Magnuson Hotel Sweetwater

nice people, adequate rooms

i would definitely recommend this to someone else for a does-its-job-without-any-fuss motel.

this is a former best western motel that has been refurbished. it could use a little more refurbishing, but the rooms are perfectly adequate and kept VERY CLEAN. two stories, with inside-corridor and outside rooms. the parking lot needs more light; at night it is hard to see the numbers on the second-floor room doors from the parking lot.

the lobby and meeting rooms are all well lighted and easy to get around. the meeting rooms were freezing, with loud fans. the desk is open 24 hrs.

they are very gracious about allowing pets. i don't know if there is a pet deposit.

everyone who works there is VERY nice and goes out of their way to help with whatever you need. i could not get the closed-captions to work on my TV, and the night desk guy brought the instructions for the TV and the remote and reprogrammed the TV for me; it was above and above the call of duty, this has happened at other places and the reaction has been basically, so what?

local calls are free. it is also possible to charge long-distance calls to the room without any surcharge (just the cost of the call), quite a reasonable practice that i haven't seen anywhere else in years. that alone endeared me to them quite a bit. i had to ask the front desk guy to turn on the room phone long-distance feature for me, but it worked fine once he did.

they offer a free buffet for breakfast and for dinner, for motel guests; the food is supposed to be from a catering company but it is served with plastic utensils (and paper plates, i think, i can't remember now); this is nothing to write home about but would do if you didn't want to go out. i don't think i would pay $5.50 for it, tho, or have a guest with me to dinner.

they provide shampoo and shower gel in wall dispensers in the shower, plus a coffeepot, packets of coffee, and a small refrigerator. (i think there might also have been a microwave, but i can't remember.)

the heat works great! when i was there, it was very cold outside, but i was very comfortable in the room (i was in a second-floor inside-corridor room).

we got a meeting rate of $60/night; this was approx what other motels in the area cost as their regular rate, so i don't really understand what justifies the magnuson's customary rate of $80. however, i did not personally check out other motels, so perhaps the difference would have been evident if i had.

Unique Quality: the rooms are in a circle surrounding a lovely atrium with a small heated pool. there are also tables and chairs; it looked very relaxing. the environment was dark when i was there, but i was at a meeting and everyone was busy, so there wasn't much call to use that area.