Motel 6 Review - 7850 College Town Drive, Sacramento, California 95826

The Motel 6 at 7850 College Town Drive Sacramento, California 95826 is a budget lodging, currently a franchise owned location.

Motel 6 is one of the few budget motel chains that keeps a tight rein on their properties both corporate and franchised, to ensure a consistent experience for guests no matter what Motel 6 you choose to visit.

This location is no different, a well run motel with professional front office staff and friendly housekeepers.

The rooms are exactly what you’d expect if you’ve been to any other Motel 6 in the United States. Clean beds, tidy floors/counters and acceptably clean bath/shower. I didn't include photos of the room just because I was so tired on arrival, I just unpacked, showered and went to bed... basically messing up any nice room photo I could of taken.

The exterior of the property is basic but clean, There is a pool, in the center of the property next to the ice machines.

During my stay I found this location to be up to par with other Motel 6 locations, having its maintenance related issues, but nothing so drastic that I would include it in a review.

** Note for long term guests: unlike most Motel 6 locations, this one WILL NOT allow you to stay longer than 14 days.

This location does shine in one area, that other Motel 6 locations in the area seem to falter, customer service.

I refer specifically to the office staff, who are of course friendly and professional, Yet are also quite accommodating.

Here’s an example, when I checked into my room, I noticed that the desk chair was wobbly. Who cares right, I didn’t but it was an opportunity to see if the staff would do anything if I brought it to their attention. So I called the front desk and told them my desk chair was very wobbly….. I was immediately told that a new chair would be brought to me. Within 10 minutes, a friendly housekeeper knocked and exchanged my chair with a better one.

Later that day I went to the office to ask where the snack machine was, and was informed there wasn’t one. Yet without being asked, the courteous desk clerk told me about the multiple places to eat or purchase snacks. Denny's next door, Chevron, McDonalds, Taco Bell, Mountain Mikes Pizza, 7-11 and a sandwich shop across the street.

The young man did add that they would be getting snack and soda machines soon, and would be in place within a month.

The next day housekeeping arrived in the mid morning and asked if I needed anything. It was going to be a rainy week and I was sure to be tracking in dirt, mud and water, so I asked if I could have FULL SERVICE daily.

Now most Motel 6 locations will change your sheets daily on request, but the more common routine is every other day. Of the 5 days I was here, I was out 3 of them, when housekeeping came. And as promised, each day my room was cleaned top to bottom, towels, soaps, ice bucket bags, trash and sheets changed when I returned in the afternoon. I even noticed that housekeeping had polished the chrome and cleaned the shower and toilet daily.

I did find the parking here to be challenging. There are plenty of parking spaces all the way around the property, but due to the layout of the buildings, you may not be able to get a parking space near your room.

There was one special surprise at this location that you wouldn't expect to find at a location in a major city.

Wild turkeys roam the property. I was told by a housekeeper that the wild turkeys have been there as long as she could remember. They are NOT pets or mascots, (DO NOT attempt to touch or feed them) but rather the occasional guest from the nearby American River Parkway.

These turkeys or maybe others, were also seen outside McDonalds as I enjoyed a Big Mac Meal. Then the next day at the 7-11 down the street.

The short version of this review is, it's a Motel 6 with all of the chain's pros and cons. However if you want to stay in a Motel 6 where the staff are very nice and helpful, this is the location to stay in while in Sacramento.

Motel 6 - 5110 Interstate Ave Sacramento California Review

My work takes me all over the country, however a few places I visit on a regular basis. One of the places I frequently find myself is Sacramento, California, a perfect jumping point to other cities and locals in the Western United States.  An International airport, an Amtrak Station and a central hub for Greyhound Bus Lines. So I know many of the local eateries, motels and entertainment. Motel 6 is a National Brand budget motel located at 5110 Interstate Ave in the North Highlands area of Sacramento, California.

This Motel 6 is conveniently located on Interstate 80, and a convenient stop for those who will be going over or have come from the Sierras. I’ve occasionally made this my rest stop and have always found the rooms to be adequate. Having its problems but never so much so that it wasn’t worth the money to stay.

