So we stayed at the Capital Center Inn in Kansas City when driving down to Memphis recently. This was a mistake. I certainly hope you don’t make this same mistake. To help, here’s a little travelogue if you will.
It looks serviceable enough from afar. Even moreso at night after a full day of work and then 3+ hours on the road. Now, the observant person will point out the weekly rates on the sign. To be fair, I missed this when we drove up. I was tired. And giddy. I’d just run a few laps around the traffic circle out front.
I love traffic circles.
But on to checking in. I bounded into the lobby and asked the clerk if he had a room for the evening. The weird look on his face was probably another clue that I missed. It was the look that, in retrospect, said “why wouldn’t we have a room? this place is a dive.” But I missed it.
He quoted the price of $69.99 which I thought was a little steep, but then again, there was a restaurant on the floor plan, an outdoor pool was advertised on the sign out front. More hotel that we needed but we were tired and there’s an odd lack of hotels in the general area. So I give the man a credit card and he rings up a room. Then instead of giving us a key he asked if I had $5.00 cash for the key deposit. Again, weird, but who am I to judge. Just give me a damn key because I want to get everything hauled up to the room so I can sleep.
Then the fun really began.
I turn the corner at the end of the lobby to go to our room and saw this little bit of loveliness. All of the pay phones were pulled off the wall. I wouldn’t use the adjective ‘gentle’ to describe the manner in which it seems the pay phones were disappeared either. I’d bet there would be wires hanging out of the wall except someone wanted the copper.
It really wasn’t until I saw the hallway carpet that I started to think maybe we weren’t in for some quirky adventure but were in a seriously unhealthy place. Lest you think maybe the light or focus or framing of this photo is bad, I assure you that this picture is actually way more flattering than the reality. The entire length of the hallway was stained various colors.
Also noteworthy: photograph technology is not sufficiently advanced such that I could capture the odor that went along with the image. It is safe to say that some of these stains were likely much fresher than one might like.
I don’t have any pictures of the room because, at that point, we got distracted by a number of events. First, Elizabeth noticed that the lock to the balcony door was some poorly thought out and welded post and hasp thing. Second, once we wandered out on to the balcony we noticed the structural integrity of the railing was suspect. Then we saw the brown SUV pull up, someone wander out from one of the ground floor rooms, and conduct a little business if you know what I mean. And I know you do.
It was shortly after that moment that we decided that we had truly made a mistake. Elapsed time between driving up and now: < 15 minutes. We both head back to the desk and explain how we had erred in our judgement. This hotel was obviously not designed to cater to the weary traveler. We had made an impulsive stop here on our way to the hotel we had been heading toward. Now we’d like to have our card refunded so that we could continue on to that destination.
As the sign says, ‘No Refunds’. I think the font is even Comic Sans.
We argued with the desk guy for at least five minutes. Seems we may not have been the first unsuspecting travelers to have been so ensnared. He finally cracks just a bit and offers to show us a different room. He walks us down the other wing and opens a door, steps inside, and then quickly steps back out and re-locks the door. Even odds on whether the room was a lot trashier than he thought or that there was someone already staying there and he just didn’t realize this. He shows us a second room which was equally beat up, had two twin beds, and had the unfortunate quality of not facing the parking lot.
I didn’t mention the guy who was window-polishing our car, did I? Oh, yeah, some dude was all rubbed up on our car when Elizabeth had finally called down from the balcony. Suddenly this guy is a car expert and wants to talk about our car, its manufacturer, and how nice it is. The upshot being we were no longer willing to bet that our car would be there and unmolested in the morning. When this was mentioned to the desk guy he pointed out that there are $30K cars in his parking lot and no one is ever broken in to.
$30K doesn’t seem to buy a lot of car in Kansas City from the look of things.
Anyway, the second room was no better than the first but that was the extent to which the Capital Center Inn was willing to meet us. We tried to make the best of it but after a couple of asthma attacks in our room I gave up on sleeping. I spent the next half hour or so wandering around the public areas of the hotel. Here’s what I saw.
The public water fountain in a surprising state of disrepair.
Spotless lobby! Also the couch upon which the vaunted security guard spent most of the night with his shoes off and feet on one of those round tables he artfully shifted into a comfortable position.
What might look like a window opened to enjoy the Indian Summer weather is actually a window “opened” by breaking out all of the glass.
I’d actually like to commend Capital Center Inn staff and guests for actually getting trash into the proper receptacle. And then berate them for never dumping it. Although it looks like someone has kicked the thing a time or two.
The other hallway on our floor had nicer carpet but was missing any number of things that would probably have plugged in to the wall and sat on these nice tiles.
It’s an indoor railing. How can it possibly get so rusty?
Top quality microwave in the food prep area.
One wall of the food prep / dining / meeting area. Filthy!
Not surprising.
Missing ceiling tiles in stairwell just off lobby.
Ceiling tile in lobby that maybe should be missing.
Probably don’t want to sit there. Who knows what has been chewing on those arms.
This is is an exit sign…
…that probably goes here.
Looks like the staff door has come under assault on numerous occasions.
And a shot of the awning the next morning.
There’s plenty more photos. I just got tired of editing and posting the damn things. In case you think that our experience was an anomaly, here are some other reviews:
Finally, the next morning the desk person mentioned that we might get a partial refund and that she would let us know. A week has gone by with no word. Updates to follow.
Great post!
Hey Nick, Don’t know if you will receive this but I recently had the pleasure of staying at the capital inn.
While the place was a dive and I can affirm all of your observations and tell you that the repair of the facility has not gotten any better (especially the locks on the balcony that any monkey could easily climb from room to room).
BUT – I must say that I was happy to have found a room there after we had booked a room at the Arrowhead Inn a few miles away, where we were fortunate enough that the desk clerk was unable to validate our expedia payment because the telephone lines were down! [NOTE -THey are still down four days later as we found when trying to get a refund].
The Capital Inn is a Five-Star hotel compared to the Arrowhead but I am glad that we chose put our valuables in the trunk of the car when we went to the Starlight Theater for a concert.
When we returned we found that there was no telephone (OK because everybody has cell phones these days -but there was no way to call the front desk), sheets appeared to be dirty but the two towels were clean, one very thin bar of soap that I had to use to wash my hair because there were no towels, no lock on the sliding balcony door, the slide-lock found in most hotels was removed from the front door of the room so there was no way to lock out the staff when sleeping, the Iranian? proprietor had to check the room before we got our $20 deposit back (which was a good thing because he found my house key on the floor -On an Israeli keychain), the meeting area and all public areas were in the same state of disrepair as our room, woman sleeping in a chair in meeting area (don’t know who would have a meeting there -and the sleeping woman occupied the only chair!), no screens on any windows -and all were open so that hot Missouri air could come in, transient looking people all around the place…
But I must say that I was happy to get a room because everything else was booked -I just wanted to sleep. And I think this is the first time ever that I have stayed at a hotel after a concert and not asked for a late checkout! I was ready to leave.
Dan Weddle ~ Des Moines, IA