Candlewood Suites Topeka West by IHG — Hotel in Topeka

This was the worst stay I've ever had at an IHG property and or Candlewood hotel. The first room I was given smelled of cigarette smoke and urine. It was so overwhelming I gagged the whole time I was in the room. There were small black hairs littered around the bathroom, and it was clear that the room had not been fully cleaned. I went downstairs to report the smell and was told it was a mistake that I was placed in that room. Apparently the room was marked "out of order" because someone had burned something while cooking. I was moved to a suite, which at first seemed like a nice gesture after the room I had first been placed in. That night I turned the heat on in the new room and set off the fire detector from the strong heat smell. The smell was so awful I thought something was catching on fire. When I looked up at the fire detector in the main living area, I found that someone had placed a white plastic glove over the fire detector. I went to the front desk and told the lady about the heater setting the alarm off, and about the white glove. She told me all these things were normal, and that someone had just been down 5 minutes prior reporting the same issue in their room. She also stated that someone had been smoking in the room before me, and to just simply remove the white glove. She then informed me she was well acquainted with who had stayed in the room previously, and that she would have a word with "John and the boys." I was highly put off that a heater would set off a fire alarm, that is not normal. Neither is the presence of a white glove on a fire detector. I went back to the room and attempted to turn the heat on again, but each time I did the alarm would go off. For the remainder of my stay I was unable to adequately heat the room. When I went to bed, as I laid down, I caught the glimpse of something hanging from the ceiling of the bedroom, and found that there was another fire detector and it was also covered by a white glove! So I had to remove two gloves because housekeeping not only failed to do so, but because the front desk essentially made me feel as if it was my responsibility to remove gloves that I have no idea where they have been before being hung from a ceiling to hide smoking! The next morning I was sitting in the living area when I discovered dog food and other crumbs under the coffee table. Then, when I went to take a shower I discovered that there were no bottles of shampoo, conditioner, etc. I have stayed in this particular candlewood before, and I know that they keep refillable bottles for these basic amenities in the shower. The holder was there, but all three bottles were missing. When I called the front desk I was told sorry, but we have no more. The bathroom as a whole was gross, it didn't appear swept or mopped, as there was clumps of dirt and hair everywhere, particularly behind the toilet. My towels were dingy, and had a musty mildew smell. This was the nastiest stay I've had to date, and the service staff was terrible. Don't get me wrong, they smiled, greeted me, and were friendly, but they did very little to resolve my problems. I have stayed at both Holiday Inn hotels in Topeka, and I switched to this Candlewood because I had bad experiences at those HI's and was told this would be better. It was my first few stays, but this stay is unacceptable. At this point I will simply switch hotel brands...

The room stunk so bad. The odor was so foul that we wanted to leave but couldn't due to all the rooms in Topeka being full. We had to suffer through it for the night.

I wish there was a way to project this odor through the review process because surely this room would never be booked again. We had room 412. It smelled as though smoking had occurred and that staff had tried to cover it up some how. I can't quite put my finger on the smell but know that what ever it was caused headaches and nausea.

My wife couldn't sleep in the bed and had to join me on the hide-a-bed because the bed smelled like an ash tray.

We checked in Friday night the 15th and didn't really have a choice. I discussed my concerns with the staff and there was really nothing they could do. One guy at the desk handed me a bottle of Febreeze and told me to go spray down the room. While we were back at the tourney all day I called asking that they move us to another room and we at least wanted them to change the sheets on the bed to see if that helped (it did not), and they could not get us into another room. After getting back late from wrestling for the day we just decided to pack our bags and go find somewhere else so we could actually sleep.

I made multiple calls over the last couple days to the hotel trying to get in touch with the GM. She finally took my call today 3/20/19 and the conversation did not go the way I thought it would. We bailed on this hotel and went to cleaner nicer one where we could actually breath in the room. I tried to explain myself to the GM and she just blew off my concerns like I was lying to her. All the while as her and the staff were laughing about the phone conversation we were having like it was a big joke. I'm typically a really low key guy that doesn't even like writing reviews like this, but due to the inactions of the GM at this property on the phone today with me, I felt compelled to sit down and voice my frustrations in writing. This all could have been avoided had the staff taken us seriously and the GM called me back on Monday 3/18 after leaving a couple voicemails and messages with the front desk to have her call me.

What I really wanted was a refund for most if not all of our stay, but to her credit she did offer a $10.00 dollar refund. Super nice... I had to drop $225 on just Saturday night at another place that had a room open and we checked in at...

Beware before booking!! IMO They really need to retrain their staff on room access expectations.

Issue #1. They gave us keys to a room that was occupied and keys to another room that was unlocked for anyone to enter. Context: We booked two rooms. We checked in a little early and the rooms weren’t fully ready but the front desk gave us our keys and said to be back a little later, no problem. We came back several hours later and went up to our rooms, the first room had the latch out so it was open for anyone to come in, it smelled like they were working on it so we went to the second booked room and upon entering saw someone else’s luggage and personal belongings everywhere. Immediately we went to the front desk to tell her our issues with both rooms and the concern that we were given access to an occupied room which is extremely unsafe she said “someone’s already in 314.” (As if we should have know that) after an unnecessary amount of back and forth we were finally put into two acceptable rooms and aside from item #2 the stay was decent. Issue #2. We called in to book a different hotel with points and the customer service representative said the one we wanted did not yet accept points for booking so she pushed us to book this hotel instead but failed to mention the construction at time of booking. Upon arrival that was a minor annoyance but not horrible… until the next day when we needed to speak with the front desk about an issue with the key not working. They were saw cutting the concrete in the little lobby area without any plastic barriers so the dust was everywhere and thick. Even with guests walking in and trying to speak to the front desk they did not stop which made it extremely hard to hear. I told her our key was not working and she did not ask for ID before giving me a new one which again is a safety concern. I get it the noise level could have played a part but that still shouldn’t happen.

We did add all possible measures to secure our rooms at night just because of what we witnessed. Thankfully I was traveling with my Police Officer Husband and Veteran Dad so I felt protected but had I been traveling solo or just with my kids I would have went elsewhere for our safety.

Aside from that the rooms are nice and had...