It was late Friday afternoon and we drove past the sign on the street proclaiming that the Billings Hotel was “Billings Number 1 Hotel.” We parked and walked in to register. One woman behind the desk was registering some guests, the other was on the phone.
We waited for our existence to be acknowledged. The woman on the phone glanced up and continued her phone conversation. We waited some more. The first employee continued with her customers. We stood there and started wondering if we were invisible. The phone conversation went on. Finally the first woman finished with her customers and called us over. After 15 minutes of being ignored we were finally checked in.
We hopped back in to the rental and drove around the corner to the door closest to our second floor room, unloaded our luggage and made our way inside. There was no elevator. I’m pretty sure that there’s not an elevator in the whole place. Four of us spread out trying to find the stairs. We eventually discovered them but signs indicating their location would have been helpful.
At the top of the stairs we came across some of the housekeeping staff and asked them if they had bell service and/or an elevator. They glanced away and the look on their face couple with their silence gave the impression that this was the most stupid question that they had ever heard. No verbal response was uttered.
We entered our room. We asked for a non-smoking room with a king sized bed and were given one of their Jacuzzi rooms. The place was somewhat grungy and felt like it hadn’t been occupied or even cleaned recently. And it sounded like a bunch of college lads were occupying a room down the hall. Mrs. Salad Is Slaughter called and asked what else was available. Nothing was.
We looked at the towels supplied with the room. They were threadbare. We have better towels we’ve tossed in a pile to wipe muddy dog paws than what the Billings Hotel gave us to use. We ordered more so we could at least attempt to get dry in the morning.
After dinner we stopped off a grocery store to pick up some supplies - water, some barely drinkable wine, cleaning products, and air freshener. A quick wipe-down made the room a bit more livable.
Keeping the air conditioner fan powered on (the AC itself wouldn’t stay on) drowned out the noise from the other rooms so at least we could sleep. I got up in the middle of the night and as I walked toward the door I almost passed out from the stench of tobacco smoke wafting in to the room. Luckily the odor didn’t reach the sleeping area.
The next day Mrs. Salad Is Slaughter called about the smoke issue. We were told that there were smoking rooms around the corner and there was nothing they could do. We noticed that there were some open doors in the hallway between the smoking rooms and the non-smoking rooms. We closed it and left. When we returned the doors were open again. So much for a non-smoking room.
We went down to the dining area for breakfast and waited to be seated. And waited. An employee finally deigned to glance in our direction. And still we waited. There were no clean tables and there was no one clearing the dirty ones. We wandered over to the rack containing local tourism pamphlets. We looked back at the dining room. Still no clean tables. We left and drove over to a local restaurant.
We did the tourist thing all day (more on that in another post) and we returned to the hotel. We know the room had been visited by a maid because the bed was made and there were fresh towels. And there were still dirty glasses in the sink. And it didn’t look like anything had been wiped down. And the empty Kleenex box hadn’t been replaced. We called once again and had them at least replace the glasses with allegedly clean versions and replace the tissue.
After returning from the wedding we decided to put a towel at the bottom of the door to keep out the tobacco smoke. It didn’t work. The odor still managed to make its way in to the room. On the positive side, it was our last night in the place.
Upon checkout Mrs. Salad Is Slaughter gave the Billings Hotel management a critique of our stay. They later sent us a letter and a coupon for 50% off on our next stay. I wouldn’t stay there for free. The Billings Hotel may be the worst place I’ve ever stayed, beating out the now demolished Westward Ho in Las Vegas. You want to take some of the bad taste out of our mouth? Refund half of what we already paid you. The poor housekeeping, inadequate amenities, and rude and indifferent staff make the Billings Hotel the number one worst hotel in Billings Montana.
Hey, taken in the right context, I guess the sign out front was right.
Stumble it!
This is the nice version from mr s. slaughter who wasnt paying attention. when we arrived there were 2 girls helping 2 different couples check in. one finished and when we walked up to the counter to check in the phone rang and the one that was going to help us instead would spend her time with the phone customers.. she was rude to them but totally ignored us so its a tossup who got “it” the worse .. The reason the staff in the hall didnt answer our questions was that they didnt understand english in BILLINGS Montana!! We later discovered they had no incentive to try I think they were treated worse than us..I have to wonder how much the coyotes charge to ship someone to Billings Montana.. “culture shock” is an understatement.