Travelodge 9646 Micron Ave Rancho Cordova, California Review

Travelodge is a well known hotel chain most recognized by its signature mascot ‘Sleepy Bear’, a cute cartoon bear wearing a sleeping cap, robe and slippers. This fun character helped the brand become known as a family friendly budget motel, as children loved seeing the sleepy bear logo on all the decor and lobby walls.

In my preteen childhood, my family would travel a lot and it was always between two motels that we would frequent, and Travelodge was one of them.

Not since childhood have I stayed at a Travelodge, so when I saw one near my next destination, I jumped at the chance to stay and relieve the happy memories of my youth, minus bouncing on the beds.

This Travelodge is conveniently located off Hwy 50 and Bradshaw Rd on Micron Ave. A Chevron gas station, Carl's Jr Restaurant, Perkos Cafe & Grill and El Pollo Loco Restaurant are all within 2 minutes walk of the motel.

We checked into the Travelodge located at 9646 Micron Ave in Rancho Cordova, California. From the outside, it was just as I remembered, a tall multi-storied building that stood tall and majestic against the Western Sunset. That was where reality set in….

As I we walked into the tiny office, we checked in rather easily and quickly. The desk clerk advised us of the motel rules which were basic to most budget motels. Ending with the check out time and mentioning the complimentary breakfast. Then giving us our key cards and directing us to our rooms location.

We passed an ice machine, positioned opposite the elevator. However next to the ice machine was a HUGE open bag that was filled with smaller tied garbage bags. As a veteran of the ‘housekeeping minefield’ I knew this was the spot where housekeepers brought the individual room trash, once the bag on there carts got full. Due to the layout of the floors and tight walkways, this central location was the only spot large enough to hold such a huge bag on each floor….. Right next to the ice machine. Unsightly smelly and unnecessary as there are better ways to maintain room trash.

HERE’S a THOUGHT - Round plastic garbage buckets on wheels…. Housekeeper pulls her cart to a room, leaves the garbage bin with lid on by the ice machine. When it's ready to be dumped, wheel it onto the elevator and out to the dumpster…. Easy, but apparently not common sense.

On the way to our room, we passed the housekeeper cart, sitting in the walkway. As we approached with our luggage, the housekeeper didn’t even attempt to move the cart closer to the wall, just smiled and went back into the room she was cleaning. Well at least she smiled. I had to move the cart a bit and we squeezed by, though not easily.

Upon entering our room, there was a horrible stench, it smelled of body odor and I knew immediately that it was from the bedspreads and underblankets not being regularly washed. Wanting to run down to the office and complain, I held back to see what else was going to be substandard before doing so. Although I did spray about ¼ can of Febreze Air Freshener first.

Well here’s a few things I noticed just from my initial walk thru the room:

The room stinks likely from lack of washing the blankets, throw covers and carpeted floors. Carpets looked like they were vacuumed just not very well, as I saw small pieces of foot traffic debris under the desk and sink area

A little effort and a wet sponge would of cleaned this up nicely... what a shame...

The bathroom sink counters are firmly in place but when you see this you have to wonder why it was installed like this. Answer, it wasn't... this is likely from this old building settling wrong and the frame work is warping. Or worse, this counter is really actually going to fall apart at any moment.

The security bar was broken, sure it flipped to the secure position, but what did that matter. Not able to be seen in the photo, is that the screws aren't tight. They’re so loose that silly thing jiggles

No evacuation plan on the door, now is this a requirement of motels?? I don’t know, but when you have an odd floor plan as this motel does, an evacuation plan on the door is a MUST. I want to know wear the stairwells are in case of a fire

Speaking of fire, does this sprinkler look as if its been set off? Looks a little used to me, hope it still works

One thing I know doesn’t work is this light switch. For those who have never seen this type before, its a motion sensor light switch. It has an ON, OFF and AUTO. As you can see in the photo, part of the switch is broke off, does this affect the switch. Not an electrician so I don't know. What I do know is I have to flick the switch several times to get the fluorescent bathroom light to come on without flickering.

The bathroom door is a mess, and was not closable. Whether the door frame is warped or the door is, I don’t know

I do know that closing the bathroom door completely would of trapped me inside. Look how the doorknob has been installed, and yes it's nice and jiggly. I suppose this is a traveling mans ‘safe room’, which is good since my security bolt is broken and won’t stop anyone. Maybe locking myself in here will save me

The phone is an average motel room phone and has clear instructions on the face for how to call the desk, make & receive calls, and hear messages. This type of phone has a big red blinking light on the front, and continuously flashes when you have a message. And our light was blinking. So I followed the on face instructions to retrieve the message so I could delete it and stop the blinking. How unfortunate for me, the system doesn’t work… stuck with a blinking light for our entire stay.. Ugh!

