We've stayed in dirtier motels and scarier motels, but our one night at the America's ”Best Value” Inn in Meridian was the worst and most unpleasant stay we've ever had at any lodging establishment in 25+ years of cross-country road trips. It didn't start out badly, as the staff tried to accommodate us in an accessible room for the wife's bad knees. But then we discovered the air conditioning unit wouldn't blow at a temperature much below 70 degrees, which may not sound bad, but on a sweltering humid summer evening resulted in no effective cooling in the room at all, with most of the night spent in muggy near-90s unpleasantness. And all the other rooms had sold out for the night. We might have been able to forgive this, but the belligerence of a person identifying himself as the ”night manager” managed to make the evening far more unpleasant. After we registered a complaint at the front desk, he entered the room and stated in an antagonistic manner ”you are running the AC wrong”. We've visited hundreds of motels, and we know when an AC isn't working right, and we'd already tried resetting it and checking for blockage. He then accused us of deliberately damaging the AC unit when we looked under the cover for problems, and said that any ***** would know you ”need to open the windows for a while, just like in a car” to get the room cool. Again, our extensive experience in nearly every motel room we'd used in the past said otherwise - if the AC unit works, it'll cool just fine, and the last thing we needed was more hot humid smoky air in the room. We'd brought in fans from the van to try to keep us cool, and he said these low-wattage devices were ”drawing way too much power” (actually less than one incandescent bulb) and that we'd brought our misery upon ourselves by ”having all these things plugged in heating up the place”. I politely told him I disagreed, and he became even more agitated and angry. He finally left us alone around midnight, and we endured the heat and humidity as much as we could. The next morning, I went by the front desk to see if we could speak to someone else, but there was Mr. Personality again, who lit into me with renewed anger that I dared question his wisdom and brilliance in managing the property. I asked for a discount or refund, and his response was mocking. So we finished packing up and left, promising ourselves to avoid Meridian and hellholes like this in the future. We'd had good stays at other America's Best Value Inns, including a nice one in Heflin the night before, but this stop has us avoiding ABVIs or any other Red Lion properties in the future if we have any choice in the matter. There was one respite in all this aggravation - after all this trouble, in the middle of the night while trudging across the parking lot, a friendly kittycat came up and gave some good rubby-love when it was most needed. So promote the cat to manager, fire the ****, and start trying to salvage the wreck of customer service at this
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