Fairbridge Inn Express at Windsor Oaks

I booked my stay in Grayville at Windsor Oaks through Hotwire. When we arrived, I was told that I would have to call Hotwire and cancel and rebook through them, at a higher rate. Seems the place had recently changed hands and no longer accepts American Express, which is evidently how they are paid by Hotwire. I told them that Hotwire doesn’t do refunds and showed the girl a copy of their cancellation policy but she wasn’t going to let me check in without paying. I had to have a room so, reluctantly, I did. It took a lot of time and a lot of arguing but I was finally able to get the manager to call Hotwire himself and I did get my payment to Windsor refunded. But only after another session with a poorly dressed, uneducated, tie-dyed bozo who actually cursed at me. The room itself was well appointed, except for the towels, but was dirty and smelled bad. The entire hotel is dimly lit and not particularly clean. The pool is closed and most vending machines don’t work. They don’t have a credit card machine at the front desk and have to run your card at the bar at the other end of the building. Worst of all, I am covered in bed bug bites. I do not recommend Windsor Oaks. And certainly, don’t book though Hotwire!

I gave this place 5 stars on our first stay here in 2011. But I have to say that right now it's going on a downward spiral in all aspects of the business. They just don't try anymore... Whenever we visit family in Illinois, we stay at this inn everytime. At first, I praise their friendly staff and nice accommodations. The atmosphere was very welcoming. But slowly, the great smiles from the staff diminished... our room smelled so smoky when it is supposed to be a non-smoking room. The carpet stinks! Seemed like it hasn't been cleaned for a lifetime... Bathroom tiles feels sticky when you step on it... the restaurant was downsized. No more vendo machines. The water fountain is broken so you have to go to the front desk to buy water. I guess they just don't care anymore. All of these we can overlook if not for the recent incident with the management. It happened on the eclipse week.. We have a reservation for 5 nights and the moment we checked in, the guy told us how much our total would be for our stay. We gave our credit card and walked off with the understanding that all is set for our 5-night stay at this inn. On the last night, we got a call from them, in the middle of a family get-together, saying that we need to give our credit card again. And that we have only paid for one night. And they deactivated our room card keys just so we won't forget to go to the front desk. They treated us like thieves! Lock us out of our room when our things are still inside! The manager, Doris, explained that they only charge daily. This is a big sorry excuse! Why can't the manager just admit that they made a mistake of just charging us one night? Why would the manager insist that it's their policy to charge us daily? We have been regular guests since 2011 and we don't remember coming to the front desk daily for them to swipe our card to pay daily. She even have the nerve of pulling our past records showing that they charge daily. This doesn't make sense! Of course, it's a daily record but it doesn't mean we paid daily. We pay for the the whole stay every time we check in. We travel and stay at hotels constantly and this is the only time we've experienced such treatment. All you have to do is admit your mistake and give an apology. But they're too proud to do that because they know there's few choices for hotels/ inns when you're in that part of the world. We have been very nice giving this hotel so many excuses just because we've been there for all those years we visited family. But now, we're done! Definitely not coming back and definitely won't recommend it to anybody! Look elsewhere where people will treat you like they're thankful for the business you give them and not like you owe them gratitude because they let you stay at their inn! We still have to pay for their stinky room and noisy aircon! So we'll bring our business somewhere next time we're in Illinois. And we know they don't care! But we do! -----------------------------------

The other hotel was completely booked so we drove across to the Windsor Oaks. It's an older hotel and looks like a nursing home when you pull up. It's dark when you pull up to go in and register. The parking lot by the room entrance was well lit and the room itself was clean. We went down for breakfast toward the end of the breakfast time. There was no food left and they said they weren't going to put out any more. We won't be staying there again.