Howard Johnson Austin North

If you must stay here, request one of their recently-​renovated rooms. It’s like night and day.
The first room that I was offered was located in the rear of the facility and had a door whose electronic access wouldn’t work unless I swiped it just right. I’ve never stayed at a Howard Johnson before but I can see that I haven’t been missing out. The reviews from two years ago still hold true for their older rooms e.g. the walls are filthy and have holes in them. The newer rooms are much better but the overall feeling is one of regret. My advice: Do your research before spending your money. It may be worth the extra $ 100 for peace of mind.

I am currently here in bed and contemplating why I’m still actually here. This is the scariest hotel I’ve ever stayed in. There is no security to get into the building, which is disconcerting. I actually contemplated packing up my stuff and keeping it in the rental car since that’s probably have less of a chance of being broken into. My colleague’s room is even more terrifying than mine and I’m sure he’s cursing me for not immediately checking out. The room itself is gross (walls dirty and peeling, toilet seat peeling, ripped comforter, stained furniture) and the impetus for writing this was the fact that I just saw a mouse run across the floor. I’m not really sure what to do. Help! Let’s see., they don’t have bed bugs, at least not in my room. Orbitz lied. 3 stars is a gross misrepresentation of this place.

I’m here right now. There’s a cockroach in my bathroom. Not sure of the breed, but he’s orange and about 1.5″ long. I don’t think I need to continue this review, but I will, for those of you who enjoy cockroaches, and thus may still be considering this place. To make it quick, I’ll just give you the bullet points:
*The woman at the front desk has this disposition like I walked in on her trying to rob the place, and she assumed the role of Desk Clerk as a means of making me think that nothing was wrong, Bugs Bunny-​style.
* It smells. I went up and down both floors, and there’s this perpetual smell of sulfur and mold. You know, like how the Bible says Hell smells.
* All of the vending machines have been removed, and the ice machines are turned off.
* They have cable here, but the picture quality on every channel is nearly unwatchable.
*The wifi doesn’t work. Trust me; I’m a network engineer. The wifi doesn’t work. I had to tether to my phone.
*The microwave in my room looks like.. .I don’t know. Something bad happened.
*The queen size bed here is several square feet smaller than my queen size bed at home.
*After further inspection, ALL of the furniture in here seems to be 20% smaller than normal. It’s like a uselessly big dollhouse.
*The refrigerator makes a sound like somebody is opening the room door every time it turns on, which is very disconcerting when you’re trying to sleep.
*The bed frame falls apart if you take the mattress off of it, as it has no screws in it anymore.
I’m done for now. Pray for me.

@Orbitz: Some friends and I were going to Austin to go to a concert. We paid approximately $ 60 for the room. The hotel itself had inadequate signage. The only sign that said «Howard Johnson» was an unlit tarp (we arrived at 9pm) on the side of the building.
We checked in, and there were no issues – other than the fact that Orbitz paid $ 40 for the room. I mean, I know they need to make a profit, but 33% mark up? I’m in the wrong business, but I digress.
When I got to the room, the walls were flaking paint (seriously, huge flecks of pain were on the floor and the wall was cracked.) Also, there was a pubic hair on my hand towel and some other more innocuous hairs on my bath towels.
I had a queen bed, but it had two extremely tiny pillows on it. I managed alright with these, but my friends had a king size bed in which both would sleep – the same, postage stamp sized pillows were in their room too. When we went to the front desk, we were told that they didn’t have any more pillows (no extra pillows, really?)Also the Wi-​Fi did not work.
Checking in/​out was easy, but Orbitz needs to downgrade this hotel from a 3 star to a 2 (if not a 1) star. I tweeted Orbitz a few times with photos, so they should have seen the issues. I also tried to post this review on Orbitz’s website, but they wouldn’t allow it due to «inappropriate language.» I agree that the pubic hair was totally inappropriate on a hand towel, but I write it as I see it.

