After leaving Tulsa (which was surprisingly awesome), Shae and I headed southwest to the city of Altus.
Altus is in the southwest corner of Oklahoma known as the Western Prairie. It’s home to an Air Force base, but probably isn’t high on the list of places people would normally choose to visit in Oklahoma.
We’re on a 5 year, 50 state road trip and one of the ways we can afford to do that is by maximizing our hotel points. The Hampton Inn Altus is pretty good value when using Hilton Honors points, so I investigated things to do in Altus and it looked like there’d be enough to keep us occupied. We therefore decided to book the Hampton Inn for five nights to maximize our points even further (see the ‘Cost’ section below for more).
It’s a decent enough hotel, but it’s let down by lots of missing breakfast items and invisible staff. Here’s a full review of our stay at the Hampton Inn Altus.
Check-In
We arrived at the hotel at about 6:30pm to find no one at the front desk – this proved to be a recurring theme throughout our stay.
There was a sign on the front desk saying they were off helping another guest and to use a phone by the front desk to call them. We did this and someone came out from the back office after it rang a few times.
The person checking us in wasn’t particularly welcoming. She wasn’t rude, but seemed to be making minimal effort. We had to sign a pet form seeing as we’re traveling with our dog Truffles and chose a couple of snacks thanks to having Hilton Gold status.
She gave us our keys to room 305 and we headed upstairs in the elevator.
Bedroom
The bathroom was on the left when entering the room, with the main bedroom area ahead and to the left.
We’d booked a bedroom with a king bed; the bed and pillows were both comfortable and we slept well each night. Both sides of the bed had an available outlet for charging our phones which we appreciated. There was also a bench at the foot of the bench which we used for setting some items on top.
Opposite the bed was a TV on top of a dresser.
Our room looked out over some cotton fields to the west, so we had some beautiful sunset views in the evening.
To the right of the window was a desk, office chair and additional chair.
I noticed later that evening there was an additional desk on rollers beneath the desk. We loved that as it meant both Shae and I could have a desk to work from, similar to our room at the Aloft Tulsa Downtown the week before.
To the right of the larger desk was a narrow cabinet holding a mini-fridge, microwave and coffee maker. Seeing as we live in hotels, having both a mini-fridge and microwave is extremely convenient.
To the right of the bathroom door was the room’s closet. Inside was an iron, ironing board and additional blanket.
Bathroom
The bathroom was a good size and had a long vanity holding the sink, with the toilet beyond that behind a narrow divider.
The faucet had extremely poor water pressure. It was fine for washing hands, but it took forever to fill up water bottles.
As seems to be the case at all Hampton Inns we’ve stayed at, they had Neutrogena-brand toiletries. There was also a small bottle of mouthwash and makeup remover wipes.
On the opposite side of the bathroom was a walk-in shower. The shower’s water pressure was good and it was a nice, spacious shower unit. The sliding doors didn’t close entirely on either side, but no water ended up on the floor outside so that wasn’t a problem.
To the right of the shower was a tall shelving unit that proved to be helpful for storing our own toiletries.
Breakfast
Breakfast is included when staying at Hampton Inn hotels. At the Altus property, the breakfast seating area doubles up during the day as lobby seating. There are loads of tables and chairs, so there was never a problem finding somewhere to sit.
The breakfast buffet included a couple of hot options. These changed every day; the day I took the photos below there were Western omelets and turkey sausage links.
Here are the other breakfast options:
In addition to the food, the breakfast area had a coffee and tea station.
In theory, the hotel offers a good spread given there’s no additional charge for breakfast. In reality, that’s not actually the case.
That’s because they kept the food items poorly stocked. For example, one morning there was no bacon…
…no fruit…
…and a pretty much empty bread container. There were English muffins and a few muffins, but no bread, no bagels, no pastries, no cinnamon rolls, etc.
This wasn’t an isolated incident either. Every morning of our stay there were multiple empty sections. Other days there was no waffle batter, syrup, hot options, yogurt, etc. I think there was only fruit one or two mornings of our stay. Even when there was fruit, it seemed to be canned rather than fresh.
Their breakfast was therefore much more underwhelming than it should’ve been. If there were missing items on only one morning, I’d put that down to someone being busy. Having several missing items every morning – and being different each time – suggested laziness when it came to restocking breakfast rather than busyness or not having those items out back.
Amenities
The Hampton Inn Altus had an indoor swimming pool and whirlpool. The room itself was very warm, while the swimming pool was a little cooler than we’d have liked.
The hotel had a fitness room with a few pieces of equipment.
They had a guest laundry area consisting of one washing machine and one dryer. The washing machine was $1.50 per load while the dryer was $1 per load.
If you need bleach or laundry detergent, there’s a dispenser on the wall for you to purchase those items.
If you need to get online or print something off, there’s a business center with a couple of computers and a printer.
If you’re feeling peckish and can’t be bothered with going to the grocery store, there’s a pantry area selling snacks, meals, beverages and toiletries.
There was a coffee and tea station in the breakfast area each day. There was an additional coffee and tea station located in the lobby to the right of the front desk which was available 24/7.
