Comfort Inn on the Ocean

There are multiple reasons this hotel doesn’t allow cancellations, the primary one is that when you get there your room isn’t ready, and you can’t cancel and go somewhere else. There are other reasons – breakfast is pretty poor, the room is only sort of cleaned, the a/c unit rattles and is exceptionally loud, and staff struggles with requests that go beyond asking for more towels (at least the staff I interacted with). We departed early, and given their no refund policy, essentially paid to leave early and not spend any more time there. We booked a last-minute trip for August 7-11, 2025. The reservations had two options for cancellations. One option was no cancellation/no refunds. The second allowed cancellations up to, if I recall, two days before check in. The fact you can’t cancel upon arrival if there is a problem should have been a red flag. We overlooked it, hopefully you don’t. Check in is at 4. We arrived about 3, an hour early, on a Thursday, and the room wasn’t ready. No big deal. I’m sure Thursdays are super busy…lol. Came back at 4, room is not ready and the front desk had no estimate for when it would be ready. With an exasperated look on her face, the front desk person said something to the effect of she just got here, there’s nothing she could do, but she could tell the cleaning staff to hurry. Front desk suggested we could use the pool or go on the beach. That has to be the most ridiculous suggestion when your car is packed, you have nowhere to change/shower, etc…when you are done – especially if you have small children with you. I asked whether they had other room options and the front desk person said no, we had a specific room. My reservation didn’t have a room number on it. My experience in the past is that hotels don’t allow you to specify a room. At 4:45, room is still not ready. I called Choice Hotels, noting that Comfort Inn is part of their franchise and explained the situation. I suggested they allow us to cancel and go to a different Comfort Inn down the street and they explained each hotel is independently owned and operated and they had no control over the owner’s policies at this hotel. I then spoke to a manager at the Choice hotels call center – lot of apologizing, empathizing, but they can’t help. The manager at the call center did say he could fill out a report regarding the situation. I’m learning that staff at Comfort Inn and Choice Hotels can’t help with situations where you actually need help. Perhaps on the Choice website they should have a question mark that you click on for help….and it should just state that “we need help too – best of luck!.” Around 5, the front desk calls to let us know the room is ready. Upon checking in, you have to sign a bunch of stuff that the hotel’s website never mentions when booking a reservation. One “form” is a 10% hold on your credit card for incidentals. Then there is some other stuff regarding not smoking in the rooms, etc. When they entered

I know it is hard to maintain an ocean front property, but this Comfort Inn is very well maintained. The room was very clean. The beds were very comfortable. The towels were of good quality and bath products were of a luxury quality. The view from the ocean front balcony was amazing! I was surprised the inn even offered breakfast!

The front desk attendant was friendly upon checking in, explained to us where our room was. Upon heading to our room we noticed how odd the layout of the building was at least from the ground floor to the first floor. Entering our room, noticing that it was basic. Nothing standing out other than the bed looked as though it was sloping, that was weird. The back door was extremely hard to open. There was no light at the back door, dangerous. The bathroom did not have an exhaust fan and very outdated and moldy. The mattress was of cheap quality, feeling all the coils .As I mentioned, nothing impressive at this hotel. The dunes to the beach are very difficult for the average person to walk up. Apparently this hotel advertises that it has washer/ dryers for guests, however, they have 1 washer and dryer, but the washer was out of service (in need of repair ) and no telling when it would be fixed because the hotel does not own the units. Pretty pitiful a hotel this size has only 1 washer and dryer. They also have a restaurant but isn’t open on Thursday or Sunday. This hotel says it is pet friendly but what wasn’t told was that pets aren’t allowed on the beach 9:00-6:00pm daily, they have a pet area that is about 1/2 block away. The best part of the breakfast was the waffles that you prepare for your self. We have been visiting the beautiful ,OBX area for the last 33 years, this hotel did not live up to expectations and very pricey for outdated accommodations.