Best Value Water Tree Inn

DO NOT STAY AT THE BEST VALUE WATER TREE INN

Summary:
The hotel is unsafe to stay in. It is in a very seedy party of town; don't be fooled by the online pictures. There was a transient with an overloaded cart hanging out in front of the reception area. The hotel has no security to speak of. Our room was broken into with a passkey. There are no cameras in the Halls. The staff did nothing to try to investigate what happened. We were out of our room for just 45 minutes in the morning. Reception area reeked of smoke and old cooking smells. I saw the staff smoking on an outdoor patio right next to the front desk.
Detail:
We checked in for one night at the Americas Best Value Inn - Fresno Water Tree- Blackstone location. We were enroute to a week's camping at Yosemite National Park. On the morning of our check out 7/24 we packed up our bags neatly right inside of the door and went to do some grocery shopping for camping before checkout. Upon our return we discovered that one of our bags was missing. This bag had well over $600 worth of contents . . . prescription glasses, contacts, DVD player, 4 critical prescriptions and all our toiletries and essentials for a family of 4. Although the hotel staff was courteous they offered us nothing in the way of resolution. We were flabbergasted when they said there are no cameras in the halls. I would expect more from a company of over 900 hotels. We believed, as they did, that this was an employee's doing. They said they addressed all employees but of course no one confessed. One of the front desk ladies said that she thought an employee room pass was lost that day which may account for the burgerly. But still they said they had no procedure to file a claim. Again, I would expect more from a company of over 900 hotels. We then called the police department and apparently because of the city's budget cuts this was considered a non emergency and we couldn't get them to call back until days later with a police report number. Meanwhile we spent the next five hours in Fresno at 106 degrees heat with 2 small children going to 3 different pharmacies to get our critical prescriptions as well as our essential toiletries for the week. The hotel front desk person did give us the night free but surely more could have been done about this. I contacted the hotel customer relations via online and their response was short . . . that this was a police matter. No other offer of resolution. I contacted the hotel headquarters as well as their public relations via written mail, no response at all. DO NOT STAY AT THIS HOTEL. They do nothing in the way of security to protect their guests.

Unique Quality: NONE COME TO MIND.