Megan Milton

Review of Embassy Suites East Peoria

I'm from the surrounding community and attend Illi...

I'm from the surrounding community and attend Illinois Central College. A few of my classmates and I were planning on doing a short film for the ICC Film Festival in the spring and wanted to film at the Embassy Suites. We called in advance and talked to someone about whether the hotel would be willing to cooperate with us for shooting and they we're very accommodating to our needs at the time -- we told them we would book the hotel for the whole night and would need to shoot in the lobby later at night. So the following weekend we visited the hotel to talk with someone in person just to clarify our needs and book a reservation. They even allowed us to look into our room before we booked. So we decided to make our reservation for February 10th. The front desk man took my friend's ID in order to make the reservation -- which I assumed was also to get our ages, names, and other information. The day came when we were set to film. When we showed up at 2 for check in we went up to the desk and attempted to check in. Only then were then told that we now had to be 21 in order to reserve the hotel room -- we're all 18 & 19 year olds. The reason this is interesting is because the woman who initially tried to check us in told us that there was a new note on the computer that hadn't been there 30 minutes prior -- which said (21?). So I asked to speak to someone about this. The general manager came out and told us that they were under the impression that we only wanted the room for "a few hours" which I was positive wasn't the case because I specifically said that we would rent the room for the whole night. So I asked why the clerk had taken my friend's ID if they weren't going to check the age regulation and he proceed to tip-toe around the subject as if I was a fool. I fully believe that they attempted to manipulate us because of our age. So we were told that we had to have someone 21+ to stay with us while we were shooting. Frenzied, we tried to find someone that could on such short notice -- my friend's grandma volunteered to stay with us the entire night. So again, I went up to the desk and asked if there would be an up charge for the extra person in our room and they were unwilling to wave the fee -- the cost of the room went up drastically. So we -- unable to afford this new fee -- had to call around to other hotels and LUCKILY the nearby Best Western was accommodating. They even gave us a discount because we got finnessed by the Embassy Suites. So in the end the Embassy Suites so graciously didn't charge us for the cancelation and we successfully finished our student film thanks to the Best Western of East Peoria.