Claremont Kissimmee Hotel, The Claremont, The Claremont Hotel ; deceptive reservation practices, terrible rooms, and unbelievable customer service. Kissimmee, Florida

As a Disney annual passholder, I have stayed at the Howard Johnson Kissimmee Maingate East location many many times over the last three years. I've even driven out of the way several times and stayed here on trips to Universal Studios, solely based on previous good experiences.

The location is very convenient and safe, the staff is always friendly and helpful, despite the price being so affordable.  I was looking to book a room for October 21st thru the 24th. I was not able to find the Maingate East location on the normal HOJO.com, as I have in the past. Upon a quick google search, I found that Maingate East had it own website, www.hojomge.com, independent of the rest of the Howard Johnson locations. On October 12th I booked my room on the Maingate East webpage, www.hojomge.com , I received a confirmation email, all under the name Howard Johnson (see screenshots below).

I arrived at 6051 W Irlo Bronson Memorial Hwy, Kissimmee, FL 34747 on October 21st at around 6pm to check in. First off, I am very confused, as the sign now says "The Claremont". I proceed inside the lobby with my reservation printed out. The girl working behind the counter didn't seem to have a grasp of english, so she had to fetch another person. They had absolutely no record of my reservation, but after much fuss about it, said they would honor it. They said they didn't have any rooms avaiable with one king sized bed, so begrudgingly, I accepted a two twin sized bed room. As this had taken so long, we weren't able to visit our room before our 7pm dinner reservations. 

We arrive back to "The Clairmont" at around 9pm. We head to our room near the very dimly lit rear of the complex. We are the only car parked within visible range of the building, with the exception of the construction worker's truck, who was working in the building. We get to our 2nd floor room and our jaws hit the floor. The entire faux wood floor was covered in a fine layer of drywall dust, the bed had no sheets or blankets, the restroom had no towels or other supplies. The was the final straw in this matter. As we walked back down to our car, we passed the construction worker, who was absolutely shocked that they booked a room in that building, as it was still under renovation.

We went back to the lobby and were greeted by a different girl than the first two, again, with little grasp of English, so she had to fetch the manager from earlier. I advised the manager that this whole ordeal was unacceptable and we just wanted to cancel our reservations and go somewhere else. She didn't seem surprised in the least, she didn't apologize, she didn't say anything besides, "okay, it's cancelled".

My group packed up and drove around attempting to find a suitable hotel for our needs. At nearly 11pm we found Howard Johnson Inn Tropical Palms Kissimmee at 4311 W Irlo Bronson Memorial Hwy, Kissimmee, FL 34746. I spoke with the night manager, whose name I do not remember, but I remember he speaks Spanish. I explained the situation, he was very concerned by what had happened as "The Clairmont". He actually went above and beyond, and honored our original reservation and we had no issues the rest of our trip. A big thumbs up the the manager at Tropical Palms.

I had waited 6 weeks before writing this to cool off and not post anything out of emotion. To this day, 12/8/11, the fake Howard Johnson website , www.hojomge.com , is still open and accepting reservations. I don't want another vacation to be bothered by this nonsense.