Where to begin? We made reservations on-line in MARCH, 2005 for a family reunion in Denver over Labor Day weekend only to arrive late Friday afternoon and find utter incompetence at the desk! We had three rooms reserved and I still don't know what was so complicated about our requests - the young lady couldn't figure out how to check in 3 separate rooms, so Pete finally had to step in to help her. At least I had my rooms - the couple checking in next to us had a sheet of paper with their confirmed reservation, but the girl couldn't find it! So, Pete leaves us to try to find their reservation - he might as well have been working alone (Oh wait - he was!) Then the girl just non-chalantly walks away from the desk, only to return about 15 minutes later with a new hairdo and a plate of food! She obviously just took a break deciding to leave since she couldn't figure out how to check anyone in! Unbelievable!
The 30 minute check-in process should have been a warning of things to come. My sister's room was dirty so they go down to the desk and are moved down the hall to another - but it has only one bed (for 3 adults and 3 children)! That's not going to work, so another trip to the desk and they are finally moved a third time to the hotel's "best room" - a king/queen combo ending up on the 9th floor and we are on the 3rd. We had requested the same floor so we could help out with their grandkids. Oh well! It turns out, we find out later that night, that every member had check-in problems! Dirty rooms, a double when a King was requested and worse - my uncle who is in a wheelchair doesn't get his reserved handicap room! The comment from the front desk personnel - "Sorry". He wasn't asking for an amenity, it was a necessity! They had no choice but to leave and find another hotel, so they went across the street to the Holiday Inn and were accommodated in a handicap room. The next morning, on Saturday, at least 5 families in our group checked out of the BW Central and checked in at the Holiday Inn. We were invited to go with them but decided it would be too much of a hassle to move from three rooms, so we stayed. Big mistake.
Even though we requested on check-in to extend check-out from Sunday to Monday, someone didn't note it in the computer. We had a RUDE awakening on Sunday night. At 11:30 at night someone came into our room and startled us out of a deep sleep (read: scared the H___ out of us!) He quickly apologized and said "Sorry, housekeeping!" (NOTE: Use the security lock! We forgot to do that!) I called the desk and wanted to know why "housekeeping" just came into our room, and the girl said "What room are you in? When did you check in?" I told her we had been there since Friday and she said "The computer has you checked out". I said "Well, we're here and we were asleep!" I told her to be sure he didn't go into Room 918 and scare them after she said the computer showed they were checked out too! (I find it interesting that even though the desk clerk said we were "checked out" our room key worked when we came back to our room after dinner at 9pm! Also, the bed linens hadn't been changed, but fresh towels placed in there as is the procedure when guests are staying over. If we had truly been checked out, why wasn't the electronic key disabled and room cleaned for the next occupants?)
The next morning we spent at least 45 minutes untangling the mess made on Friday night. Besides the three rooms I'd reserved and was paying for, there was a 4th room under our name which we didn't reserve or occupy! Mandy removed that 4th room from our folio. The professionalism and hard work of Mandy to try to figure out what the heck was going on with our bill is the only reason this review gets an "Okay" instead of Terrible! If the rating was for Mandy, she would get an EXCELLENT. She was a shining example of professionalism and worked very hard to unscramble the mess. She was very embarassed by our treatment and apologized over and over even though she had nothing to do with the mess to start with.
This hotel is sorely in need of TRAINING of their front desk personnel - most of whom were lacking in basic customer service skills, telephone skills, and computer skills.
Stay at your own risk and TRIPLE check your bill! Right now our credit card has $1100 worth of "pending charges" for 3 rooms for 3 nights! How in the world do you come up with that figure at $69 a night? And one room was for 2 nights only! We used the card just to guarantee the rooms and paid cash at check-out. Now we wait and hope that all the credits Mandy worked on for us end up back on the card! (I shudder to think that someone else working after her will undo her work!) Thank goodness she was there and was willing to go the extra mile to straighten things out!









