Dear Best Western

Traveler Beware!!

Having recently completed a cross country journey allowing me to stay in many fine establishments across our great country I can say without a doubt, your hotel was the worst.  Not to throw out the apple tree due to one bad apple, allow me to limit my comments to the Best Western Santa Fe Inn Amarillo, Texas.

Let’s begin with the name, “Best Western Santa Fe Inn” – there was nothing ‘Santa Fe’ about this ‘Inn’, it’s confusing, overly long and sets up an expectation that the hotel clearly has no intention of reaching toward.

Now the room – when staying in an unfamiliar place it is generally helpful to have lights by the bed or beds.  A lamp, a switch for over heads, a sconce or two – a light switch clear across the room which ignites a dim lamp in the far corner is unhelpful when reading in bed or rising when it’s still dark outside.  Secondly, when offering a “Clean Remote” it’s generally helpful that it is indeed clean. Although I find it wasteful, the concept is that remotes are disposable allowing each new customer a fresh clean remote.  Our remote had been wiped down – sort of, there was still “schmutz” on the power button and sides.  Thirdly, privacy curtains, although the blackout shades are particularly helpful to block out the morning sun, it’s also helpful to be able to fully close curtains when your room faces the parking lot.  A 12″ gap does not provide the privacy one might hope for.  On to the carpet, while placing carpet in front of the bathroom sink area is an interesting choice, it does experience greater  wear due to water, constant standing for brushing teeth, drying hair, flossing, etc.  Whatever synthetic “softener” you used to create the illusion of thickness in this particular area resulted in a greasy residue that sticks to your feet and smells weird.  Lastly the bed, traditionally I prefer something softer than the floor, when my 7 year old son, won’t even bounce on the bed because it “hurt his bottom” when he sat down, I’d say that’s a touch too firm.

Shall we go outside to the “pool”?  We’ve had our share of hotel pools on the trip, usually the color is something akin to blue, the greenish hue at the BWSFI (that’s Best Western Santa Fe Inn) was green and cloudy.  Hmmm, a little concerning but not as concerning as the number of dead insects floating on the top of the water.  But having 5 children  under 10 in a minivan for 8 hours requires some release, so we allow them all to jump in.  What’s missing?  Towels!  It’s not uncommon for towels to be missing from the swimming area, but this was the first time I had to ask the front desk “helper” for the towels and then receive a lecture about only asking for one towel for guest and she’ll count how many people are swimming.  She can actually do that from her front desk station since she can see the pool clearly – might have been nice to send someone out with towels when she saw us swimming but maybe she figured we’d air dry.

I could go on about breakfast, security, hotel employees, wall non-thickness but after about 10 nights staying in different hotels each night suffice to say that the Best Western Santa Fe Inn Amarillo, Texas was the WORST EVER, like EVER.