Dennys, Jack in the Box, Starbucks, Chevron and a Scandia Miniature Golf Course are all 50 yards away. If you’re like me and enjoy a brisk walk, then a stroll down Madison Ave will find a slew of shopping and fast food. Target, GameStop, 7-11, Burger King, McDonalds, Wienerschnitzel, Panda Express, El Pollo Loco, 99 cent only, IHOP, Chik fil A, In and Out Burger, Staples, a Family Fitness Center and a bowling alley all within a mile.

This area has a moderate homeless population, and as you turn onto Interstate Ave, it is not unusual to see several homeless people sitting on the grass by Jack in the Box or lying on the sidewalk in front of the Dennys or Starbucks. Around dusk you can often see several homeless people congregating behind the Denny's near their garbage bin.

However, I have NEVER had any problems with the homeless population, rarely in fact do they even ask for money. They keep to themselves and may say hi as you pass by, making them friendlier than most people I’ve met in this area.

Check in at this Motel 6 location, is 3:00pm OR later. Not 2:00pm, 2:30pm or even 2:56pm. In the past I was able to check in immediately anytime after 2:00pm as long as they had a clean room. No longer do they extend that courtesy, as evidenced when not even calling the housekeeper on her walkie talkie, the desk clerk claimed that housekeeping had not yet cleaned the room assigned to my reservation.

This is of course a lie, since at exactly 3:00pm, as I stood there at the front desk, the desk clerk said, ‘oh its 3 o’clock, your room is ready”.

Was this desk clerk physic? Did she somehow ‘astral-project’ to my room and see that housekeeping had just finished cleaning my room… of course not. She was just stalling until their strict 3:00pm check in time. Let me be clear, I knew check in was at 3:00pm, only arriving early due to past visits letting me check in early.

Now all the desk clerk had to say was, ‘we now  have a policy that restricts us from checking in guests before 3:00pm’. Had I been told that, I would not be including the above interaction in this review. Lying to me, stalling me, may be easier, BUT it's bad business. Had I been immediately told about a firm policy, I would have walked next door to Dennys for lunch, rather than waiting in the tiny lobby for my room to be cleaned. By the way, that same ‘room not clean yet’ excuse was used on two other guests while I was waiting in the lobby.

This Motel 6 has a main section AND what they call an Annex Building that sits approx 150 yards away from the main building complex, on the northernmost corner of the property. If you’re lucky enough (I say sarcastically) to get a room in the Annex building, you’ll immediately feel as if you’re being punished for something.

The Annex area is well lit at night, however due to its distance from the main buildings, if something were to happen out there… well, as my neighbor in the next room told me (a young woman who was traveling alone), she just didn’t feel safe being so far from help if needed.

She added that even if she screamed for help, it was likely no one would hear her due to the noise from the adjacent Interstate.

The rooms are clean and maintained with a few exceptions. The sheets smelled fresh but as with most budget motels, fleece blankets and top cover blankets ARE NOT washed after each ‘check out’ and that is noticeable. Although when asked, housekeeping will happily supply you with a fresh cleaned fleece blanket.

Oh a Tip for my Fellow Travelers: How to tell if bed sheets have been freshly changed
Pull the blankets back and just look at the sheets. Both the top and fitted sheet WILL HAVE fold creases in them. Now at a budget motel the fold creases may not be as noticeable since they don’t fold them as tightly as a 4 star hotel would. However the folds will still be there. If you don’t see the creases made from the sheets being folded, than it's VERY possible those sheets are NOT fresh. I wouldn’t worry about that here, as I said the housekeeping staff is quite efficient.

The TV and remote worked, which is nice, unfortunately the WiFi was seriously lacking. Plenty of signal strength, even able to connect to the router, but NO internet. Just a constant RESOLVING HOST problem. I called the front desk to inquire about the WiFi and was told, ‘yeah sometimes it works good out there, sometimes it doesn’t, nothing we can really do about it from here’.  Oh well… what 1 or 2 star motel anywhere has reliable WiFi service. On other visits here the internet worked well, so this may have been an isolated incident.

