Best Western Gardens Hotel

Complaint is with the Best Western Gardens Hotel, Joshua Tree National Park, CA. and its manager, AMRA WEBSTER and very possibly the owner. Now here is our complaint. We arrived at the hotel on Thursday, August 7th to check in and planned to depart on Tuesday, August 12th. When we checked into the hotel they did not mention that they had a water main issue and no running water, even though the manager, AMRA WEBSTER, was behind the counter at the time and was very aware of the issue which started on Wednesday, August 6th. They had their on-site maintenance personnel working on the issue instead of calling in a licensed plumber. Their attempts at fixing the issue failed both times. Then a licensed plumber was called in and a third attempt failed to fix the issue. Still NO WATER. We went thru the whole evening with no water and still no running water in the morning. The manager went home that evening when he should have stayed at the hotel to assist anyone needing bottled water for drinking and water for flushing toilets. We had to take the trash cans from our room to get water out of the pool to flush our toilet, several times, carrying them up a flight of stairs. They are very fortunate we did not hurt ourselves and this caused VERY UNSANITARY CONDITIONS.



We were extremely fed up at this point so we went to the local fire station, the next morning, to make them aware of the issue and they said they would contact Code Enforcement and that they might need to shut down the property so they suggested we find a room at another hotel. We were in town for a conference where they were expecting over 2000 attendees so the only room we could find was a spa suite at America’s Best Value Inn & Suites, in Yucca Valley, for more money than we planned in our budget. Very frustrated at this point in our trip and missing part of our conference that first day.



Now for the manager, AMRA WEBSTER. When my girlfriend tried to take some video of the water main issue in the parking lot he came out and started yelling at her and said he was calling the police and he was going to have her arrested because she was being a trouble maker when all she was trying to do was get some proof of the issue to contest the bill for the one night with her credit card company. I was actually surprised when a police officer showed up at our room in a very short period of time. He asked what was happening and when we told him the whole story, which AMRA WEBSTER apparently had not, and that we found a room at another hotel. He agreed with us and told AMRA WEBSTER he could not charge us for the night because the hotel had no running water and the conditions were unsanitary. He told the officer he would take care of it and AMRA WEBSTER did not charge us for Thursday, August 7th, so we though. When we got home we checked the credit card statement for the card that was used to make the reservation (used different card when we checked in) and found he had charged the card for one night. Now we have to deal with the credit card company to get the charge removed.



Best Western needs to review its franchise agreement with this property. Apparently they do not understand your QOS (Quality of Service). There were many other upset guest. Hopefully they were treated with more respect than we were. This is when a property is really put to the challenge. You can have a perfect record and then this happens and if it not handled right there goes your brands reputation.



This was such an unbelievable, truly horrible experience, at a hotel, that we have ever had.

The rooms are noisey, because the walls are very thin so you can hear everything that goes on in the room next to you and behind you. The breakfast was good, and the people friendly.