SPECIAL- Review of Homewood Suites Hotel, Phoenix, AZ

My family and I stayed at the Homewood Suites Hotel last weekend while in Phoenix for my mother's wedding which was held nearby.

I was very impressed with the room. It was a 2 room suite with the bedroom having 2 double beds, a desk, TV, bathroom with a separate vanity/sink area.

The front room had a TV with a couch and a comfy chair and ottoman. The couch contained a pull out double bed complete with bedding. The bedding was clean and there were more than enough pillows. My wife is a pillow freak and there's no such thing as too many.

The kitchen had a small dining area along with a roomy fridge, dishwasher, stove, dishes, cookware and everything one would need for a long term stay.

During the two days we stayed there, the complimentary breakfast "buffet" was a disaster and not what I would have expected since this hotel is part of the Hilton chain of hotels. On both mornings, we arrived for breakfast between 9:00 and 9:30 a.m. The weekend breakfast hours are 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.

It was quickly apparent that the buffet area was in total chaos. There was paper, straw wrappers, bits of food and empty creamer containers left on the counters. I caught the coffee over-flowing and had to call housekeeping. On top of that, they ran out of flavored creamer and when I asked the staff member about re-filling the creamer she said to me "Sorry, we did not receive the shipment of creamer on Friday". I guess they were unfamiliar with super markets in the Phoenix area which probably sell creamer for those weekends when you don't get your shipment.

The staff also failed to watch the sterno cans and the food was allowed to go cold. The milk was left out on the counters for cereal and was allowed to go warm. I am not a health inspector but I am sure that they would be interested in this tidbit of information.

On Saturday the bread and danish items seemed to be well stocked but by Sunday there were no bagels, danish or english muffins. There was only plain white bread available.

At one point, I alerted the staff to an unattended waffle iron that had begun to smoke and I began to seriously wonder if the place would burn down as soon as I left since I was the only one who seemed to be paying any attention.

So much for the food area let's talk about the seating area. The seating area was quite large with tables and chairs and even sofas in front of a fireplace and TV area. It would have been great except it looked like it had not been vacuumed or swept the entire morning. There was food and paper all over the floor. The carts for dirty dishes and trash were over-flowing and the tables needed wiping.

Outside of the food seating area was the pool which could be seen through the many windows -which wasn't a good thing. Someone had restocked the pool towels, however, they had failed to remove the dirty towels out of the towel bin and from around the pool area. The overflowing bin and messy pool area was a disappointing view.

Having visited the pool the previous day, I was impressed with the sheer amount of "floaters" in the water ranging from leaves and other misc. foliage to giant grasshopper-looking bugs. I noticed a burning hot Arizona breeze here and there so I'm fairly sure the staff couldn't be blamed for this one.

We had a real treat while out by the pool when I found these HUGE Toll House Ice Cream Cookie Sandwiches in the hotel's "Suite Shop".

In conclusion, overall I was very impressed with our hotel suite and how very polite the staff was even though they had a hard time keeping up with the breakfast bar and the swimming towels by the pool. I would definitely recommend it and would stay there again.