I have never had a hotel experience as bad as this. I checked into the Aspen around 4pm on a Thursday. When I got to the room, on first look, everything seemed to be in order. However, I quickly noticed that there was an empty plastic water bottle on one of the two beds that had a hand written note that was inside. I took this bottle down to the front desk to show it to the young woman who checked me in. Obviously, there was nothing for her to do about it, I only thought that she should know about the poor job that “housekeeping” had done in this room. I might add that this woman at the front desk was the only bright spot at the hotel. I was to need to call attention to the housekeeping problem again. The next day I departed the hotel around 9am for the day. There was a small blue/white sign to Lea we on the dole; the white side out meant “ Do Not Disturb”. The blue side out meant “ Please Make-Up the Room”. I checked and double checked to be certain that I was leaving the blue-side out to have the room serviced. When I arrived back to the hotel after 8pm that night, the sign was still on the door, and the blue-side was still out. However, the room had not been cleaned. Again, I reported this to the same woman at the desk who apologized again and made a note to discuss with management. At the same time I reported that neither the telephone in the room was operating (there was no wire/cord to connect to the wall outlet, nor was the clock-radio working. Again, she made this note to management. The next day I again left the hotel around 8:30/9am for the day. This day I didn’t leave the sign on the door at all. When I returned I was initially pleased to see that the bed had been made-up, but unfortunately, as soon as I walked into the bathroom I was both shocked and upset to see that two days worth of dirty towels were still on the floor of the room. Housekeeping had been in there and left fresh soap but left the dirty towels for the first two days on the floor. Again, I reported this. I would have moved to another hotel right then, but I was staying there because I had 3 cousins also staying there, and it would have been a lot of trouble to move, and we didn’t really know how long we would be in town as we were there because my 99 year old uncle was in Hospice care, and we had been called to come to Fort Smith right away. The cousins and I had come from Indiana, Colorado, and California. At this stage I told the nice lady at the desk to suggest to “management” that I thought to make things “ right”, they should “comp” one night. Well, here is the response that I received from a man at the front desk the next morning. He said that he had checked with Housekeeping re the first day when they didn’t clean the room at all and that it was my fault because I had left the white-side out, the side that says “do not disturb”. This is not true as I double checked before I left that morning that the blue-side was out as well as the same when I returned that night. Of course no excuse was offered about the dirty towels, the plastic bottle that was on the bed when I checked in, the telephone that wasn’t connected, nor the alarm clock-radio which was never fixed. He denied my request for a one night comp but offered in return a 20% discount for one night or about $17. This would have amounted to $6 per day more or less. At this point I checked-out and moved to the Fairfield Inn. One last thing. I told him to NOT take the $20 off my bill as I felt this was a total insult, but he said that he had already done it. Therefore, I took a $20 bill from my billfold and tossed it to him and got the hell out of there. I will never return to this poorly managed property. In fairness I must also give a shout-out to the lady who handles the buffet breakfast. She, like the young woman who works the front desk, are both assets. I don’t know how they can work in that environment. less
Best Western A, Manager at Best Western Aspen Hotel, responded to this review
Thank you for your stay at Best Western Aspen in Fort Smith Arkansas. We work hard for our guest and love to see when we’ve made your stay memorable. Thank you for taking the time out to do the review to help us become better. We use the review to know what our guest is looking for and to see where we need improvement.