SureStay Plus by Best Western Coquitlam

The one real plus is the helpful, attentive person at reception. Without him, I'd have rated this one star. It's also close to Braid skytrain station. Otherwise, the experience was average at best. For a three-star hotel, the security worries me; there's no safe place for valuables. Room service and cleanliness were below what I'd expect at that level, and there's no in-house restaurant or bottled water. You have to ask at reception to get room service done. It might be okay for a one-day stay.

We checked in, saw the state of the room, and checked out straight away. Staff argued with us and said they wouldn’t refund our money. I’ve never had that happen before, so we’ll go to Best Western for help, since we usually trust and like their hotels. This place is meant to meet Best Western’s standards, but it doesn’t. It may be cheap, but it was filthy and disgusting: blood on the comforters, hair around the room, a dirty toilet, and a smell so strong it stuck in my nose. Staff were rude, and calling it a 3-star hotel doesn’t excuse any of that. Stay away.

The breakfast was the one bright spot, and the woman working there was really good at her job. The rest was rough: the room floor felt incredibly sticky, as if it hadn’t been cleaned in ages, and the parking lot had garbage and broken furniture from the rooms. Front desk service was painfully slow and not accommodating. I could also hear people jumping around on the floor above all night.

The breakfast was decent, and the little seating area on the main floor made for a nice start to the day. Staff were friendly and checked me in quickly. The room itself was dated, though. Its old wall heater and AC seemed to have just two modes, on and off, so changing the temperature never stopped it being too hot or too cold. The furniture looked almost handmade and served its purpose, but the couch wasn’t very comfortable. I had a “city view” room, which didn’t offer much from a four-storey hotel unless it’s perched on one of Vancouver’s highest peaks. Getting there was a hassle after a 6+ hour flight from Ontario. GPS sent me the wrong way twice, even with the hotel in sight, and the parking entrance was hard to find and poorly marked. The hotel was also far from nearly everything, including the reason I was in the city, though that isn’t the hotel’s fault.