 The Air Conditioning worked, though even on HIGH, the A/C doesn’t really cool the room effectively on a +98F degree day. On top of that, if you decide to go out to the State Fair or other day trip, decide to leave the A/C on to keep the room cool for your return….. Well you’re in for a harsh return.

When housekeeping comes by, they enter the room to make beds,  refill the necessities AND turn that A/C up to 75+ degrees. If you leave a note on the bed saying to leave the A/C where it is, they will.

The bathroom is adequate but you'll feel the need to get a can of anti fungal foot spray after using the shower. Its filthy, and NOT from lack of cleaning. Its old, stained, cracking and just generally ugly looking. I recommend wearing flip flops while in the shower, which is good advise for any lodging 1 star or 5 star, you just never know whats lurking on the shower floor.

The toilet is a toilet, really what more can you say about it. It flushes.... however, why can't they tighten the toilet seat. The toilet seat was so loose that I was sure I'd slide right off the bowl. I mean tightening the plastic nuts that hold it on is a simple thing to do Maintenance or housekeeping could do it in 3 minutes, literally, yet no one does. Are they waiting for the seat to completely fall off and hurt a guest??

Housekeeping Service here is REQUIRED if staying for more than a few days. I was informed that if staying more than 3 days, you could only refuse Housekeeping Service once. This is actually a good policy, allowing the rooms to be properly maintained, yet can be inconvenient since there is no schedule as to when they will be knocking on your door.

On a side note, I felt so bad when I saw one of the housekeepers pushing their FULL OVERFLOWING laundry cart 150+ yards in 103F+ degree weather to and from the Annex Section to the main Motel complex. Someone BUY housekeeping a golf cart to make that trip easier!

Oh if you stay for more than a day, expect to walk up to the office every single day to have your room key card reprogrammed. The majority of lodgings in America and the rest of the world, including other Motel 6 locations, program your key card to work for the duration of your stay. NOT HERE! Even when I specifically ask the desk clerk to program my key card for my full stay.. They seldom do.

There is a small area for pets to do their ‘business’, provided in the wide open space between the Main buildings and the Annex buildings, along with small dispenser w/ poop bags.

This location is NO LONGER corporate owned, it is a franchise location as of late 2019. You will not find a General Manager on the property if you run into problems. Although I have not met the owner, I have been told that he is immediately available to guests should a problem arise.

There is a separate review of this Motel regarding Reservations… if you plan on coming here you’ll want to read this or risk NOT getting the room you reserved.

Motel 6 Reservation Guarantee - Read the invisible print

The majority of motels and hotels in the United States, including Motel 6 adhere to an unofficial industry standard policy called ‘the walk policy’.

Basically this policy says that if you make a guaranteed reservation (and in some instances a non-guaranteed reservation), and you arrive at your motel to find they CAN’T accommodate your reservation for whatever reason, they WILL get you into a room that night EVEN if it means making arrangements at another hotel, paying for your first night at that alternate hotel and provide or pay for transportation if necessary.

Now first you have to ask yourself why wouldn’t your hotel of choice be able to accommodate your reservation. There’s actually many reasons, such as over booking, rooms being taken out of service due to maintenance issues, computer errors, employee error, etc. This isn’t really about the many reasons it COULD happen, but rather what Motel 6 did to me when it DID happen…. On two separate occasions.

These occurred at the same Motel 6 location at 5110 Interstate Ave, Sacramento, CA 95842. (Update: At the time I wrote this, this Motel 6 location was corporate owned. As of Late 2019, this location is now franchise owned)

Unlike most travelers, I read the fine print. And one of the reasons I don’t use third party companies to book rooms is because most of them won’t or can’t guarantee your reservation. So with most stays, I book directly on the hotels website, to ensure I get that guarantee from their property. As I did with Motel 6, like a dozen times before.

