Grand Oaks Hotel — Hotel in Branson

If you're considering staying at this hotel I'd think twice. When I booked this hotel I think I knew the hotel had two different buildings. However, I didn't put much thought into how different the two buildings would be. The main building where you check in was nice but our room was in the second building. The outside of the hotel felt run down, but I'm not necessarily bougie about hotels. Our room was fine. However, the first thing I noticed on our bed was a little blood stain on the sheet. It wasn't huge and we were tired so I was just going to let it go. However, 20 minutes later my daughter noticed a bug on her bed. We immediately searched what bed bugs looked like and sure enough it fit the description. She moved a pillow and there was another. I called the front desk and asked them to move rooms. Truthfully, if it hadn't been so late I would have looked for another hotel. The front desk staff was nice and moved us floors but I had a had time falling asleep after that. We killed the first bed bug and kept the second alive so they could confirm it was one. However, the person who came up to our room was just as creeped out as we were and didn't want to enter the room. I hope the hotel took this seriously and went through the proper protocol to remove the bugs. We were in the room less than an hour and hope we didn't bring any home with us. The new room was fine, but it's hard to feel comfortable in a hotel after that experience. We also had issues with our keys working and had to get them re-keyed several times. The nicest part of the second building is the breakfast seating area. At night the wi-fi was slow and pretty much worse than the dial-up days. During the morning it worked fine. I'm assuming it couldn't handle everyone using it at night. Even if we didn't have the bed bug situation I wouldn't stay at Grand Oaks hotel again. I think there needs to be more transparency about the two buildings and show clear pictures of both. We appreciated the staff's willingness to move us quickly into a different room, but it was a good lesson for us to check the beds more carefully going forward. If you see drops of blood on your sheets, it's most likely bed bug blood. One last thing, if you're not familiar with Branson the perk is you are right in the main part of the strip and are in close proximity to everything. However, making a left out of the parking lot takes some time and then making a left onto highway 76 can be rough during the day when...

Stayed there over the 2023 Labor day holiday.

Pros:

Location - excellent if you want to be close to the Branson Strip. It's about a block off the strip. Which I found to be ideal.

Squeeky Clean Room! even the tile floors were immaculately c-l-e-a-n. I can't stand shoes, and so I walk barefoot often. The tile floors were literally as clean as I've ever seen in a hotel. Also the jacuzzi tub in the room as equally squeeky clean.

Daily free hot breakfast - nice but crowded and uncomfortable to sit in.

Friendly staff - unless you inquire about USB charging (see my con's section for detail)

Bed linens - were top quality and clean.

Mini fridge - worked maybe too well. LOL. it froze some of the food we placed inside. but I'd rather have a mini fridge that's too cold than one that doesnt hardly cool at all. It also was completely clean and looked brand new.

TV - Worked

Furnishings - (add'l chair and ottoman) comfortable, but with a small white stain about the size of a half dollar. Yet quite comfy for someone like me who has a cranky lower back.

Cons - (and I consider these small in comparison to our overall experience)

*Bed linens never changed *Bed never made in the 4 days we stayed there. I'm sure if we asked they would have. But I was suprised for the price of this hotel that I would need to ask.

*Same with towels - clean BUT they never changed them. Finally on the third day I had to ASK for clean towels and of all things TOILET TISSUE. Once I asked though, both came quickly.

I can deal with having to ask for towels, bed making, and even toilet tissue.

*What I found to be shocking about a hotel of this caliber with a matching nightly cost, was a complete LACK of USB charging ports in the room! I deduct one star for this deficiency in a hotel of this kind.

We had out charging cables, but there was no place in the room with a USB charging port. I called to the front desk and asked if I had simply not found where the charging ports were. the Snippy girl who answered the phone said kurtly "we dont have any in the rooms, sorry!"

We scoured the strip for usb chargers. (the two prong into the regular outlet kind that you can plug your usb plub into). $65.00 later from WALGREENS, we had them. GRRR What hotel doesnt have USB charge ports these days????

Summary Very nice hotel. Super clean, and if you have your own USB charger to plug into the wall, I still recommend...

DO NOT STAY HERE!!!! Worst experience I have ever had at a hotel. We checked in late in the evening to a dirty bathroom & sheets that were not changed from the previous guests. (Lots of hair and dirt flakes in the bed). After calling the front desk and the receptionist not coming, as he stated he would, my husband went to the front desk and was told “changing sheets is not in my job description.” Apparently it is the guests job to change dirty sheets from other guests. After we said no we would not do that, he explained there was a room in their other hotel “100 yards that way up the hill.” He then stated to me “I can refund your money and you can go somewhere else.” This said while I and my 8 year old son stood in our pajamas in the lobby with all of our things to move rooms. Where do you think we can go at 1am in our pajamas. I asked to talk to a manager, he stated “we are family owned, the owners will be here at 8 in the morning you can talk to them then.” When I went to talk to the owners at 8am I was told by the receptionist the manager doesn’t come in till 11-2 and she doesn’t know when the owner would be there. We checked out and did not stay the additional 3 nights we booked. When I called back and talked with the General Manager, I was told “things happen” I was told there was no adjustments that would be done on her end because we are the ones who chose to go to another hotel. I was then told I could call back to the hotel the next day to see if the owner would be in and if she would want to do anything. Please see pictures of dirty bed and who knows what all over bathroom. FYI we went to the Ozark Lodge and they have the most friendly staff and the experience was...