Days Inn website used to show a 1 to 5 sunburst rating for each hotel, but I don't see these ratings anymore. Used to be if you found a Days Inn with a 4 or 5 sunburst rating and also a 3 star AAA rating then you'd be pretty safe, but I don't know what happened. Maybe so many of their hotels were only rating 1 or 2 sunbursts that it got embarrassing?

Each hotel franchise sets up their very stringent regulations and long list of standards for the hotel to retain the "brand name." An auditor visits every year and more often if necessary to check on whether the hotel is up to snuff. If not, then the chain will suspend or revoke the right to use the franchise name. It is entirely reasonable to expect certain standards to be kept up with any given franchise. For example, the Hyatt's standards are more stringent than that of Holiday Inn. Days Inn's basic standards must fall pretty low to allow such operations to continue under its name. That being said, many hotels exceed their franchise's standards. But the floor of Days Inn's expectations seem to be in the bargain basement.

From this thread, we have two bad reviews for the Days Inn Airport and one for the Days Inn South Beach.

From that, I'd probably skip other Days Inns in Miami just because I know how bad the one is in South Beach is, I trust Linda's opinion, and chances are good they are owned by the same person.

I do and have stayed at the Days Inn Charleston and it is a great hotel.

AustinTraveler has a point I think. This sounds like a rehash of his anti NCL comments only he substituted Days Inn instead. Must have been an awful trip. .

And there are people who find fault no matter what. And you cannot please. They complain for the sake of complaining. DH and I have traveled all the states except Alaska in the U.S. and have stayed at many Days Inn and have never had a bad one. We have stayed in expensive lavish hotels also and have found them not to our standards. We always check our room before we accept it. If we do not like it for whatever reason we ask to see another or say "thank you" and go down the road. It's one's own fault if they stay in a place that they are unhappy with in my opinion. The door swings both directions in and out.

marlene, I've been in the hotel business (management) for a long time and I am much more lenient than most.

At the Days Inn South Beach, we checked in with five rooms with our families at 1AM on a Saturday night and the first four rooms Mr. GoTravel and I tried to check into for just us were in various state of disrepair and gross.

The kids and my mother didn't ask for different rooms but all three of the girls slept in the same double bed.

I think from a professional hotelier standpoint, my view is pretty accurate when I state a hotel is dismal considering I saw nine different hotel rooms in the same hotel in one weekend and only one was acceptable.

Only wondering, how did you book or pick this hotel? Not being critical. Was getting your money back possible?

If you are asking me, I got all five rooms on Hotwire for two nights at $50 per room per night so the bad room really wasn't that big a deal.

tracys2cents, Days inn still shows the Sunburst Rating. I just visited their site before posting.

BTW: Days Inn Miami Airport North gets ZERO sunbursts. Days Inn Miami International Airport gets 5 SUNBURTS. Days Inn South Beach gets ZERO SUNBURTS.

Keith

I think that each individual property even within a chain should be judged by itself. We attempted to stay at a Days in in southern CA a few years ago. We were dealing with estate issues, and just needed a place to crash after what was to be several exhausting days. We arrived at the hotel and had our doubts, but went to our room. I think we were in there maybe 5 minutes when my DH said that even he could not handle this place. He dealt with the front desk, and we got most of our money back. We promptly went to a Hampton Inn and felt like we were at the Ritz. I have never in my life been so happy to see a clean room. BTW, I just checked the Days Inn site and they give that location a 3 sun rating. EWWWW!!!

Isn't it amazing how someone can post a simple statement here about how bad their experience was at a particular place and they get attacked as being too picky or just plain telling lies? Especially when those comments come from people who have never even been to the exact place the poster was talking about?
If someone says their steak was tough at the Outback in Tucson, several posters will immediately tell them they don't what good steak is because the one they had at Outback in Chicago was wonderful. It's all just too funny -- and too frustrating for the poster who tried to pass along a simple warning.

I am sure there are some good Days Inn but I have had a number of bad experiences with them and I would never stay in one again either. I think when you have a bad experience with more than once member of a chain it does turn you off to try others. That is the way it has worked with us. Usually, you can get another hotel in a market and it is no problem but there are some small towns and cities that this is the only choice and in those cases I will go to the next town to avoid a Days Inn.

Thanks Keith. I didn't see any sunbursts on the website, I guess that means that all of the hotels that I was checking had a ZERO SUNBURST rating? Pretty sad when your own hotel chain rates your property a zero!

Good luck to those poor Days Inn operators who maintain three star/five sunburst properties! So sad that your business has to suffer because the rest of the chain is so sub-standard.

Days Inns are bad, but Econolodges are MUCH WORSE!

The Days Inn in Dunkirk/Fredonia NY was very satisfactory to me. However I don't expect inexpensive hotel chains to have immaculate rooms. Since other people stay in the rooms over the months before I arrive I do expect that they may (heaven forbid) have some wear.

We spent a miserable half-night in a Days Inn right off highway 70 in Columbia. Were too exhausted to move on but it was disgustingly filthy, filthy, FILTHY and had noisy teens in the pool at midnight whom management made no effort to remove in spite of the posted "no swimming after 10" rule and our requests for quiet so people could sleep. After that experience, I swore I'd never spend a night in a Days Inn again! When I when I attempted to complain to "the home office" I found out that each is owned and run independently. Which explains the clean and well-run Days Inn in New Market, Virginia where we have stayed several times and expect to do so again.

What I've learned is to never make reservations sight-unseen at a Days Inn and to always stop with ample time to inspect and move on if need be.

Oops, that should have read "Columbia, Missouri" for anyone who might be wondering just which Days Inn I was indicating should be avoided.