BEST WESTERN PLUS Phoenix Goodyear Inn, Goodyear

I spent a week at the Best Western in Goodyear, AZ. It was my first trip to the greater Phoenix area, so I really didn't know what to expect. When I first arrived, the hotel was packed, and finding parking near my room was an immediate challenge. When I opened the door to my room I was happy to see a clean looking room. I was pleased to see that the room had a refrigerator and microwave available. Next, as I always do when I first enter a hotel room, I unpacked my laptop computer. I fired it up on the convenient desk in the room. I looked around the desk area for a place to plug in my network cable, but couldn't find one. I searched all over the room, then finally realized that the network jacks were located in the base of the lamp sitting on my desk. Apparently the idea is to have network connectivity over the power lines in the hotel. Well, to my surprise, I got no connectivity when I plugged into the lamp. Undaunted, I slapped my wireless network card into my laptop and quickly scoured the airwaves for network access. Sure enough, I found an access point, seemingly located in another room in the hotel. The connection was not stable, and very slow, but it seemed to work. Then I realized it didn't support anything except basic web traffic... I couldn't use the normal AOL Instant Messenger client at all. I also could not use my company's VPN client, which presents a real challenge to us business travelers. When I woke the next morning and was getting ready to head off to a day of important business meetings, I grabbed the iron and ironing board from the bathroom area. I was extremely disappointed to find that the iron didn't work at all. I spent quite a while trying to get it to heat up, to no avail. I left a note for the maid service letting them know the iron did not function, and I headed off to work in my clothes still wrinkled from my flight to Phoenix. I was happy to see a brand new iron placed in my room when I returned, however. The new one worked great the rest of the week. In the bathroom, I was disappointed to see that the air vent was located right above the towl rack, and that dirt had fallen or blown down from the vent and onto my clean stack of towls. I also had trouble finding the hotel-provided soap, but after searching I found it carefully tucked away in one of the decorative towl folds. Perhaps it should have been placed out on the bathroom sink countertop like most hotels do. The shampoo was provided in a dispenser wall mounted in the shower. I was very pleased with the complimentary morning breakfast. The staff passing through the breakfast area were especially friendly and willing to meet all the guests needs. The food at breakfast was fresh, making it a great start to each morning. So overall the staff was pleasant and professional. On only one brief occasion was I not able to locate any help at the front desk.