Best Western Plus Kingston Hotel and Conference Ce

We’ve been coming for a February weekend festival for the past few years, and it’s a great venue for events. There’s a concert hall, an indoor courtyard with a swimming pool, a gym, arcade machines, and more. The rooms are nice and clean with the amenities you need. The staff are always very helpful and friendly. It’s a real pleasure to return every year.

Someone got into our room and stole cash, and the front desk didn’t offer any kind of resolution. They didn’t even really listen or write down what happened. There aren’t security cameras either. We were paying for a room with a secure door and latch, and the dismissive staff didn’t seem to care. The phone didn’t work, there weren’t enough towels, and service was poor. No free breakfast, and the TV remote was missing its batteries. Beware.

The internet worked great, but the stay wasn’t worth the price. This hotel is way out on the edge of town, not really in Kingston, and our check-in and checkout both took ages. The first room smelled strongly of marijuana. We switched, but the new room faced an interior hallway with no natural light. The curtains were either blackout or so thin people could see in, so the room stayed dark. There weren’t enough outlets or nightstands to charge our phones, and we found someone else’s clothes by the bed. The air unit was very loud and couldn’t be turned off. Between the lines, stale food, noise, lack of privacy and daylight, and being nowhere near the people we’d booked with, I wish we’d stayed somewhere else.

We were exhausted by checkout and left to sort things out ourselves. There was an $800 charge on our card, and when we asked about it along with a refund, the attendant seemed confused and went back and forth to the manager. The manager wouldn’t speak to us directly at first, only sending messages through the attendant. Eventually we insisted on speaking with him. He was rude, called the charge a hold, and said he’d removed it. We thought that was a lie, since friends who stayed that same night said they had no hold. After everything, he offered only a discount. We pointed out that we’d booked more than a month ahead and still got the wrong room. He had no explanation for that, and said the hotel had plenty of other rooms, which contradicted what we’d been told the day before. Here’s how the stay went wrong. We booked two beds for three people, but were given one bed and a couch in the smoking section. One person in our group is very sensitive to smoke. The couch was covered in pet hair, and I’m allergic to pet dander, so I reacted throughout the stay and even the next day. We called right away to ask about moving rooms, but the phone didn’t work, so we used a cell. They said no because they were fully booked. When we asked about a refund, the answer wasn’t clear. Later, we got lost and were startled by a security guard. He told us he’d just cleaned up the most puke he’d ever seen, in the hallway we were standing in. I needed a sheet to cover the couch, but there was no housekeeping at night. The front desk guy called the same guard to take us to the linen closet. He first tried to unlock it with a knife, swearing as he struggled, then tried several key cards before yanking the door open. He handed us linens we hadn’t asked for. He also pointed to dirty sheets and said, “oh that must be red wine!” They looked like blood splatter to us. We only learned later, after searching online, that the hotel had recently held a murder mystery event. At the time, we honestly thought someone might have died there. Around 7 in the morning, someone tried to open our door. I don’t know if it was housekeeping or guests who’d gotten lost, but it freaked me out. With all of that, we’ll never stay there again. We’ve told our friends not to stay either, and unfortunately they had similar experiences.