Don't ever stay at the Comfort Inn in Carlin, NV!

NOTE: This is the 7^th of a multi-part series chronicling my family's two week vacation in the summer of 2010.

For links to the entire series, click here.

We departed Yellowstone National Park content with the many experiences we'd enjoyed there. Exiting the western entrance, we crossed a small strip of scenic Montana before breaching the border of Idaho.

Originally, we'd planned to drive from here to the City of Rocks National Reserve near Almo, ID. There we had intended to pass two nights camping and a day hiking. Once again, we took advantage of the flexible nature of itinerary and adapted our overly ambitious plans to spend more time sight-seeing and less time driving. Deciding to skip the City of Rocks, we chose to proceed to our next destination, northern California.

Our late start on that day's journey meant too many miles to cover in one stretch, so I made a call to Choice Hotels to find a place to stay that night. I booked a room at the Comfort Inn in Carlin, NV. That proved to be a mistake!

First, it was farther away than I realized and we didn't arrive until around 1:00 in the morning. But that was only the beginning of our first ever bad experience with Choice Hotels. Everything seemed okay at check-in, but my discontent with this hotel began to build soon after.

We entered the room and our ears were assaulted by an obnoxious and loud low-pitched buzz. Investigating, we discovered the offending appliance from which emanated the agitating sound was the small refrigerator in the room. Deciding we'd leave our perishable items in the ice chest, we unplugged the source and killed the noise. The room seemed okay after that, but we'd soon find several more reasons to discourage ANYONE from ever choosing this as a resting place for a night.

I'd forgotten something in the Blazer and went to retrieve it before turning in. I exited the elevator and entered the lobby to see another guest arguing with the desk clerk. He was angry and shouting so I couldn't help but hear his complaints as I made my way to the front door. (Remember, this is between 1:00 and 2:00 in the morning.) The other guest wanted to change rooms because whoever was in the adjacent room was throwing a loud party. The clerk informed him there was nothing he could do. He would not give the customer a different room, and he would not confront the offending occupants. There was no attempt made to satisfy the customer by the desk clerk. Customer service at the Comfort Inn of Carlin, NV was nonexistent.

Fortunately, I slept through the night without being further disturbed. But the next morning, the spark of dissatisfaction I felt for the hotel exploded to a full-fledged conflagration. I arose early because we planned to drive to Truckee, CA that night and begin a hike to Warren Lake near Donner Pass. We needed to arrive by early afternoon to pack our gear and hike in early enough to find and set up a camp site along the trail. But first, we needed to wash some clothes.

So I gathered all our dirty clothes and fed coins to the washing machine in the guest laundry at the end of our hall. My Facebook-deprived daughter and I went downstairs where I grabbed a cup of coffee and she stationed herself at the guest computer in the lobby. Once the washer had completed its cycle, I switched our clothes to the dryer. The digital display told me my garments would be ready in 45 minutes.

My wife and other daughter were now up and we all went downstairs for the deluxe continental breakfast. Though the meal was nothing special. It turned out to be the best part of our stay in Carlin. But once my daughter left the lobby computer, an apparent boyfriend of one of the hotel maids appropriated it. This didn't bother me, but the brown bag containing the bottle he was nursing did. It wasn't that he was a drinker that irritated me. It was where and when he was drinking. Early in the morning at breakfast in a hotel lobby where families with children are staying is not the place for anyone to imbibe, but especially not an employee or someone who's there with an employee!

I was completely dissatisfied with the hotel by this point, but the bad experience wasn't yet over.

Returning to the guest laundry I found the timer on the dryer nearly expired. I waited the remaining few minutes, ready to retrieve and pack our things so we could escape this disgrace of a lodging place and get on with our trip. The buzzer finally sounded and I threw open the door of the dryer. But when I grabbed the first handful of raiment, I knew we would be here a while longer yet. They were nowhere near dry. They were warm, but still soaking wet.

Wanting now only to escape this hell-hole of a hotel, and operating more on hope at this point than rational thinking, I went to the desk clerk to get more quarters to run the malfunctioning dryer one more time. With the coins in my hand, I headed back to try again. My daughter, who had remained in the lobby with hopes of getting a turn at the guest computer, rode up the elevator with me. She told me while she was waiting in lobby, the desk clerk and hotel maids were all gathered around the front desk laughing about who had been fired the week before and wondering aloud who would be fired that week. She also asked me about the boyfriend's brown bag.

I fed the so-called dryer again, but may as well have thrown the money down the drain. After another hours-long 45 minutes, our clothes were still only warm and wet. But I decided then and there we were leaving, dry clothes or no. I stuffed the still-wet garments into plastic bags and we loaded our things into the Blazer. I didn't say a word to the clerk as I handed over my key cards because he'd been so unconcerned about the guest the night before. But I swore I'd do whatever I could to warn travelers this was NOT the place to stay.

At the next opportunity on our trip, I posted the following review of the hotel on Google Maps:

This was my absolute worst experience with ANY Choice Hotel I've patronized. I exclusively use them because I previously had nothing but positive experiences. The Comfort Inn at Carlin, NV should be sold or shut down if corporate can't fix the problems.

The refrigerator in our room made an annoying loud buzzing sound all night, the guest dryer didn't dry (I wasted 2 dollars and 2 hours and still left with sopping wet clothes). The hotel staff were all loitering in the lobby in the morning, laughing about who was fired this week, and an apparent boyfriend of one of the maids was using the lobby computer while nursing a bottle of beer while breakfast was being served to guests in the same lobby.

This hotel is terrible! DO NOT STAY HERE!

When we finally freed ourselves from the clutches of this hotel from Hell, we headed west. In Sparks, NV we stopped at the Petro truck stop where we dried our clothes in machines that worked. But by the time we'd repacked our Blazer, it would be after 5:00 PM before we'd be able to reach our the trail head of our planned hike. We'd have to adjust our plans, this time due to the horrible accommodations offered by the Comfort Inn of Carlin, NV.

If you're traveling through Nevada on Interstate 80 and looking for a nice place to stay, you won't find it at this hotel!