Review of Meramie Motor Inn 3*

I booked and paid online for this mistake of an experience online at 9:20pm on the night of check-in. The property advertised a 2 br apartment to sleep 4. The booking was confirmed and a message received saying that if check-in was after 8pm reception would be closed and a key would be left out. No key left. So I messaged on the booking channel that we wanted to check in now. A sign on the door with a mobile number said call if reception unattended. I rang the number and received the rudest response I have ever received from a night clerk. The man abused me for waking them up said they would be there soon. An old man appeared and continued his tirade. We should have just left, but the family with children needed a place to stay at 10:15pm and no other booking on the stop on the road from Sydney to Melbourne. The apartment was not available. I was told the man had extended the stay of the previous guest that day and not updated the website availability. He put us in a lesser room which was not the end of the world, and put the extraordinary greeting incident behind us. Anyway, 2 evenings later I get a response to the message on the booking channel which I will quote for complete accuracy: "What a vey rude person you are! “Wanting to check in now” is not conducive to a response worthy of a reasonable guest. Our terms clearly state our reception closes at 8pm but you thought you could ignore that and be as rude as possible. Not fair and we hope you don’t bother to return because we and every other motel here don’t need your negativity or rudeness. " Just to be clear, the booking was accepted and paid for after the close of reception, but there was no trigger warning on making a 10pm check-in or that it would prompt retaliatory communications from the night clerk 2 nights later (also after reception close! ) Most concerning was that the website advertised specific Covid-19 protections, one of which was that they claimed to leave 72 hours between one occupant and the next. However, that representation did not match with what the night clerk told me was his excuse why the room was not available — he told me that the room was not available as there were guests in the room who had extended their stay by one further night and that was the reason he could not honour the booking. If that was true then there was never any 72 hour gap being left between gusts occupying the same room. That made me wonder if the other so-called COVID-19 precautions were simply a marketing statement not a reality.