My room, for a four night stay early June 2007, is a no smoking two queen bedded rooms (standard for "gub'mint" rate, $84 nightly,) with older-feeling decor, lots of dark wood, a waffle-patterned and elderly carpet (straw colored?) two very "square" armchairs and a very flat-bottomed and uncomfortable office chair at the desk, yellow and gold checked pattern wallpaper - definitely not one of the most recently remodeled rooms, but tolerably OK. The Four Points Four Comfort bed is topped by checkered neutral spreads and the usual variety of pillows (two huge ones for sitting up, one useless small one for decor, and two soft floppy ones that gave a number of us neck pain) and thick foamish blanket. USA Today is delivered to the room, Fresno Bee is available free in several locations (yesterday's big news is a bust of a number of Hmong and one retired CANG Lt Col for planning assassinations and a major attack in Vientiane, where I was a couple of months ago.
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The room is quite large by any standard, but age is also determined by the jumble of wires, and the air con works only too well - when I arrived it was set at 70F/ 21C! Useful for an unnecessary duvet and heavy spread in the hot Central Valley (94F / 34C today) but plurry
cold for anyone just in from the warm outside, and the cold air blasts in even if the control is set higher.
The housekeeping starts early, and in my instance was quite good - late sleepers will be subject to vacuum cleaner noises, etc. past 7:30 or 8:00, and the 5:30 AM rubbish truck noise seemed to occur on alternate days. Soundproofing is an issue here - I heard my neighbor's snores, and am now listening to a happy baby making repetitive "aaaah!" noises - thankfully, not crying. At 6:09, another truck has pulled in noisily (air brakes, loud backup alarm and engine,) and some departing fool has decided to let us know with copious honking. More substantial curtains with sound insulation and light reduction properties would help.
The Ethernet in my room (309) apparently does not work, and the WiFi bleeding over from the lobby is about two (and infrequently three) of five bars. A very old, slow and sick computer with printer comprises the lobby "business center" - it has a cable for USB thumb drives, but the Windows 2000 Professional crashed when I connected mine, and it took fifteen minutes to get things back up, load a document and print yesterday! You can also send to a secured print queue from your room - the first four pages are free.
The bathroom is a two part bit, with the ante-bath with a closet (usual ironing board and iron, extra blanket,) a small fridge stashed under the separate makeup counter, which has a coffeemaker, ice bucket and complimentary bottle of water, which was renewed daily. The bath itself contains toilet and shower-tub combo with a newer bowed shower curtain rod, a sink with bath and facial soap bars that are truly tiny, accompanied by Caswell-Massey shampoo, conditioner and lotion tubes. The shower is OK if you are under 5'6" / 167 cm, but if you are over that expect to have to bend down to rinse.
The restaurant is OK - nothing especially bad nor especially good that I can see - mostly off the Sysco truck, I suspect, but reasonably prepared and not overpriced. My courtesy breakfast chit got me a pretty standard hotel breakfast buffet with some melons (mostly unripe cantaloupe and honeydew, plus watermelon,) scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, French toast, orange (only) juice, tea, coffee. The staff is accommodating and friendly.
There are four iDine restaurants within three miles, and about fifteen within five, for those staying a while and mobile (I can recommend Pacific Seafood and Venezia (N. Italian) about 3 miles north of the hotel. A small mall across the street has perhaps 12 OK restaurants. The neighborhood is a bit run down - some of the teens were actually passing a public phone back and forth, as they were obviously sans cell phone.
Since the last time I stayed, the grounds and buildings look pretty much the same - nothing spectacular, a definite dated look, but the rooms and staff have improved to a noticeable degree. The lobby is brighter, they served decent lemonade and three varieties of cookies ~5 - 7 PM yesterday, and when I inquired about the note in the room I encountered some time ago warning that cards parked on the grounds had been broken in to and guests were enjoined to not leave anything of value in their vehicles is not here - when I inquired about security, they seemed surprised at my question (my car was parked between two California Highway Patrol vehicles - that might also be a small disincentive to a potential thief.)
The usual here seems to be some small conferences and meetings, a bus or two (a large bus with Japanese placards arrived when I did,) and some folks on the way through to Yosemite, on the busy highway 99 or a few for business locally. All in all, I cringed when I was told this was my training venue due to my experiences the last time I was here, , though when I tried to book the Hampton two weeks ago, I was told there were no non-smoking rooms available, but I'd "probably" get one my day of arrival. Now that I've settled in, I've had an acceptable stay, though I wish the halls were a bit quieter / rooms were more insulated, and that the curtains excluded more light and noise from the outside (and they really should spring for a somewhat newer computer for the lobby!)
Yes, they did ask for "picture ID," but accepted my credit card with photo.