Normally a fire alarm has a blinking or indicator light on it to signify that its active, ours didn’t blink once in our NON Smoking room.

The fridge was basically clean except for the obvious soda spillage that was seen on the ice covered freezer section. Simply letting the freezer defrost would take this unsightly smear right off

Thankfully the AC worked great, but is the bed supposed to be pushed right up against it. I thought these had filters that circulated the air? Can't really circulate air if no air can get thru..

The bathroom wasn't horrible yet was by no means clean. The toilet wiggled when sat on yet was reasonably clean. Unfortunately the seat was so loose I thought it would slide off with me on it every time I sat down.

The shower/tub was what really made my skin crawl. This is why I bring shower slippers to every motel I go to... .99 cents saves me from foot fungus and what ever other filth is in these non-maintained tubs. This photo is of hard water build up, and yes filth that has accumulated. This tub/showers original color was white... I know cause I clean some of the filth and found it was white underneath. Yuck!!

Nothing was so horrible that I felt the need to complain, I’ve actually stayed in worse places that charged more money. So I put on a pair of slippers, unwilling to walk barefoot on this filthy carpet and turned on the TV.

Oohhh lets talk about the amenities that are advertised on the website

Cable TV is not an advertised amenities, likely cause there cable is a joke, about ½ of the 60 channels worked. Not a big loss but several of the channels that did work appeared snowy, fuzzy and jiggly… and those were local channels

COFFEE/TEA MAKER… coffee and cups provided… but ummmm?? No Tea?? Why advertise it as a TEA maker if you’re not going to at least drop a couple teas bags out with the coffee?

DAILY HOUSEKEEPING - This is a straight up LIE! If you want housekeeping you had
better do 1 of these two things. Call the night before to be put on the housekeeping service list for the next day. Or listen for her cart rolling down the hall, and chase her down. This is true whether you need full service or just towels and soaps. Added bonus was on our last night there, we asked the housekeeper for fresh towels and were informed that she had no more bath towels, only wash clothes and hand towels.. WHAT????

FREE WiFi - OK let's be realistic, most motel WiFi is slow and unsecured and generally only good for checking email or watching YouTube at its lowest resolution. Well, I’ve used a lot of slow networks, this one was the slowest and most unreliable I have ever encountered. My signal never reached more than 37%. Sites like YouTube and Hulu would load eventually, but not enough to make them usable. The WiFi signal would cut out every 4-25 minutes and be offline for 3 min- 2 hours. I actually called the front desk about this, and he confirmed the router needed to be reset. And that obviously wasn’t the actual problem because the same unreliable WiFi conditions occurred the following 3 days I was here

FREE BREAKFAST - typical Continental breakfast that is placed under a big Bear Bites sign, in the hopes you will find it cute rather than pathetic. Keep in mind that a Continental Breakfast is small, despite sounding Big and Hearty. The basic Continental breakfast includes, juice, fruits, bread, jams, sometimes cereal, danishes or donuts. This place had an out of order juice machine, an empty cereal dispenser, bread, coffee and butter, and a roach that was nonchalantly walking across the counter. I passed on breakfast and walked across the street to Carl's Jr

PET FRIENDLY - An absolute YES! I have proof on the bottom of my shoe, after stepping on a dog turd in the hall.

At the time of posting this they no longer advertise a Guest Laundry Room, though do still have a picture of it in there photo gallery to leave people guessing until they actually ask, only to find out they don’t.

The thing is, with this and most low budget Brand Name motels, they really don’t have any incentive to clean up there facilities or even provide good service. The reason being, they are mostly franchise owned, meaning they are owned by an individual who pays to use the Branded hotel name, in this case Travelodge. The franchise owner has to follow certain guidelines to appease the franchise contract, usually things like using Corporation owned soaps & shampoos, room pricing, reservation procedures or providing the signature ‘Bear Bites’ continental breakfast, among other things. Yet day to day operations and maintenance are left to the franchise owners, who rarely keep the properties up to the quality recommended by the Corporation.The franchise owners are mostly unsupervised by the corporation that owns the Brand & franchise contract, in this case Wyndham Hotels and Resorts.

Another reason budget motels of any name feel free to let their properties and service diminish is due to supply and demand. A motel such as this that offers rooms as low as approx $63 a night, is very cheap in Sacramento. So whether the rooms are smelly, the blankets dirty or the plumbing is bad, doesn’t really matter. There will always be someone, often several someones who will pay to get a roof over there head for that low price and be happy they did.