Best Western Plus Waterbury - Stowe — Hotel in Waterbury

UPDATED: The response from this hotel demonstrates the total unprofessionalism they have. First, they have falsely claimed that my husband and I got enraged at the front desk - that did not happen. Second, if they choose to parner with 3rd party vendors, they should ensure those companies accurately advertise the policies. Third, the language about the pet policy on the Best Western website does not state that pet owners should call directly to book pet friendly rooms, it says: "Pets may be accepted. Please call the hotel directly for more details." That's a very different statement. I stand by my review and still encourage people to stay at other dog friendly hotels in the Waterbury/Stowe area. All of them are better than the Best Western. In fact, we had to find a place to stay on the fly because of the position the Best Western put us in - we stayed at another dog friendly hotel in the area and had a lovely experience. This hotel advertises that they are dog friendly, but the reality is they are not. We booked the weekend before Christmas to visit family and had our 2 dogs with us. When we arrived, a very unpleasant front desk woman named Mary Jo informed us that under absolutely no circumstances can dogs be left unattended in the hotel rooms. My husband and I have stayed at tons of dog friendly hotels and all of them have specific policies which we completely understand and respect. Most of these hotels will ask that you keep your dog in a crate if you leave, or they take your phone number in case a dog disrupts other guests - the expectation would be if that happens, you come back to be with the dog. These are very reasonable requests and make sense to ensure experiences of all guests are pleasant. The issue I have is that the Best Western essentially expects you to bring your dog everywhere you go, or stay with it at all times in the hotel. This is totally unreasonable and every dog owner I know gets that. In extremely cold or hot weather, you can't exactly go out to dinner and leave your dog in the car for obvious reasons. Best Western needs to decide if they are truly dog friendly or not. If they are, they need to change their policy. If they aren't, they need to not be dog friendly. And, Mary Jo needs some serious customer service training. She was rude, unempathetic and should not have a front desk job. Apart from the fact that Best Western isn't really dog friendly, what made this experience so much worse was how unfriendly and unhelpful the front desk was. They didn't even offer to help us find other accommodations. We will never stay at this hotel. There are so many other amazing dog friendly places to stay in the Waterbury/Stowe area that are FAR better than this Best Western: Golden Eagle, Grunberg Haus are a few that I highly recommend. Not only are they truly dog friendly, but the service and hospitality are outstanding. You're better off spending your money on local...

After staying at the Best Western Waterbury for over 5 years, I regretfully will not be returning.

This is due not to the cockroach that crawled on my wife as she slept in bed, but because of the poor treatment by the manager as we requested to switch rooms.

I alerted staff to the cockroach at 11:30 PM the night prior and asked that he put a note in for our room that we would likely request a room change the following morning. I didn't want to make a scene or draw undue attention, so I waited for the lobby to clear of other guests before mentioning it. The staff member was friendly and apologetic.

The following morning, after telling my wife, we went to the lobby and again waited until all other guests were gone before talking with staff. The receptionist got the manager, who immediately said "I don't know what bug you think you saw, but it wasn't a cockroach." I informed her that I had spent literal hours the night prior trying to identify the bug and that I wasn't accusing the hotel of being unclean. I acknowledged that although I am certain it was a cockroach, that I found no other bugs or signs of infestation, only the one.

Initially, we just wanted a new room for our following two nights and a refund for the night prior, as I hadn't slept well after checking the bed and furniture for any more bugs. The manager continually reiterated that I was wrong and that there was no way it was a cockroach, which ultimately at this point didn't matter: we only wanted to change rooms because of the bug, not leave or cancel.

She was demonstrably put out to need to set us up in a new room, despite that we told her we could be flexible regarding the timing of the changeover. She denied a refund for the prior night at this time.

We were respectful to not be accusatory, went out of our way to avoid other guests hearing about the cockroach in our bed, and offered to be gone until the afternoon to allow a new room to be cleaned. Our efforts to be tactful and respectful were met with incredulity, gaslighting, and, frankly, rudeness.

We decided not to complete our stay, and when we returned a few hours later to officially cancel, the manager said she "searched our account" and saw that we were repeat visitors and Platinum members. She apologized and said that she didn't want to lose our business.

It's unfortunate that we were only treated respectfully after it was revealed the we had spent thousands of dollars at the hotel. I also had not intended on leaving a negative review because we had had so many positive experiences at this hotel that we initially didn't even want to cancel our stay.

Despite this disappointing encounter, I'm compelled to compliment the 4 other staff members who we briefly spoke with, who were all exceptionally friendly and kind.

Unfortunately, we will not be returning to the Best Western Waterbury--because although we understand and could overlook one instance of a pest, we won't overlook being treated poorly...

We could not be happier. The rooms were well kept, the service excellent. This during a nationwide labor shortage.

I walked in to find free cookies and water with fruit in the lobby. Excellent desk staff checked me in. We didn't see any of this at the four-star hotel We just left in Burlington that cost almost twice as much.

The Maintenance guy, Sean, went out of his way to help us with a car problem. He volunteered to help, he took his lunch half hour to drive us around getting things we needed.

The continental breakfast was amazing, I haven't seen one like that in years. The head chef was right there making sure everything was filled, fresh, delicious. Often with continental breakfast it is a choice of "is there anything that I want to eat?" Here it was a question of "will I get full before I can try everything that I want to eat?" And I'm vegetarian, so even skipping the piles of well-made bacon, there was lots to eat. Nothing ran empty, the tables were always clean and ready. Make your own waffles, haven't seen those in years.

Free Keurig coffee, tea, and hot chocolate is available 24 hours. There's even a real coffee maker available 24 hours. Two Microwaves for guests to use.

Big fridges in the rooms, it's still a mini fridge, but it's a college-sized mini fridge not a mini-bar sized mini fridge. The beds are only double beds, which is a little small, but that's up front when you book the room. They're really clear about that, so I'm still giving the full five stars. Again, the room is clean and well kept. Extra blanket in the closet. The shower has the big containers of shampoo, conditioner, and body wash in pumps ready to use, not the annoying little bottles you get everwhere else. Stayed in room 137. AC worked well, not too loud. Decent variety of TV channels.

Your towels smell great and they are fluffy not scratchy.

Great pool, nice hot tub. Free air hockey and table tennis in the game room. Two lovely seating areas just open and available for use. One even has a library.

Good for families, good for dogs. There were a lot of families when we stayed here, although it was still quiet at night.

Beautiful landscaping, love the hydrangeas.

Location: lovely view. You can see the stars at night. nice glider swings and benches all over, it's got its own covered bridge with walking trails, and it's a half a mile from the Ben & Jerry's factory. Seriously, if you want to stay in Waterbury, this is your place. Even if you want to stay in Stowe, it's only 20 minutes away. This should probably still be your place.

Just a welcoming, well appointed place. It's really more of a resort.

We have stayed in hotels all over the country, up and down the star scale, from one to five! this is one of our favorites.

Congratulations to the staff of Best Western Plus Waterbury. You've done...