Best Western Plus Kingston Hotel and Conference Center — Hotel in City of Kingston

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It appears google is being stupid and not uploading my photos on here. Just look on Yelp and elsewhere and you'll see them.

Anyway:

The following day, Chris, the General Manager, offered me a $25 gift certificate redeemable at their bar and restaurant. He also promised that I wouldn’t be charged for that night’s stay, and said that he wanted to talk to me at a later point about additional compensation. To be clear, I never once asked for anything.

Unfortunately, later emails and calls placed to him went ignored and I never received confirmation of the refunded night. No additional compensation has been offered.

They moved me to one of their older rooms downstairs. Thankfully, only a few gnats. But everything else has been a nightmare. Where shall I begin?

The first thing I noticed was that the bathroom faucet didn’t drain right, and conversely the bathtub had a broken stopper. They had to bring in maintenance for the tub, and forgot about the sink.

Then the worst part – the internet is so laggy and slow that it is barely usable. The updated room had a good connection. This room? I could barely finish a YouTube video. Don’t even bother booting Tor. I clocked the download at 3.5 mps and the upload at UNDER 1 mps. That is so laughably slow I can’t even express to you technically less-savvy how bad it really is.

It got to the point I wanted to throw my laptop at the wall. I desperately needed dependable internet access in order to search for replacement housing as I am a FEMA-level disaster victim. The WIFI was maddening and the front desk did nothing in reality to assist.

The following morning I was going to make coffee and then realized how nasty and unclean the inside of the coffee machine was. There was a huge, crusted over red stain inside the container. No coffee for me I guess.

When I logged into my bank account I noticed Best Western had illicitly overcharged my card $40 despite my having previously inquired if there were going to be additional charges. The explanation the night manager Dylan gave me? “They forgot.” Wonderful.

You’d think I’d find some solitude my final evening, but no. It began with an aggressive knock on my door from Dylan and the porter. I had been on the phone talking to an unstable, disrespectful family member and because of Best Western’s awful insulation and thin walls I’m guessing another guest overheard. Admittedly, I was a bit loud. But to be fair, we’ve all had upsetting phone conversations take place in a hotel before. Instead of simply calling me on my room phone, they felt the need to presumably eavesdrop on my private communications from the hallway, then loudly knock thus causing me a startle response, and then give me a death stare. I apologized; said it wouldn’t happen again. It made me feel extremely uncomfortable, though.

Oh, and a few hours later the toilet almost overflowed. No one was available so they simply left a plunger outside my door and I handled it myself. To be fair, I probably preferred it that way, although it still doesn’t make that s*t show (yes that’s a pun) any less frustrating.

If you’re wondering why I put up with all of this – a tornado took away my home last month and I’m motel to motel at this point. And then I fell off a roof and broke my arm. So I’m really in no position to be picky, sadly.

Oh, and I almost forgot – let’s talk about the night desk assistant. He has an accent. I’ve never met him, and wouldn’t want to. He’s pompous, rude, and anti-social. And he likes to mumble so that you can barely hear him. I obviously have tested 2 room phones so I know the problem is him and not the line. Every other front desk associate could be heard just fine whenever I pressed 0.

Hopefully some pictures are viewable...

Since you asked me to tell you about my recent stay at the Best Western in Kingston, NY, I am going to do so.

On August 15, I called and made a reservation for my wife and me to stay two nights at the Best Western in Kingston, NY, arriving Wednesday, August 19, and checking out on Friday, August 21.

We arrived at the facility midafternoon on August 19. Check-in was fast, efficient, and very courteous.

