Hotel Embassy Suites by Hilton di Lompoc

This is a hotel I’ve been staying at for the past 20 years as I come to the area for business a great deal. What I love about the hotel is the courtyard and the mostly nice staff. However, with a new manager in the past few years, the focus seems to have completely shifted from at least paying lip service to treat their customers well to only caring about maximizing profits. Now all businesses want to maximize their profit margins that’s why it’s called a business. But in the hospitality industry most businesses will at least try to accommodate the individuals who support them. The hotel itself is old and run down. They did room upgrades a few years ago and the new mattresses they put in were nicer than the old lumpy ones and the new office furniture was pleasant. They did nothing to fix other issues though. Many of the rooms have drawers that will not stay closed, sinks that won’t drain unless you take them apart and fix them, plumbing that groans, rattles, and burps constantly, and mini refrigerators that have no remaining shelves and don’t keep food at a safe temperature (they don’t cool to more than tepid). I could still put up with having to repair items in my room as long as it was reasonably clean and I could get a good nights sleep so I could work the next day. Since the change in management, things aren’t improving. The maids are all very nice and very hard working, but like many hotels they seem to have limited time to clean rooms. My feet are filthy if I don’t wear shoes and I no longer enjoy trying to sit on the stained furniture. Well, not since I stuck to one of the chairs. Maybe a child had spilled something sticky and it wasn’t noticed. The front desk staff and the kitchen staff are really nice for the most part but it seems the management has tied their hands when it comes to keeping people happy. I have had only one desk person be horrible, and it seems every time I see her there is no one smiling. For example one early morning I had to leave to drive to the Santa Barbara airport. It was 3 am. I was attempting to check out but the wi-fi was down and I had to go to the front desk. The doors were locked and instead of letting me in she yelled through the door asking what I wanted. I said to check out. But she wouldn’t let me in the locked front entrance to do that. She asked me my room number and I shouted it to her (the only way she could hear) but she still didn’t grasp that I needed my receipt and still refused me entry. And there was the security guard standing there with her so I’m sure she wasn’t afraid to open the door and give customer service. I eventually gave up trying to yell through the door and threw my key at it and left. It irritated me because I know having to shout to make myself heard was waking up all the other folks sleeping soundly in the front rooms. On one of my latest trips a co-workers car was vandalized in the parking lot. It had a hole punched in the gas tank underneath and gas was all over the