Best Western Plus Service Inn & Suites — Hotel in Lethbridge

Cross Posted to other hockey parent groups: Heads up to teams: do not book at the Best Western Plus in Lethbridge (on 41st St). Our team was booked there this past weekend for hockey Provincials in Picture Butte and we had a terrible experience. We were harassed from the moment we checked in and were evicted at 11pm on Friday night, the second night of our 3-night stay. We were allowed to stay until the morning but then had to check out before our early game. I’ve been a part of many team hotel bookings and I know what kinds of behaviors are irritating to other guests and hotel management. We were a tame team of 12 year old girls. We had no late night parent gatherings, no mini sticks in hallways, our kids were well supervised. The hotel manager refused to provide any specifics (ie time of complaint, room number, specific problematic behavior). All we were told was that we had violated their code of conduct. The main issues seemed to be: we checked in between 10 and 10:30 on Thursday night (we called ahead and told them we would be checking in late due to our 2 games in PB); the next morning we lingered too long at breakfast having coffee while we made our plan for the day; part of our group moved to the couches in the lobby then moved into a meeting room and were finally kicked out of there (no alcohol involved in any of this). At this point the hotel was furious with us and were threatening eviction and fines. After the events of the morning, we decided to make ourselves scarce and vacated the hotel by noon, cancelled our planned pizza dinner in a meeting room for that evening and didn’t return to the hotel until 9:20pm for our girls to have a quick swim and then head to bed (big game early next day). They fabricated a story about having to close the pool because the team before us pooped in it. We were skeptical of this claim so we checked with the other team and they assured us that their 10 year boys were all potty trained and had of course not done that! So then we all made our way to our rooms. The hotel quiet hours start at 10pm and we really did try to respect that rule but were unaware that the manager’s definition of quiet is hard lockdown in your room. A couple of dads went to complain about how we were being treated (this is before 11 pm) and she told them the whole team was getting kicked out. At that point half the team packed up and moved across the parking lot to the Holiday Inn and half waited until the morning to move. Many other issues - this is already too long and I never bother to write hotel reviews but this was pretty extreme. Just don’t risk ruining your tournament weekends by booking...

The staff are really great people.

I was unfortunately moved between 3 rooms due to it being unclean.

The first two rooms were really gross (room 116&119) high touch places (doors, door handles, microwaves sink, toilet etc.) not cleaned at all. You could physically see handprints, there were toenails on the ground, hair in the sink and the toilet, and potential blood stains in the tub?? Not to mention a actual wet spot on the nightstand by the phones. Simply not even cleaned. (As you can see in the photo.) Then I was upgraded to another room where it was a different cleaner, room 213- but it got to the point where the kind gentleman from the front came up to wipe things down. Because it was still so gross. There was a yellow spot on the toilet which looked like dried pee, but he assured me it was some sort of disinfectant.

I still felt super uncomfortable even eating in that room and purchased my own cleaning supplies and cleaned the areas that weren’t awful. Normally I’m not that picky, but this was by far the most expensive two nights that I had to pay for while being in Lethbridge for business purposes for the next month and a half.

COVID protocols aren’t being followed as there was many times people were in the front without masks, plus the cleaning is not being followed nor followed up on.

Completely not worth the $315 for two nights. (This was with a corporate discount.) The fact that I had my rooms changed 3 times free of charge was nice, but it did not by any chance get any cleaner. I ended up not even staying my second night as when I went to go into my room after a day at work, my key didn’t work due to my rooms being changed and not being calibrated for the two night stay.

None of the stay was relaxing, clean, or pleasant. Customer service by the front staff was phenomenal as they tried their best to be...

AVOID THIS HOTEL IF YOU ARE A TEAM!

They were incredibly unwelcoming despite advertising for teams and supporting a local minor sport tournament. They also had signs in their lobby welcoming teams however, they did not. The teams were prevented from doing the things that teams normally do in a hotel; team building and bonding was heavily frowned upon and broken up on multiple occasions. I have stayed in hotels for team events for over four decades as a player, coach, club administrator, parent, and spectator. This was by far the worst experience I have ever had. The had abnormally early quiet hours, especially for a weekend. I have been in hotels where teams, including ones I was part of, were loud and genuinely misbehaving. This was not the case during our stay, by any of the teams staying there. There were players sitting quietly talking in the main foyer and were asked to leave and then the staff proceeded to follow the kids to their rooms which was concerning for those players.

I understand if your facility, or brand, do not want teams staying; then please just say so. However, to mislead teams into being a welcoming and then treat them in such a draconian manner is false advertising, at best. It turned a weekend that was supposed to be memorable in a large part due to the fun had at the hotel to a weekend that will be memorable for the dreadful treatment our team received.

To add insult to injury they had the audacity to financially penalized certain patrons through additional billing. This is not something I had ever heard of nor experienced. When written complaints were submitted, the replies from management were rude and condescending. Terrible...