Red Lion Hotel & Conference Center Ellensburg

The lobby looked nice, and the staff were presentable and pleasant. The sheets and rooms were clean, as far as things could be cleaned, but the property needs groundskeeping and care, and the rooms are dated and due for renovation. The beds are very firm, which several people in our group noticed. We check every hotel bed for bugs and didn’t find any here, but the mattresses don’t have protectors. After 10 p.m., key cards only work at the lobby door, since the other doors aren’t set up for the card system. The pool is closed, despite the front desk agent saying on the phone, “I think it might be up.” Breakfast was below par, though the rooms are inexpensive, so you get what you pay for.

The room itself was fine, but the breakfast bar was awful at 8:15 on Sunday morning. The bread was rock hard, the waffle batter and syrup were gone, the milk jug was empty, and the tea water was lukewarm. Nothing had been replenished since the night before. We chose this hotel because it was near the freeway, had an indoor pool for swimming laps, and a fitness center. The pool was closed for the season, and the fitness center was closed for construction, so only one of our three reasons panned out.

The room was quiet and had a clean bed, and the location was great. Breakfast was sparse, probably because only a few rooms were occupied when we stayed. There were hard-boiled eggs, bagels, waffles, and cereal, but no milk. It was enough to get us moving, and there’s a Starbucks next door for coffee.

We paid for a king room with a sofa bed, but couldn’t use the sofa bed because there was no bedding for it and the front desk couldn’t get any. The heat barely worked, half the outlets were dead, and only some buttons on the remote worked. We didn’t get what we paid for, and we won’t stay at this Red Lion or another one again. I’ll tell my family, friends, and university colleagues to avoid it.