scifinerd
7月 2026
★★★★★
As an OSU alumn, this place is just embarrassing. Old people seem to love this place, but as a 30 something trying it the first time, it was like staying in a Red Roof Inn with a fancy lobby. There are modern, comparable rate hotels less than a mile down the road on Lane Avenue with cheap parking ($5 per night), modern showers/bathrooms, prettier views, and full kitchenettes with DISHES to use that don't look like they were decorated by a prison warden.
The first room I was assigned had not been cleaned completely and the gauze inner curtains had a noticeable gap that would not close. Since I was facing offices 300 feet away, this meant either being an exhibitionist or shutting out all natural light and views for the duration of my stay by closing the thicker curtains.
I complained to the front desk, and was given a clean room and an apology. But the gauze curtains still had a foot worth of gap. I was now directly across from an office with the shade up and the monitors arranged to stare directly into my room. Noticeable, because practically every single office facing the hotel had their shades pulled down as low as possible. I feel REALLY sorry for the employees in that building, who have clearly seen some things and would not like to repeat the experience. I didn't bother the front desk folks again, it was clear this was an issue with the curtains and there was no point in hassling the poor employees about it, who didn't get to choose the decorator.
The decor was outdated grey-beige and felt gloomy and sterile, and the furniture was all clearly selected to be as long-lasting, cheap, and easy to clean as possible. The rug part of the floor was as hard as the wood part of the floor, the shower/bath did not drain properly and left me standing in several inches of water the whole shower (and took 8 minutes to drain afterwards). The bathtub itself is about six inches higher than the floor, so I nearly faceplanted into the sink upon getting out when my foot hit the "floor" and then kept going down. There is no fan in the bathroom to run after a shower, so everything stays wet and clammy, and the A/C doesn't pull moisture from the air well (and makes a banging noise every time it turns on and shuts off).
The towels are a millimeter thick. I'm not joking. Fluffy hotel towels? Nope, you can exfoliate with these. The mini fridge is a glass front model with a disclaimer card insider that "due to the limits of the fridge, we can't guarantee food will stay cold". Uh, couldn't you have picked a better fridge to begin with? No one forced you to pick that fridge, buddy! No matter, I couldn't use it anyway, since the genius that installed it had shoved it in a cupboard that was such a tight fit, I took skin off my knuckles on the cupboard hinges trying to open the fridge door.
Lastly, the parking. "Now wait," Blackwell Inn will say. "We don't control the parking!" Well, Blackwell Inn is owned and operated b y OSU, and OSU chose to sell it to CampusParc for a 50 year contract. Sounds like a self-inflicted problem to me! Parking is $38.50 a night, even if you spend a mere 9 hours parked there overnight, because rates reset at midnight instead of a rolling 24 hours, and the parking garage next to the hotel is - purely coincidentally, I'm sure! - the most expensive garage rate on campus. Blackwell Inn's Valet parking is $35 a night, so by the time you tip, there's literally no difference.
But wait! Parking is free if you're a prospective student. Not staff, not faculty, not an existing student, not alumni. Screw them, the Blackwell can't afford to be generous to folks that are already paying into OSU's system. But prospective students aren't on the hook yet, so the Blackwell Inn covers their fees to the parking gestapo.
I stayed at another hotel three weeks ago less than three miles away and had color on my walls, comfortable furniture, a modern glass shower than drained, a stove, a full fridge, dishes, quiet A/C, fluffy towels, curtains that shut, and $5 a night parking. That's why I'm so mad - the Blackwell hype is UNDESERVED.
