Valley Plaza Inn

Mid-Michigan Now reported today this hotel has been condemned by the City of Midland. The condemnation also includes the Days Inn in Midland. Check if you have a reservation at either of these locations.

Condemned and closed on 8/26/22. If you had reservations, I feel sorry for you as it happened on a Friday and they had been taking reservation up until then. Even before it was condemned most of the services that had previously been listed like the pool and more were closed.

Booked a room month in advance and then confirmed my room actual room number for an event only to be told two days before the event that they gave my room away. This is the worst run hotel every. Don't every book a room here because they will not honor the reservation.

This hotel is so far away from the normal Best Western standards, I can't beleive they haven't yanked the brand from this rundown, dirty, disgusting hotel. NOTHING feels clean. The "clean" towels in the room look like they haven't been laundered yet. The whole place smells moldy. The room refrigerator smelled like something died in there. The AC/heat unit is a 30+ year old wall unit that stopped working in the middle of the night. The door doesn't latch properly, and anyone could easily walk into your room if the inside security bar wasn't closed. No garbage cans in sight in the room or the hallways. The staff was more interested in talking amongst themselves than helping people check in or out. One of them was talking about the dog that they brought to work, and you could hear the poor thing barking constantly.

Upon entering our assigned room after check in there was food/drinks sitting around (looked like it was a couple days old) and the beds were made, but there were crumbs on one. The desk staff admitted that that was someone else's room!! They were extremely impersonal and did not act apologetic. We were given another room which was fine, though we tried to get another room on the interior courtyard because that looked nice but were told that they were booked even though there were never more than 20 cars in the parking lot. Our key cards did not open the exterior door closest to our room, the desk person told us that it was "disabled because of all the stuff going on with the government" and to put a rock in it to prop it open or walk all the way through the front door! They must have more people complain because they ended up fixing it the second day. We didn't use the pool because the pool room was dark and dingy. The tv channel guide did not correspond with actual channels at all. The hot and cold water in the bathroom sink were backwards.

The interior of this Best Western is worth the stay. I've never stayed at a hotel where the interior walls were made of brick. It made for a unique experience. I love older-style hotels that are set up like a labyrinth, which is exactly what this hotel is. I suggested to the check out clerk the hotel should offer a pamphlet of the history of the hotel, for which I am still ignorant but very intrigued.

First off, this is NOT a Best Western anymore, despite the huge sign on the front entrance. Something we found out after we contacted Best Western to express concerns about our stay. The biggest issue: our room opened without a key card. Even dead bolted, my husband could open it from the outside without a key card. The deadbolt would just slide over and the door would open. Literally anyone could walk right in. The only thing keeping it somewhat locked was the swing bar lock that keeps the room locked from inside. One would think that we should just go to the front desk and say something. Once check in was over, no one was ever there. When we checked in there was a family struggling with their key cards. The front desk staff laughed about it and continued to make jokes about the key cards not working. After we checked in they joked that they hoped no one would be in our room when we got there. I was already so nervous and had no clue what the joke was. There is supposedly 3 pools. We found 2, but 1 is roped off with caution tape and drained. The pool area was filthy and looked like it had black mold everywhere. The sauna was shut down for repair. The jacuzzi turns on with a toggle light switch, like someone rigged this switch. It felt unsafe. The tile is broken (like an 8” x 8” section) and looked like someone tried to fill the hole with beige caulk. It was gross looking. The jets only work on 1 side and they spray above the sides of the jacuzzi so you can’t even sit near them. Half of the hotel has a drop tile ceiling and half doesn’t. The half that doesn’t has exposed pex plumbing running throughout the halls. Our room’s bathroom had drop tile ceiling in the bathroom and even directly above the shower. I was afraid to look, but I’m sure there is mold there. There is no bathroom fan to remove moisture. The room was cold with only a wall heater for heat. It ran all night, was super loud and very drying. My kids woke up all night coughing from the dry air. They said they were at full capacity but walking through the hotel, we think they just can’t clean enough rooms. Most of the rooms were open and needing housekeeping. There was only 1 housekeeping person that we saw. There is a small arcade and billiards room but the door is locked. None of the vending machines work and the ice machine was out of order. One room had a completely broken out patio door. It was also roped off with caution tape. Anyone could enter the hotel through the opening, it wasn’t even boarded off with plywood. We re-parked our vehicle closer to the room only to find the door wouldn’t work. We had to walk around to find a different one. The website advertises continental breakfast. We woke up to a gated off dining area and spent $70 on Uber eats to order iHop. Definitely no breakfast.

The night we stayed I only got 1 hour of sleep due to noise from slider doors and people up stairs. If you have allergies you won't be able to breathe. When asked if we could up grade we were told no the rooms were not clean. We checked in at 8pm. Beds felt like we were sleeping on the rocky ground.

We were in the area for a local soccer tournament and our group booked here since it was only about 11 minutes from the soccer fields. I am not sure that we would necessarily choose this hotel again but it worked for the time being. My daughter and I only stayed one night but by the time we arrived to the pool to meet the other girls the staff was shutting it down due to a child that had gotten sick after taking in too much chlorine. We literally got maybe 5 minutes in the pool then it was shut down. It was tough to find a place to hang out with the other families because there isn't much of a lobby and only 2 seats in the game room area. I think next time we will look elsewhere, the location wasn't the best in my opinion.