NEVER NEVER STAY HERE.
Do yourself a favor and stay at another motel in the same area — there are plenty.
list of grievances :
— we were lucky enough to stay as ‘new management’ took over. the new manager was a spastic middle aged indian man who did not seem to have a clue. in addition, we were told by one of the newer maintenance guys that the old crew up and quit due to the management change.
— the computer system crashed [we think it was an inside job], meaning all reservations were lost and they could not make any new room keys.
how did we get in and out of our room? call the front desk and they’d dispatch someone to let us into the building and into our room.
— the stench of marijuana everywhere. quite possibly the shadiest patrons i have ever seen. most appeared as if they’d been living at the hojo for months on end.
— at the north end of the parking lot, there were several unmarked white vans and moving trucks. stay away.
— no housekeeping on sundays
— our tub faucet was leaky
— we were first in room 165. when we walked in with the manager, there was a used dress shirt next to the TV. the manager looked confused and moved us to room 166.
— did i mention the patrons were shady?

Unless you are a ho, pimp, or close to homelessness, stay someplace else. We stopped here on a road trip across the country. Couldn’t get a place through priceline because I forgot to book in the afternoon. Freeway close so it seemed a good shot. The room was so disgusting and dirty, the other patrons frightened me. I stayed awake whole night to make sure my children would be safe. It was that scary. The only consolation was that I was able to get my money back from the hotel manager. She was extremely helpful and understanding.

Meh. You definitely get what you pay for. Booked this hotel on Expedia because it was a great deal and just a short drive to downtown Austin. Used to love HoJo’s, but feels like the ones I’ve stayed at recently are getting worse and worse. Front desk clerk was less than friendly (although he did look as if he’d just worked 48 hours straight) and the room was sparse, which would be fine if our sink fixture hadn’t been completely falling off the sink, the toilet pipes didn’t scream every time we flushed, our tub wasn’t completely clogged and there hadn’t been left over plastic rose petals all around and under the bed from the previous guests… scares me to think how well the cleaning crew really cleans.
On the upside they do include a continental breakfast, which was nice. BUT, certainly wouldn’t be my first choice next time I go to Austin.

Our actual stay here was okay, the front desk guy was nice, the room was fine and we enjoyed the hot tub. Our before and after experience are what gets this place a one-​star review.
First of all, we could not find the damned hotel. We got to the area and then drove around a 10 block area for 40 minutes before we located the place.
The frontage roads are pretty difficult to navigate if you’re not used to them (not the hotel’s fault) but the hotel didn’t even have proper signage. They were listed as a Howard Johnson when we booked the place but their large, lit sign said they were a St Michaels. There was a small, unlit HoJo banner hanging on the side of the building, but it was almost impossible to see in the dark, unless you were right in their parking lot.
They also weren’t located properly on Google Maps and their GPS coordinates were way off.
So we finally found the place and like I said the actual experience staying there was fine. Nothing to write home about but no real complaints.
No, the complaints start again after we checked out.
We booked the room online and held the reservation with a credit card. When we checked in we told the guy that we would pay cash for the room in the morning, which we did. Did that stop them from charging the credit card too? Of course not!
Our credit card was billed, then refunded, then billed again. Once I noticed the charge I pulled out my receipt and called the hotel to ask them to correct the problem.
I called, the manager wasn’t in, so I left a message on her voice mail. No return call. I called again, left another voice message, no returned call. I called again and talked to a front desk person who said she’d take care of refunding my credit card and that it should be corrected within three days. It was not.
I gave it more than a week, you know, just in case. Nope, still no refund. I called again, left a message, no return call. Are we seeing a pattern here? I gave it one more time before I called HoJo’s head office. Gave them all the info and they said they’d forward it to the hotel for resolution. Still nothing!
HoJo’s head office has been pretty good about following up — the issue still isn’t resolved but between the cc company & their head office I’m confident it’ll get fixed one way or another, but the hotel’s manager has been zero help. (I still have never received a call from her.)
So, if you can find the place and there’s no issues with billing then you might be okay staying here, but me, I’ll be finding a different hotel next time I’m in Austin.

