Best Western Plus Hiawatha Hotel — Hotel in Hiawatha

We stayed for a week. From 7/18-7/25. The staff was friendly, but retraining on maintaining a facility may be in order. The following is why: the building is in major need of maintenance all around, structurally, and cleanliness. I will start with the building in general; When looking at the north upper windows on the front of the building, there is a block area that you can tell has shifted to the east. Coming from Florida, and noticing things like this is very unnerving, but originally being from Hiawatha, and knowing this building was built on an area that had flooding tendencies prior to structures being built on them, that is also unnerving.

When walking in, I immediately smelled mildew. It was not light either, you could smell the dampness as soon as you walk in the building. I know I only heard the vacuum exactly 2 times the entire time I was there. The same cookie sat in the elevator for 4 days straight before I noticed it was finally gone. But the elevator, nor the floors on our floor or the ground, looked as if they had been vacuumed at all. The back door, which is supposed to be entered key only, can easily be pulled open, and didn't lock properly. That is a security issue, which means having a key card is pointless. When we took our children to the pool, it smelled of dirt, not even chlorine/salt, the floors had dirt clods throughout the pool area and dirty, absolutely no clean towels, and the pool looked as if it hadn't been properly cleaned in some time, and the floors were buckling around the entire area. Primarily where I specifically saw, was around the hot tub area. As for the hot tub, you could see that the cement was completely cracked around the entire top, separating the lip of the hot tub from the rest.

We found 2 spiders inside our room, one luckily was stuck inside the light but the other one, which was about a half dollar in size, my husband caught and put between 2 cups, took it down stairs to the front desk and told them they needed to get someone in the building to spray. To top it off, coming out to our vehicle to leave in the morning (0800), there was a female patron who was visibly spun out on drugs, walking in the area talking to herself, who then proceeded to walk into the building. I can't say if she was there because she stayed there/ what, all I know is we didn't pay the amount of money we did, for my little ones to be seeing someone tweeking out on drugs period, and it is a bad representation of a hotel to allow...

When I checked in, there was trash in my room. Empty plastic bottles, some liquid on the counter, and I found sixteen cents in change between the blankets/sheets in the bed (Which to me meant they had just made the bed between guests, not changed the sheets. Gross.) Apparently they have to call in staff that are off the clock to clean the room instead of just moving the guest to another room, which seems super crazy to me. Even after the room was tidied (I had to go check in for my conference) there were still short black hairs on the floor in the tub/bathroom floor. I'm a blond with long hair. Gross again. Breakfast Friday was okay but how do you not have a working coffee machine that is advertised as an amenity on your page during booking?

Check out was really the most disappointing- the young lady that checked me out (I think her name was Patience? Which is hilariously ironic.) Did NOT want to use the card I gave her to pay for the room. We went back and forth, and she eventually took the card. Turns out she didn't charge it, and now I get to try to fix it with my school because the wrong card was charged. (This is a problem for more than one reason- obviously no one wants someone to use a payment method they actively said 'do not use that method, use this one'. The other issue is when I called before my stay to get information, I was TOLD to bring a different card because if using the school card, I would be required to also have Credit Card Authorization forms filled out. So I brought my own card. And then she didn't even run it, and now my school is very frustrated. After she ran the card, she literally just walked off to the back. It was so abrupt and there wasn't a 'Thank you, you're good." or any kind of social indication that we had finished, and I still had my room keys. So I stood there for a few minutes, said 'Hello?" a few times loudly enough to be heard, and then her head popped out from around the corner and she just said 'What?" I asked if we were finished, and she said 'Yeah you're good' and disappeared again. In general I'd say the guy working Thursday night isn't ready to work the night shift alone- he seemed pretty unsure about how to handle issues that came up. He was friendly though, and that makes up for a lot of anything that can go wrong. I've been a Best Western customer since 2006, and generally it's the brand I've always had faith in, but this one...

Enough is enough! I have been coming to this location with a work crew for the last 3 years " some of them longer than me" This year has been full of disappointments " generally on the 2nd shift from the same clerk" For starters ,I have a service dog. After one clerk seeing what room I was in she threw a big ordeal and said that I can't be in that room with a animal. I politely informed her of the laws and explained it doesn't matter what room I'm in that I can't be refused a room and even offered to print the laws so she could brush up on them . She just walked away with an attitude. There was a time when I asked for 4 quarters to put in the dryer before it stopped " not realizing this dryer didn't work like that" and I would bring her a dollar right back and she looked at me like I was crazy and said not until you give me a dollar. The next 2-3 encounters were fairly pleasant and I figured she was just having a bad day before. Then today takes the cake! A few of the crew and myself decided to grill out and while shopping one person picked up plates, napkins, and utensils " which every hotel we stay at politely provides for us on a regular basis . Then we remembered she might be working and proceeded to buy the items. Smartest decision we made. We needed to heat something up and I asked for a couple of bowls from the breakfast room and I was told that she could not because it is only for the breakfast hours. I asked about spoons and forks if I were to get take out and they were forgotten . She again said no ! I stay in over 300 hotel nights a year and I'm a diamond member for this brand! I get cereal and milk late night in most properties just by asking.. When my project manager heard of this he decided to inquire and was told " we do not have to stay here" Now let's do the math- 12-16 rooms weekly X 106.00 a night per room for 5 months. Not to mention the motorcycle crew you run off from parking under the canopy during rainy days. If this is what we drive 30 mins for I'll take my...