Best Western Aku Tiki Inn

I’ll stay here again because of Ivie at the front desk. She was welcoming, helpful, and accommodating from the moment we arrived, and she explained everything clearly. She got housekeeping to prepare our rooms early, let us store our luggage while we got our bikes ready, and handled a busy mix of check-ins, calls, and requests impressively. She greeted us with a big smile every morning. Everyone in our group of 20 had a very positive experience with her. Housekeeping was also excellent and quick to respond. We arrived a few hours before check-in, and they worked hard to get us into our clean rooms early. The dehumidifier in the room was appreciated. There were some problems: the ice machine didn’t work until day four, so we had to get ice from the restaurant, which closed at 9. We were there for Daytona bike week and expected hours that accommodated it. Another couple had no air conditioning for the first three days, which seemed far too long to wait for maintenance. Only one elevator was working.

Timmy the manager was very rude, and after we complained to the corporate number, we never heard back. We stayed five days and checked out Friday at 8:30 in the morning, then got home the next day to find we’d been charged for another night. The number the credit card company gave us didn’t answer, and calling the direct hotel number got us nowhere. The hotel itself was dated, though the beachfront view was good. The main elevator was broken, one luggage cart had flat tires, and the other was bent and wouldn’t roll straight. There’s no free breakfast, parking costs $10 per night, and the place had an odor. This will be our last stay at any Best Western.

I paid extra to stay here because I thought it would be better than the motels nearby. That was a mistake. We arrived about an hour before check-in, and the room was already ready, but they still charged us an early fee. The rooms felt cheaply put together, with broken furniture, no bathroom vent, and too few plugs. I’m positive this place has never been inspected. The pool was freezing, dirty, and scummy, despite being listed as heated. Google says parking is complimentary, but that isn’t true. They advertise daily happy hour with two free drinks, but we never got drink tickets or vouchers. Room service for laundry isn’t daily; you have to ask, and after three days it was done lazily with no clean sheets. None of the positives made even one night worth it. Stay somewhere else.

The beach location and lovely pool were definite pluses, and the room itself was great. I’d booked for $52 without reading reviews, then got worried by recent reports of a widespread roach investigation and tried to cancel. Evie was polite and explained that I couldn’t because I’d booked through a sketchy third party site. She also knew I was lying about having a family emergency. She stayed professional, efficient, and friendly anyway. After checking in, I searched under the mattress, behind pictures, under the microwave, in the crown molding, behind the mirror, in the drain, and in the air vents, and didn’t find any roach activity. Had I not read the reviews, I would have felt much better about the room. The hotel smelled kind of floral, perfumey, and bad, but the IHOP and 7/11 across the street smelled bad too, so it may not have been the hotel. I got used to it quickly. The pillows were a weird size. I left a green polo Ralph Lauren sweater in my room. Evie, consider it yours.