Pet-Friendliness
The Hampton Inn Altus is a pet-friendly hotel and doesn’t charge a pet fee which is great. We had to sign a pet form which was written as though it was being addressed to our dog, so that was fun.
The hotel is surrounded by grassy areas which makes it convenient when taking out your dog outside.
A few minutes away is Altus Dog Park which has separate sections for large and small dogs. It was a good size, with the only downside being a lack of shade – the tree in the photo below provided the only shade.
Service
Service is what let down the Hampton Inn Altus in my eyes. No one there was rude, but service was disappointing nonetheless.
I’ve already mentioned what appeared to be laziness when it came to them restocking breakfast items each morning. Even worse was the invisible front desk staff.
Based on how many times I entered and exited the hotel either due to us going somewhere or taking Truffles outside to do her business, I probably walked past the front desk 50-60 times during our stay. I didn’t keep track, but I’d guess there was a member of staff at the front desk on maybe 15 occasions, with that being a generous estimate.
I actually stopped by the front desk several times during our stay to check in, check out, confirm our late checkout, etc. and not once was someone there. On most occasions there was a sign at the front desk saying they were helping another guest. That’s occasionally happened at other hotels and it’s completely understandable if the staff member is alone and has to go somewhere to actually help someone.
That wasn’t the case at this hotel though. The sign said to use the phone in the lobby to dial 0. When doing that, the phone would ring a few times in their back office and someone would come out after it rang a few times without them actually answering the phone. They were therefore never off helping another guest and seemed to just be hanging out in the back office, using the phone to let them know if they had to go do some work.
This is extremely poor service on their part as guests shouldn’t have to wait around and call staff in order to be served. It wasn’t even just one lazy member of staff either. The sign was used by at least three or four different staff members and the same thing happened every time. They’d appear from the back office after their phone rang a few times, so it seems to be the hotel’s policy to treat guests this way.
A couple of other times we stopped by the front desk, the staff member was outside the back of the hotel having a cigarette. We could see her, but she wasn’t paying attention to the lobby and so didn’t see us waiting. On one of those occasions, a member of the housekeeping staff ended up having to get her as we’d been standing around for quite a while. To be fair, she was apologetic but she was out there smoking another cigarette and ignoring the front desk a couple of hours later when we stopped by to check out.
All this left a bad taste in the mouth. Like I said, no one was rude but the hotel staff as a whole persistently gave the impression they cared more about their convenience than offering good customer service.
Anyway, I know I’m ranting but it really bugged me. It’s not like I expect Four Seasons levels of service, but when Super 8s, Quality Inns and Econo Lodges outperform you service-wise, there’s something wrong.
Wi-Fi
Standard Wi-Fi is complimentary and was significantly better than service at the hotel seeing as the Wi-Fi was always there and fast 😉
Location
The Hampton Inn is on Route 283 which runs down the middle of Altus. There’s an Applebee’s next door and it’s a short drive to other restaurants.
Quartz Mountain Nature Park and Lake Altus are about 20 minutes to the north and are worth checking out. We’d also recommend visiting Museum of the Western Prairie which is only a few minutes away, along with Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge which is less than an hour to the east. Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge has prairie dogs and bison roaming around, so it’s a great opportunity to see them in the wild.
Parking
The hotel offers free parking and there’s plenty of it around the hotel.
Cost
I mentioned at the beginning of the review that we’d booked our stay at the Hampton Inn Altus because it offered good value when using points.
That’s because the hotel only required 20,000 Hilton Honors points per night. Hilton also offers the 5th night free on award stays to guests that have any kind of status (which you can get from a credit card with no annual fee), so our five nights cost a total of 80,000 points.
I usually keep a note of how much it would’ve cost us if we’d paid for our stay rather than used points. It appears I neglected to do that, but paid rates seem to be ~$130 per night including tax. That means we got ~0.8cpp (cents per point) of value for our points which is double what you’d normally get with Hilton Honors points.
Final Thoughts
We were pleased with our room and the amenities at the Hampton Inn Altus, so we had a good stay in that respect.
What let them down was the somewhat sparse breakfast due to empty sections every morning and the missing front desk staff all day every day (and night).
If we were to visit Altus in the future, we’d probably stay at this hotel again seeing as it’s good value on points and they don’t charge a pet fee. I’d just go in prepared to be disappointed by their service given our experience during this stay.
Truffles Approval Rating
Truffles gives the Hampton Inn Altus four paws out of four – pawfect! She didn’t care about the lack of front desk staff, although she was a little disappointed when I didn’t bring her bacon from breakfast because of there not being any!
On the positive side, she liked how much grass there was outside and how close the hotel was to Altus Dog Park.
Our Rating
Room = 4.5 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 4.2 / 5
Food = 3.7 / 5
Location = 4.2 / 5
Service = 2.4 / 5
Overall Value = 4.5 / 5
Total = 3.92 / 5
Address
Hampton Inn, 3601 N Main St, Altus, OK 73521
Leave a Reply