It was western, but was it the best?

    For Claire and Miguel's wedding last week in the scenic Old West town of Wickenburg, Arizona we booked all the guest rooms at the Best Western Rancho Grande.
   It's an attractive place with Spanish style adobe buildings in sage green, yellow and clay red with pretty Spanish tiles along the walls

    When we arrived the rooms were neat and clean and the beds made up with fluffy down comforters and colorful Indian blankets folded across the bottom of the bed, with matching decorative pillows.  They were nice rooms.
    And the complementary breakfast was really good, the bagels and pastries fresh and plentiful, chilled fruit salad, cereal, yogurt, eggs and pancakes. 
    The pool was lovely.  The WIFI was quick.
    They gave us the  very reasonable price of $65 per night for our rooms, and the location was great, right in the middle of town and within walking distance of anything there is to do or see in Wickenburg.
    So what's my beef, already?
    Okay, my beef with the Best Western Rancho Grande in Wickenburg, Arizona is this:  the staff.
    Were they rude? No.  Unfriendly?  Not exactly. 
    Helpful? 
    Well...it's not that they wouldn't eventually  come around to taking care of what you needed if you happened to need something...it's just that there was this sort of grudging attitude about doing it for you.
    For example, the second day of our stay, which was the day before the wedding,  we left in the morning and when we returned to our room at 4:00 pm it still hadn't been cleaned.  When we approached one of the cleaning personnel about the situation we were informed that there were just so many rooms to clean, and did I still want my room cleaned?
    "Ummm....yes?"  responded I. 
    And the room was in fact cleaned and the beds made by 8:30 pm when  we returned from the rehearsal dinner.
    That same night my 93-year-old mother couldn't get the door to her room opened.  Nobody could.  It was jammed.
    So my sister went to the desk person and asked him for help. 
    The desk person was an older guy, about my age, who'd been friendly enough up until now.  But  he made it clear to Romaine that he did not appreciate being bothered over this recalcitrant door.      However after letting her know this he did haul himself up and came over and fixed the door.
    The worst offense to my knowledge, though, occurred on the day of the wedding,
    Several weeks earlier I had called the hotel and asked if they had a room or an area where I could bring in and serve a lunch to the wedding party and a few others, about 20 people, at about 11:30 on the day of the wedding.
    Sure, I was told by the young-sounding lady I spoke to, just use the breakfast area and the lobby, no problem.
    Was there any charge?  I asked.
    Nope.
    Did I need to reserve the place?
    Nope.  I could just go and set up whenever I wanted to, no problem, this friendly young person assured me.
    And yet when the day and time arrived there was a problem.  An attitude problem, not with the nice youngster with whom I'd spoken - that owner of that friendly phone voice was in fact nowhere to be found - but with the older lady, about my age who was the actual desk presence that morning.
    I stopped by the desk about 9 am to check that it was still okay to use the breakfast area for our lunch.
    It was not okay.  Not with this gal.  She was clearly miffed that someone other than herself had given me permission to use the breakfast room.  She began lecturing me with a pained smile about  how the area had to be cleaned, then once it was cleaned it had to stay that way until the morning, she could get in trouble with the board of health, she didn't know who told me I could use it, and so on and so on.
    I assured her that we would clean the place up when we were done.
    That wasn't the problem she said, still with the long-suffering smile, though she didn't explain what the problem was.  Then she gave an exasperated sigh and said, okay, if they could get the place cleaned up by 11:30 we could use it, but come and talk to her first.
    Now, here I was, a dozen  things to do that morning, all my tasks balanced like a house of cards so that if one was pulled out all the others were likely to fall into a chaotic heap. 
    And here was this lady threatening to pull out the main card.
    "Just come and see me when you need the room,"  she sniffed.
    That was at 9am.
    At 11:30 we returned to the hotel lobby with all the party trays, sides, and drinks we'd ordered for the lunch, and the hungry crowd was starting to mill in.
    I checked in with the still stiffly smiling desk warden and was informed by her that the kitchen clean-up wasn't yet finished and the lobby still needed to be vacuumed.  This was 2 1/2 hours after breakfast was over. And it wasn't a big lobby.
    At this point I showed a bit - okay, a good bit of pique at the whole situation.
    And - abracdabra - the lady turned from desk warden into Mother Teresa, suddenly all friendly and helpful.  Now  we could use the eating area, she even came out from behind her desk and helped us push the tables together. 
    Then the lunch was set out, the guests were fed and happy, and all was well until Mother Teresa reverted back to the smiling desk warden, strode into the middle of the room and firmly announced that we needed to keep our voices down. 
    For who?  I don't know.  There wasn't anyone else in the lobby except for us.  And her.
    After lunch Tom stayed behind and gave that eating area the most conscientious cleaning it's ever had in it's life.  But should he really have had to vacuum the lobby?  Anyway, he did.
    End of story.
    So, was this lunch altercation annoying enough to cast a blight on my happy beautiful day? 
    Not at all.
    It was just annoying enough to make me kvetch about it here in my blog.
     EPILOGUE:
    If I ever return to Wickenburg (which Tom and I hope to do) would I ever again stay at the Best Western Rancho Grande?
   (Sigh).  Yeah, I guess I would.  It's the only hotel in town.  And they do serve a great breakfast.  8)

And we did have a good time!