The first time it happened at this location, I had reserved a 2 bed room, yet when I checked in I was told there computer only showed me as booking a 1 bed room. The desk clerk, Stephanie, was non-apologetic saying she had no idea why my reservation was different on her computer. I began searching my emails from my phone to produce my Motel 6 email confirmation, when she stated matter of factly, “it doesn’t matter what confirmation you show me..”, informing me that the 2 bed rooms were not only fully booked but also fully occupied.

Stephanie was polite, while trying to think of an option, then offered to put me in a 1 bed room that night and would have a 2 bed room cleaned as soon as one of the current occupants checked out in the morning. No discount was offered in fact she was going to charge me the same rate as if it were a 2 bed room, so I asked for a discount on the 1 bed room I'd have to stay in that night.

Inconvenient yes, but she was at least attempting to make the situation right, I appreciated that. So I took the discounted 1 bed room, allowing my travel companion to have the bed and me huddled in a corner on the floor with a spare blanket provided by housekeeping.  The next morning I went to the office at 11am and she indeed had a housekeeper cleaning a room for me. By the time I was finished exchanging key cards and re-checking in, the housekeeper called on the walkie talkie to say the room was ready. Problem solved, guest happy and life goes on…..

Later in the year this same situation arises again. My reservation for a 2 bed room was now appearing as a 1 bed room reservation on the motels computer. This time the desk clerk (a new desk clerk, this location has a high turnover. Every time I come here there are different desk clerks) was of no help and had no idea how to handle the situation. Also he was surprisingly uneducated in policies, he was polite but obviously disinterested and unsympathetic.  But when he saw that I was frustrated, he kept his cool and did the only thing he was obviously trained to do… read the computer screen and call someone else.

I produced my confirmation email, and unphased by the error, the desk clerk kept telling me, ‘I don’t know what to tell you, my computer says 1 bedroom’.

Not wanting to sleep on the floor again, I asked to speak with a manger, but there was none on site… at 3pm during the rush of check-ins. He called his manager and left a message on voicemail, time went by and no return call from the manager. I told the desk clerk I would like to use the Guaranteed Reservation option, and be sent to another Motel 6 property.

The desk clerk had NO IDEA what I was talking about, he even said that reservations aren’t guaranteed. Seeing I was getting upset, he called someone he claims was in Guest Services, and told them about my claim that reservations were guaranteed. I showed him on the Motel 6 website, the guarantee that says my reservation would be honored, even if it meant going to another hotel at their expense.

        ‘YOU NEED TO KNOW’ this, if staying at a Motel 6.

I was always under the impression that if you made a guaranteed reservation on their website, you would always get the room TYPE reserved OR the ‘the walk policy’ would go into effect. It’s what it says on their website…. Or does it??? Below is the Motel 6 Guaranteed Reservation policy portion in regards to not honoring your reservation, copy/pasted from the FAQ page of their website, motel6.com on Oct 2019:

If guaranteed with your credit card, your reservation will be held all night for your arrival. If you are unable to guarantee your reservation, your room will be held until 6:00PM (at most locations).

 In the unlikely event that we cannot honor your guaranteed reservation, we will reimburse you for the first night's lodging at a comparable motel, transportation to that establishment (if needed) and a telephone call to your home or office to notify others of your new location.

To me that says, if I can’t get my 2 bed room as reserved, then Motel 6 will get me to a motel/hotel that does have 2 bed room… right??? WRONG!!!!

First off the Guest Service person had no idea what I was talking about and had never heard of a ‘guaranteed reservation’ policy. Then adding that all they could do was give me the 1 bed room or switch me to a 2 bed room the following day IF AVAILABLE, which it wasn’t.  She also explained that my reservation was downgraded to a 1 bed room by a KNOWN glitch in the on-site reservation system.

She had just admitted it was their systems fault so I reasserted myself, “If you know the downgrade was your reservation systems fault, why are you NOT trying to make this right by….. “

I never got to finish my sentence, she interrupted and said, “Oh no, it's not our fault, it's the reservation systems fault…. We have NO CONTROL over the reservation system.”

