Departure Bay Motel

I stayed at the Departure Bay Motel on August 12 as a local resident needing accommodation for one night with our 3 pets while work was being done on our home. We booked 2 rooms.

The front desk staff were polite and friendly during the reservation and check-in process, which I appreciated. Unfortunately, the experience quickly took a turn. One of our cats hid under the bed in one of the rooms, and when retrieving him we discovered the area under the bed had been completely missed during cleaning. Shockingly, our cat was lying on top of what appeared to be a sex toy and multiple used condoms.

My partner returned to the motel the next afternoon (Aug 13) with photos and showed them to the front desk, assuming management would follow up. That evening I also sent an email, as the booking was under my name. More than a week has now passed and I have received no acknowledgment, no apology, and no response at all—despite requesting a partial refund (which I would have happily settled for even just an apology).

This experience raises serious concerns about cleanliness standards as well as customer service. If something so obvious and unsanitary was overlooked, I worry about the overall state of hygiene in the rooms. And the complete lack of follow-up is very disappointing.

I do not recommend staying here.

We use motels or hotels as a break on our road trips. So we wild camp for 2 nights, then stay in a m/hotel to freshen up and reset. We should have just camped again.

Rooms were good. Can't complain at that. But $200 to listen to banging upstairs all night and at 5AM. I had better night sleep camping. I've never stayed in such a loud motel. Please make sure you if you stay here, you have to get a room on the top. I can't tell you how many times we jumped out of our skin because upstairs would drop something on the floor and it would sound like a gun went off. If just shouldn't be that loud, it's not right.

Room was small, but who cares, it's just for sleeping. Close to the beach, which was what I wanted. Service left a lot to be desired. Stayed 5 nights, had to ask for fresh towels twice, as well as for housekeeping to freshen the room, even after having put out the "please make up room" door hanger each day