I had one of the most bizarre and upsetting hotel experiences I’ve ever encountered at the Best Western Plus Castle Rock. I arrived around 10:15 pm after a long day, only to walk into a room that had clearly already been used. The toilet seat was up, there were used towels on the floor and in the bathtub, an opened cup, and the bed had a visible dent — as if someone had just been there. I went downstairs to request a new room. The front desk clerk called a manager at a nearby sister property, Holiday Inn & Suites Castle Rock. I later learned there were no other rooms available at the Best Western. The clerk was instructed to go back up and confirm the condition of the room, which she did. When she returned, I overheard the manager claim that the room was dirty because it was “my guest,” naming my sister specifically. This was completely false and shocking. My sister was elsewhere — we were in town for a deeply personal and difficult reason, to be with her as she is seriously ill. The manager then took about 20 minutes to come over from the other hotel. Without saying much, she inspected the room herself, confirmed it was clearly not cleaned, and came back downstairs. At that point, instead of resolving the situation with any level of professionalism or empathy, she was dismissive and confrontational. When I expressed how upsetting the situation was — especially given why I was in town — she responded that I was “not the only one who has had someone die,” that she felt sorry for my sister but not for me. She canceled my reservation and told me I was not welcome to stay at either property. This left me scrambling at nearly 11 pm to find another hotel, ultimately driving 15 minutes to Lone Tree and not getting to bed until 1 am. What’s most frustrating is that this could have been easily resolved — the sister property next door had availability. A simple, compassionate solution would have made all the difference. Instead, I experienced a combination of poor housekeeping, false accusations, lack of accountability, and a complete absence of basic human empathy.