The moment I opened the room door (I think it was Room 113), I knew we had a problem. The room was warm. While the a/c was running, it sounded like an asthmatic gasping for breath. Clearly, it was not functioning properly. Before dealing with the a/c, however, I wanted to put away the refrigerated items which we had brought in a cooler bag, so I went right over to the little refrigerator. The moment I opened the refrigerator door, I knew we had another problem. The interior of the refrigerator was clearly too warm, probably above 50 degrees. In addition, which is really shocking for a small refrigerator WITH NO FREEZER COMPARTMENT, nearly the entire back wall of the refrigerator was covered with a thick sheet of ice, perhaps two inches thick at the center (meaning this problem had existed for at least several days). I stopped what I was doing and got on the phone to the front desk. I told the lady what was going on. She offered me two options: have the maintenance staff come by and attempt to deal with the problems, or go to another room. As these problems were clearly not going to get resolved easily or quickly, I immediately opted for the new room. The lady told me to come to the front desk and get new card keys.

During the three or four minutes I was gone from the room, a maintenance staff member had come to the room and was trying to convince my wife that all was well, that we just needed to "adjust" the a/c unit and that the ice in the refrigerator was normal. I stood there listening to the woman, and when she was done, I just looked at her and said, "You're joking, right? Are you seriously trying to tell us all is well and this is normal?" At that point, I turned around and began gathering up our things so we could go to the new room. The new room (132), by the way, was very nice, with everything in it functioning normally.

We slept well, and headed out to go about our business at around 9:30 or so. At around 2:00, we arrived back at the room to drop off a few purchases and then head back out. To our surprise, our room had not been entered by the housekeeping staff. It was obvious that no one had been there. While we certainly did not expect the sheets to be changed and the beds made up (absolutely no need for that), we did expect the used towels to have been removed and replaced with fresh towels, and the garbage to have been taken away. So I called the front desk. I regret that I did not take note of the exact words of the lady's response when I called, but it was something like, "Well, you don't expect us to let the staff come in there every day, do you?" Really? Yes, I do expect the staff to come in every day and take care of the minimal housekeeping that ANYONE staying in a hotel/motel would expect. Do you really think that it was okay for us to come back to our room and find NOTHING done, not even basic housekeeping?

Is this really what Best Western considers appropriate operating procedure? Does your maintenance staff not check each room at least once every few days to ensure that all basic and vital equipment, like a/c in the summer, heat in the winter, the refrigerators, and the lights are in proper operating condition? The answer seems to be a definitive "no." Wow. You can rest assured that Best Western will never again be on our list of places to stay when we...

This hotel was a big let down for my weekend in Kingston. First impressions were good. The front desk staff was friendly and the check-in went smoothly. The lobby area was warm, cozy and inviting. The restaurant was nicely set up.

Once I got to my room I saw how it truly looked in comparison to the photos the property gives on the internet. The air quality/flow in the room is lacking. The huge radiator/air conditioner is very loud. The room overall had a bit of a dreary feel but overall, appeared clean and neat.

But then I went into the bathroom...there were ROACHES crawling near the big mirror and around the chaulk of the tub. Speaking of which, the bathroom is not only outdated, but they haven't even touched up the fixtures and tub caulking!!

Couple of other things happened which I don't think are exactly a fault of the hotel directly but, to give a full picture of the experience: although parties are not allowed in rooms, guests rented 4 rooms on the second floor and were playing loud music and hanging out in the hallways. someone left (chewed) chewing gum on the doorknob an alarm sounded at 5 am from the room next door and would not go off. I don't know if the room was occupied or not but I had to call the front desk to have someone turn it off. Housekeeping should definitely make sure no alarms are set after the checkout. The idea of "sleeping in" that day was completely ruined. the grounds have a lot of truck drivers and commercial vehicles on the grounds which caused a lot of noise in the early morning hours. there were a ton of kids in the pool and the gym. One good thing was the onsite restaurant. The food was tasty (especially the chowder), and the waitress was super friendly.

In conclusion, I thought due to the high overall rating listed on Expedia, this would be my best shot in planning a last minute getaway to Upstate NY. I expected better for the amount of money spent. Best Western Plus is more like an overpriced motel. It has outdated rooms, with roaches, and loud guests. I would definitely recommend shopping around...