I was booked to stay in this hotel by my employer between 4-14 Sep 19.
The place is more-or-less what you would expect for the price; the staff were nice, the breakfasts are ok but fair to say that the place is in need of new carpets and smells a bit of damp and cleaning chemicals. The elevator - which smells a bit like cannabis - also gave me one or two scares by showing the wrong floor number and by stopping until another button was pressed, but I informed the staff and used the stairs after that as I was only on the second floor.
I am not in the habit of placing reviews on sites such as this, but on this occasion I feel as though I have not been suitably compensated for what I consider to be a serious environmental health incident, and wish to warn others of encountering a similar ordeal.
Around the second day of my stay I noticed it itching on my legs and back, which I at first attributed to something familiar such as mosquitos or similar flying nocturnal biting insects. As the week went on, the problem seemed to worsen until I showed the bites to a colleague who suggested they may be bedbugs or fleas. Upon investigation, I noticed that these bites here indeed identical to those of bedbugs and after feeling the
bites in my room, took the offer of staying at my friend’s nearby hotel in his spare bed until I could deal with the matter the following morning.
The next day (Wed 11), I discreetly informed the reception staff of the problem before leaving for work. By lunchtime, I was impressed to find an email offering to move my belongings to an alternative room. I accepted this offer to find that I had been placed in a suite-sized double room. I was unable to check out as this hotel had been booked on my employer's contract, and I had decided to give the hotel staff the benefit of the doubt as they had at this stage been helpful and considerate. The gesture of the suite, however, served no benefit to me as a person travelling alone, I simply closed the door to the other room so that it wouldn’t require servicing by the hotel staff.
Upon departure, I received a sincere apology from the lady on the reception who advised me to tumble dry my clothes (something I wouldn’t do to delicate expensive items), and that the problem had been ‘brought down from somewhere up north’. I was told that the manager would be in touch, and I received an email from the manager later in the day to say that I was being given a one-night reduction from the ten-night stay of
$101.02.
This is where the pleasantries ended. I emailed the manager back to explain that I consider this to have been the absolute minimum that the hotel could have offered me, but unfortunately, the manager was not as understanding and polite as his front desk staff. I explained that I did not stay at the hotel for one night due to the bedbug problem, and therefore consider myself to have not been suitably recompensed for the cost of laundry, my measured discreetness and above all, the discomfort and revulsion of being bitten by bedbugs over several nights.
I prompted the manager for a response after several days offering a compromise to reach a better offer of compensation, but I was accused of threatening him after explaining that would only remain discreet for a limited time. The incident was then referred to by the manager as 'alleged' after it had been acknowledged by his staff and he invited me to do what I want with the pictures and information that I had recorded from the incident.
Bottom line is, if you don't want bedbugs, don't stay at this hotel. If you still wish to book and take the risk, be prepared to be inadequately compensated by somebody who infers that you are a liar. less
Sean M, Owner at Best Western Tampa, responded to this review
As a current TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence award winner, we take guest satisfaction very seriously and react immediately if an issue is brought to our attention. We did indeed react to your complaint and immediately took corrective action. We moved you to another room and immediately inspected the previous room in question for the alleged pest. After the inspection process, there was no evidence of the alleged pest. Our actions seemed to be satisfactory at the time. The gesture of refunding the night in question and moving you to an upgraded room for the duration of your nearly 10 night stay with us. The reason it seemed satisfactory is because you never mentioned any issues the rest of your nearly 10 night stay. However, after you checked out we were given an ultimatum. Compensate me or I am going to publish photos and negative reviews all over the internet. You went on to say that you were going to inform the travel department at MacDill AFB and your country's travel department about an alleged incident. In my opinion, it defies logic why anyone would voluntarily choose to stay in such a deplorable hotel for nearly 10 nights. If you can explain that to me, and the world, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you.