difficult to close.
–The chair and ottoman were quite dirty/​stained.
–Although we rented a smoking room, there were no ashtrays. When asked, the guy at the front desk could not find one; my friend ended up buying an ashtray at an antique store we visited the next day.
–The laundry room was a complete disaster and chock full of hazards: the vending machine was always sold out of detergent; one of the washers and one of the dryers were broken; and during rainstorms water would pour down from the ceilng through the light fixture.
–I was unable to iron my clothes: the elastic holding the cover onto the ironing board had broken down, so it repeatedly slid off when I tried to iron something. It was also stained.
–Two friends of one of the maids came roaring into the parking lot one day to deliver something she had forgotten at home, and announced their arrival by shouting «Hey skanky ‘ho! Here’s your (item she needed)!»
–Our plans changed and we had to stay an additional night. We decided to put it on a Travelocity gift card I had. My friend asked the front desk how to go about it – they said to book it online through the Travelocity website and there would be no more charges to the credit card he had used for the initial three nights. He followed their instructions; the next day we returned from an all-​day outing to find that someone had entered our room without permission and left a receipt for… yes, you guessed it, a charge for the additional night on his credit card (NOT the Travelocity card)!
–My friend spent way too much time at the front desk asking for things that were missing from the room or straightening out erroneous charges on his credit card. Every time there was a shift change, he would have to go explain the issues again, because none of the employees seemed to share information with each other.
–AND, the good ol’ Extended Stay Hotel sent a surprise souvenir home with me: while I was doing laundry today, I washed clothes from my trip that had not been out of my suitcase since I arrived home a week ago: inside the washing machine I found a large, dead cockroach after the load was finished.
(You may ask why we didn’t go somewhere else. The reason is that we needed the kitchenette for cooking to save money on meals; other hotels/​motels we looked into with similar amenities were beyond our budget, or were too far away from where we needed to be.)
To sum it all up: the facility is extremely dirty, the rooms are not adequately equipped with supplies or properly maintained, and the staff are unprofessional and disorganized. Whomever owns this franchise should hang their head in shame; it’s truly an embarassment.

I spent a week here, needing a kitchen as I expected to spend longer. There is an outside entrance to all of the rooms but the front of it is pretty quiet. The back faces the freeway so it can be a bit noisy. The biggest problem with the property is that it is outdated and a bit dirty. I cleaned everything with Clorex wipes before putting anything away and that helped but I’m not sure I would stay there again. Why I would stay again is because it’s cheap, they accept pets and they are in a good location.

This is one of my «go to» places when I’m Lexington on business. Not because it’s so great (it’s not bad) and not because it’s the best deal (it’s not bad), or because it’s the best location (it’s not bad) but because it’s a fair value, clean, centrally located and reliable.
I’ll be back!