I had the worst experience at this hotel. I wasn’t expecting much since it was a cheap hotel, but I did not expect my experience to be this bad. At check-​in, they gave us the wrong room, we were moved to another room. That room had no towels or pillows. We called the front desk. Instead of bringing us anything, they made us come to the front desk check out a key to another room and bring the stuff over from that room to our new room. When I asked for extra towels, they said housekeeping doesn’t work Sundays and they didn’t have any at the desk. The next day our toilet flooded. We called the front desk, no answer. We went to the front desk and it took 5 minutes for anyone to respond because no one was there. They placed us in a new room and told us to come back later to get our stuff that was left in the bathroom. When we went back the next day, everything was left the same and the floor was still flooded. We had to climb on top of things just to get to our stuff in the flooded bathroom. After this experience, we left a message for the manager since she wasn’t there. We still have not heard back from her. I called the corporate office. They said someone would get back to me in three days. No one did. I called again and they said, «Oh we gave you 10 percent off, that’s why no on called.» I told them I’d still like to talk to someone. They said it would be another three business for me to hear back. If you have a choice, DO NOT stay at this hotel!

HOJO? oh NO. I had never been to a Howard Johnson and figured for $ 40 a night we could survive, as my trip to Austin was not necessarily a vacation. I was wrong, I got maybe 3 hours of sleep per night due to the rock hard beds with approximately 50 thread count sheets. Most of the rooms also face the 35 and as such you hear the lovely traffic all night as well, the room was pretty nasty as in lot’s of stains, scuffs, smells (a non smoking hotel but it reeks of ciggys, so by the end of 1 night you do as well), mildew etc. but at least I didn’t see any bugs. It was a lesson learned to never cheap out again.

Definitely get what you pay for… the bathroom was nice and remodeled, but the room was pretty blah. Stayed two nights and we never even got housekeeping! Used the same towels all weekend long. Front desk clerk was a rude witch to us when we checked in, and there was a ton of confusion over our reservations (made through
).
Close to downtown, and pretty cheap… but definitely very rundown and outdated.

All I want to say is that… although it is cheap and the staff are friendly. I WOULD NEVER GO BACK! the bed they have… ughh so small (double bed) and the only things they have… and it was hard to sleep on. The room is very small. The place still exist. it’s just at a different location. Very hard to find. hidden between Shell and Motel 6. We spent about 30 mins to go around the highway. Crazy! When we finally called, it was totally the opposite of the N I-​35!

R.I.P. HoJos, my first home in Austin. It is now a «Saint Michael’s Motel» or something like that. Don’t know if it’s changed much inside, but the sign has.

The HoJo is pretty inconspicuous — hidden between a Motel 6 and some Country Inn-​type place. We parked and went inside, and found a woman yelling at the person behind the front desk. We knew we were in for a good night!
It took about 20+ minutes for us to get to the front desk and get our room. People just kept streaming in (and hotel guests were walking around the lobby barefoot … hmm, probably not the most sanitary thing to do…) So we had plenty to stare at while we waited.
Then we went to our room — the sink was just inside the door, and the bathroom was tiny. But it’s a HoJo’s… what was I expecting? The bed was the dinkiest one I’ve stayed in as of late — and I’ve been traveling a lot lately! But there was a table there and some chairs, which was great because we had to lug all our stuff in and set it somewhere!
The most important thing to me in a hotel room is the bathroom… and that’s what disappointed me the most. The toilet didn’t flush!
And then the lady at the front desk had told us about breakfast in the morning … well, it consisted of donuts and juice. Not my cup of tea.
I guess I feel bad about giving this place 2 stars, because it’s not bad for the price. But I can’t help it … the toilet didn’t flush!