Best Western Plus Castlerock Inn & Suites — Hotel in Bentonville

I arrived at the hotel, checked in, and made my way up to my room. Upon opening my door, I flipped the singular light switch next to the door, which illuminated a single bulb just inside the doorway. I spent the next minute trying to walk around the dark room carefully while looking for another light switch. I slowly came to the realization that the only source of light for the inside of the room was lamps, of which there were five spread throughout the room, with no switch to turn them all on or off at the same time -only individual switches controlled each lamp. Cool, that's super convenient.

Just as my annoyance at this was subsiding, my room phone rings. It's the front desk. They want me to move my vehicle because I backed into a parking space (my large vehicle, which has better visibility and is safer to back in and leave facing forward) adjacent to the building, and in the receptionist's words, "we don't allow that due to danger from CO2 emissions." Yes, they wanted me to come down at 9:00 pm to move my parked vehicle, which was turned off, because the exhaust was dangerous.

First of all, I would assume she meant CO emissions , as CO2 is not particularly dangerous. If hotel management is going to cite something as dangerous they should probably know what they are talking about.

Second, this rule is extremely pedantic. Have you ever heard of exhaust from cars parked in a open parking lot causing issues for adjacent building occupants? Me neither. Perhaps if everyone in the parking lot came out and idled their cars at the same time while the wind was blowing towards the building and all the windows in the hotel were open. Even then I doubt it. Cars that are parked in a parking lot with the engine off make zero emissions. If they are truly worried about emissions from vehicles making their way in the building, they should not allow vehicles to idle under their covered entryway, which they absolutely do allow, as those are producing infinitely more emission in a semi-enclosed area next to the building. Obviously this is not a danger and creates no problems, so how they believe that cars in the parking lot are going to cause issues is beyond my comprehension.

Third, if a vehicle is backing in to a parking space in the area where I was parked, the back of the vehicle is a minimum of 25-30 feet from the building, completely outside. It is literally impossible for exhaust to make it into the building in any amount that would cause even a slight inconvenience, as the rate at which hot exhaust gasses rise and disperse could never concentrate in a building at that distance. Perhaps take note of, oh, I don't know, only every other building that doesn't have this "rule"? Nobody else seems to be experiencing this made-up problem.

Finally, not only was I inconvenienced by this ridiculous request, I discovered when I went outside that this was not even consistently applied to everyone. As I walked to my vehicle, I noted a large box truck parked next to the building, with the back facing the building in the same orientation as I was parked, though the box truck was closer because it was parked perpendicular across multiple spaces. As the hotel is doing renovations and the area was taped off, I would assume it was a truck with supplies being used for the renovation. If it's dangerous to park my vehicle is the manner I did, the box truck must have been extremely dangerous, as it was at least 10-15 feet closer than mine. Ridiculous.

This absurd rule/request does nothing but annoy people. If they are that concerned, perhaps at a minimum they should post signs so people don't have to leave their room right after checking in just to come move their vehicle because of the uncommon and pointless parking rule. Better yet, why not just get rid of the rule.

Overall the hotel was average, but the determining factor for me was initial experience that set the tone for the remainder of my stay.

Edit: I see your response. I'd be interested to see your references regarding deaths caused by CO2 from...

We went in to rent a room from Best Western on Saturday August 20th ,we were looking forward to a little down time in the pool the sign outside was lit saying they had pool and spa , We got inside I gave the young lady my name, She asked for my card , I gave the lady my card she run the card , this was a debit not credit card, as the lady is taking care of this process off checking us in I asked her where the pool was and she informed me that the pool is down at this point and time , I had not signed any paperwork of any kind I let her know if the pool is down I was going to just go ahead and go to another hotel with a pool , The paperwork that she had placed in front of me I wrote Void on it and had never signed it , she informed me that she had already ran my card and couldn’t stop the transaction until her night manager came in around 12 and he would get it back in my account by Sunday morning , The young lady at the desk said that I would have it back because it would be voided and wouldn’t pulled it out if I was not renting the room , so here I am Monday and now I am being told I will not get my money back until Friday, so they being Best Western is able to automatically take my money and have it immediately without any signature on paper, which means they have no authorization from me to run that card , The paperwork that young lady put in front of me to get me to authorize the card I wrote void on it and she still authorized my card , so now it will be Friday which will be seven days before I get my money back, best Western is trying to tell me that it all depends on how long it will take my bank to give it back to me, but my bank is very good about giving me my money back immediately and they have done so in the past on different things I have ordered that were not in stock, it is my bank policy to immediately put money back in my bank as soon as it’s returned …… Best Western is riding on my $114 for seven days without me getting any interest for them using my Money…. I will not be staying at the best Western anymore just lost a loyal customer by being...

We called weeks before our trip to make sure there would be no issue with a service dog. Was told everything was fine. Told them we were going to book thru a third party because the rate was cheaper and even called back after booking to confirm room accommodations. We arrived to the hotel to check in after traveling and the young lady behind the counter was stressed out. There were about 5 people in front of me checking in. I gave her my id and credit card and dog id and she very rudely said we couldn't check in. I asked if there was anyone she could call, after asking several times she finally walked in the back, I'm not sure she actually called and said that the manager said no. She also acted like she was afraid of upsetting the manager, she said multiple times she would get in big trouble if she let a service dog in.

My wife is in stage three heart failure with multiple other health issues. We always out of curtsey call a hotel ahead of time to let them know we have a service animal. This has been the first time we have ever had any issues. We have stayed at 5 and 4 star hotels and have never once been treated like we were trash until this experience.

Thankfully we called Hilton and they had an opening at the Hampton inn and got us booked there. They even had a doggie treat bag waiting on us and they apologized for the issue with the best western. We never even got so much as a I'm sorry from best western.

I run a business, and the most telling part of this whole thing was the lady behind the counter being absolutely terrified to reach out to her manager or owner because she was afraid she would get in trouble....