Hampton Inn West Des Moines Lake Drive — Hotel in West Des Moines

Despite this hotel's higher overall star rating, I'd say everything that was recently reported in reviews is accurate. I recently stayed here for business (3 nights) and had a fine (not great) stay. Sharing pros and cons below:

Pros Breakfast had a variety each morning and what you come to expect from a Hampton Inn. Waffles, hot breakfast items, pastries, oatmeal, etc. Location is convenient to the highway, Hy-Vee/ Starbucks is a block away. Parking filled up fast, but was available. The staff were okay, but I wouldn't say friendly. Very transactional (no asking how your stay was, what brings you to town, etc).

Cons The entire property felt dated. It had a few dirty areas (hangers in the elevator, full trash in the lobby, randomly scotch tape on the lobby elevator call button). I will say I stayed during the Iowa State Fair, so the hotel was quite full. I went to use the fitness center and their cable machine was out of order (one side). It was a small space with a strange smell the entire stay. I arrived to my room and the armoire door that housed the mini-fridge was loose. Also there was a dirty wash cloth on my shower curtain rod. The rest of the room was fine. I agree that the walls are thin if you're a light sleeper. Each night I could hear clearly everyone in the hallways and building noise. Very small con and I should have checked before booking - but the TV doesn't have streaming capabilities or tilt. When working at the desk, it would have been nice to tilt the TV for better viewing. Your standard flat screen TV, no TV Guide so you have to click through to each channel. Also some of the outlets in the room were worn - so plugging in was spotty.

Overall it was fine - however I would recommend the Hampton Inn near Jordan Creek Mall instead. I stayed there last time and gave them 5 stars (cleaner hotel, more fully equipped fitness center, breakfast space was larger, parking was plentiful and their staff was...

1st message sent to hotel text service the night we checked in:||We left right after we checked in to our room. We just got back to our room for the evening. The room smells very bad like mildew. When we got undressed to go to bed, we noticed the floor feels damp/wet & gross.||2nd message sent to the text service the next morning after I talked to the lady at the front desk:||Even when your head of cleaning walked in, she said: "whoa!" As soon as she smelled the room right when we opened the door. I guess this is your way of fixing the wet nasty floor for guests?!?! At least she was sympathetic, because she knows no one should've been assigned this room; and brought us blankets so we wouldn't have to walk on a completely wet floor.||Also; when we got back last night, the air was on the coldest setting, I put the temp all the way up to 75, it's still only 66 degrees in the room... so that's broken also!||We definitely should not be paying for this crappy room. I am not happy at all. The night person shouldn't have ignored my texts. The person at the desk this morning, offered to put in a work order, that totally wouldn't help our situation this morning... very nonchalant and didn't care. When I started explaining our situation, she replied "oh yeah..." so she knows we had a problem and texted, but she said sometimes they don't do a good job at replying to texts at night. This is not good customer service at all.||When I checked out, I re-explained my situation to another male at the front desk. He said he'd give my info to the manager when she gets in about a refund. I waited a whole week. No one had contacted me and no refund was refunded!||Worse experience in a very long time!!!||A....

Pros: Located a fairly short drive from State Fair Grounds and other sites PLENTY of shopping and dining within easy driving distance With one or two nasty exceptions, staff was routinely and genuinely friendly and helpful Staff provided "goodie bags" {my term} in lobby each morning with a piece of fruit, a snack (e g., muffin or bagel) and bottled water. Much appreciated! Respectable self-serve FREE continental breakfast. Varies each day, plenty of seating.

Cons: {in no particular order} While sensor on hallway outside-access door (end of hall) was broken, employees (& probably guests too) routinely wedged door open with rock. Thus, no security! No pillowcase on one pillow False info over chat (thru app) during remote check-in that "all pillows are down", to which my wife is deathly allergic Hilton app claims that digital key opens all access doors, but door at end of hallway doesn't respond to ANY key --- {Update} Door sensor was fixed on 3rd day of visit to work with issued key cards, but never worked with virtual key thru app! Room had nasty smell when entered, but had JUST finished being cleaned. May also have been due to turning on heater when we first entered room Room was EXTREMELY poorly lit! Something was wrong with the power plugs on either side of the bed, caused our device chargers to take forever to charge devices! Ran out of toilet paper after several days because housekeeping didn't apparently notice that we'd used the spare! We had to go to main desk...