That's when I realized I wasn’t talking to anyone in Guest relations but rather another desk clerk, likely from a different shift or another area Motel 6 property. I suggested that at the very least I should be comp’d a second 1 bed room for the night so I wouldn’t be sleeping on the floor, NOPE!

NO discount for the foul up and NO upgrade to a different type 2 bed room either… which I later found out they did have a 2 bed room with a fridge available. I was done, this was ridiculous, so I said fine and gave him back the phone.

At this point I just wanted to wash 200 miles of Greyhound off so I asked him to call one of the other properties to see if they had a 2 bed room available, there wasn’t. So broken and defeated I bowed to the absurdness of the situation and the inevitability of my sleeping on the floor for the next 3 nights.  ‘We’ll check into the 1 bed room’, I told him.

Then as a final metaphorical slap in my face… the downgraded 1 bed room cost 6 cents MORE than what my 2 bed room email confirmation stated…. ‘Really, how can it cost more?’, I asked him.

He replied, ‘I don’t know, that's what it shows on my computer’.

So just fed up, I paid then went to my room and spent the next 30 minutes on the phone with a real Guest Relations who claimed she would file a report and send it off to the District and General Managers… I won’t hold my breath. I was also told these things by her:

The Guaranteed RESERVATION Policy  is not completely spelled out on the website. The actual guarantee is, they will get me a room, any room of their choice at their property. IF they are completely FULL and absolutely NO ROOMS are available, they will then and ONLY then begin the process of first contacting other area Motel 6 properties, then as a LAST resort will implement ‘the walk policy’, of paying your first night and transportation to another hotel chain.

So the room TYPE (1 bed, 2 bed, a suite, with or w/o a fridge, whatever) IS NOT guaranteed, the guarantee is that they will get a roof over your head. However let me point out… that neither desk clerks  that I spoke with had ANY idea about this policy, or they would have been able to correct me on the spot by explaining the policy to me…. They couldn’t, didn’t and probably wouldn’t have even if they did know the policy

The Guest Relations Dept also told me that after checking my reservation, they confirmed it was for a 2 bed room and someone at the property location downgraded it to a 1 bed room. Why someone at this property would downgrade my reservation she didn’t know. Perhaps this is the ‘Known Glitch’ I was informed of.

JUST FYI - this location has a 14 day stay policy. Meaning that you can stay 14 days, but you must not return to the property for 30 days. The guest services rep informed me this is in violation of Motel 6 policy. According to her, Motel 6 policy states you may stay 28 consecutive days then you must leave the property for 2 days before returning.

This policy is even reflected in their online reservation system which allows you to make a reservation of up to 28 days. (UPDATE: online reservation system at Motel 6.com no longer allows you to make a reservation at this location for longer than 14 consecutive days).

This guaranteed reservation policy is not a law, unlike airlines that have legal obligations to get you to where you’re going, the motel industry has no government oversight in this area. It was the motel and hotel industry that created and defined ‘the walk policy’ as a courtesy to guests. Each motel, hotel, inn, etc may interpret ‘the walk policy’ differently, based on any number of conditions there particular company chooses.

Now maybe the wording of this Motel 6 reservation guarantee is misleading, perhaps I’m reading too much into it, I don’t know. I do know that to ME, when it says your ‘reservations will be honored or they will get you a room at a comparable motel’, that means the reservation (number of beds) I MADE will be honored or I’ll get a 2 bed room somewhere else at Motel 6 expense (the first night). NOT my reservation will be honored with a 1 bed room, and I will just have to share with my travel companion.

What if I needed this 2 bed room because I was traveling with a female co-worker or platonic female friend. Would they still expect us to share a bed just because of a reservation error that MOTEL 6 admitted to making? Or what if the 2 bed room was for a pair of couples, would one couple then have to sleep on the floor? I can’t be the only one this has happened to, feel free to comment below about your Motel 6 experiences. Perhaps its time to hold the motel industry accountable the way we hold the airline industry accountable.