We booked a room at the Clarion on our visit to Tallahassee because we have stayed here several times and always enjoyed it. However, upon our arrival this time, we were told at check-in, that we could not stay here because of a policy. The policy is that if you happen to live within a 100 mile radius, you cannot stay at this hotel. We were actually denied our reserved room. We had booked the room through Hotels.com and we did not see this policy. Even on the Clarion website it is not easy to find. I have never heard of such a policy. I HAVE NEVER BEEN TURNED AWAY AT CHECK IN. We did get a refund and were able to find another hotel, but that STUPID policy has lost them loyal Clarion customers!!!

We really wanted to give this funky, cool hotel five stars. Unfortunately, a couple significant issues prevented it.

First of all, we LOVED the artsy, eclectic decor. Such a nice change from the boring corporate look. My wife, who’s an artist, was in her glory here. The room was also comfortable and clean, and the TV was huge (which was a big plus for me).

Unfortunately, there were two very minor issues and two major ones. The minor ones… check-in was slow and clunky. After driving all day, I just want a quick check-in and I definitely don’t want to answer spammy questions on a small computer screen. It was also a little weird that there was no coffee in the room. These issues would not have prevented us from giving this hotel 5 stars, though. The other issues did that…

1) The A/C unit didn’t work. The room kept getting warmer and warmer throughout the night until it was eventually too hot to sleep comfortably. As a result, we both had a horrible night’s sleep, and we had to get up and drive all day the next day.

2) The shower was cold. The combination of no sleep and a cold shower made for a couple of very grumpy travelers. Hotels are supposed to refresh you, not make you grumpy ;-)

Without the funky decor, we would have given it 3 stars. The cool decor pushed it to four.

-The PowerTrippers