Best Western Fairfax Hotel

This is one of the more unpleasant «hotel» experiences I’ve had. Especially at this price. First of all, this is more of a motel than a hotel. I’ve spent a lot of time in Fairfax, but never actually went around the back side of the hotel to see all the doors up against the parking lot. The fact that all the doors lead outside might explain to the extremely unpleasant humidity in the room. The only way to make it bearable was to run the A/​C full blast — but then the room gets down to 65 degrees, which isn’t especially pleasant either. When the A/​C is off, the humidity climbs right back up. Ick. I have felt damp since I got here, three days ago.
Of course, I should have known immediately that this wasn’t going to be a great experience, since when I checked in, they handed me a little piece of paper with instructions on how to use the shower: «To ensure proper flow of water from the shower, first pull up the shower lever, second turon on the water faucet.» This is one of those old style showers where typically, you turn on the water from the faucet, then pull up the lever to send the water to the shower head. They’re right — it doesn’t work if you do it the traditional way. The lever doesn’t stay up, of course, unless the water is running. So you have to hold it up, while trying to turn the hot and cold water to the right temperatures, all the while getting water everywhere, because you’re adjusting it while it’s spraying from the shower head.
Of course, I was overly ambitious in my attempt to get the right temperature. It only seems to have one temperature, «really hot», despite the hot and cold water knobs. And then every thirty seconds, the water either gets cold for a few seconds, or scalding hot for a few seconds. Very unpleasant!
The shower head itself looks like one of the fancier types that can be adjusted between four different types of spray. With those, you can usually fake a decent shower, even with relatively low water pressure. Not here. Maybe I’m not smart enough, but despite the label on the shower head, it would only produce one spray, more of a mist, because it was such a low-​flow head.
And while this is a feature that some people like, I personally can’t stand having the sink and vanity in the bedroom, rather than in the bathroom with the toilet. Can you imagine how many people have touched the door knob after wiping their backside, BEFORE being able to wash their hands? Yuck!
And then there’s the wake up call system. I woke up early this morning, and called the front desk to cancel my wake up call, and then proceeded to the bathroom. Then the phone rang. And rang and rang and rang and rang. It finally stopped. And then it rang and rang and rang again. And stopped. When I finally finished in the bathroom, I called down to the front desk and a different person told me «oh, since you’re checking out today, the system won’t let us cancel a wake up call». Are you kidding me? And then I had to sit there and wait for the next call, just to acknowledge it, so I could continue getting ready to go.
On the bright side, the hotel is very clean and the staff is friendly. The internet seems to work pretty well, unlike at the otherwise much nicer Residence Inn, next door, where I stayed last time. The lobby is really pretty, and I wish I could have slept there instead of my room. The hotel is very conveniently located next to the interstate, but sadly, if you don’t have a car, there’s really nothing nearby. The 29 Diner USED to be good, but the new ownership has made it pretty generic and overpriced. And there’s a Denny’s across the street that is, well, Denny’s. They’ve closed Fudrucker’s, and moved Hooter’s several miles down the road (widing the highway, apparently). So you have to have a car (or taxi) or be willing to wait for the world’s worse public transit system to get anywhere.
It’s sad that downtown Fairfax doesn’t have an upscale hotel, and that GMU closed down their hotel on campus after only being open a year. But this is more of a $ 70 a night motel, and if you’re used to that sort of thing, and don’t mind paying 30% more for your room than it’s worth, go for it. But if you’re used to a more comfortable experience, probably best to pass on this place.

We were met at the front desk by a very unpleasant and dismissive desk clerk. We were not give the room we reserved, and she argued with us that we were wrong. She then told us that our reservations did not provide a room choice, but that we were to be given «whatever is left.» She then assigned us our room, but when we carried our bags to that room, we discovered it was already occupied. Imagine our surprise! We had to return back to the rude night clerk, and were given a room that we did not want in the first place.
In all fairness, the asst. manager the next morning was very concerned about our experience. She expressed concern and indicated resolve to somehow rectify our bad experience. Awaiting that response.
As to other reviews, the bed was comfortable. The room was adequate and clean. The bathroom was old, but not dirty. Opted out of the breakfast. All in all, not a positive experience for the money.

We spent a weekend in this hotel, and I have to say that of the four hotels I’ve stayed at in this area, this one’s rooms are by far the nicest (and since that list includes the Hyatt and Extended Stay, that’s saying something). When we arrived, we were checked in quickly and efficiently. One tip — if you have problems with stairs, request a ground floor room when you book, because this hotel has three stories in some places, and we were on the top. Luckily we were able to park where we only had to go up a flight of stairs to our room (I have knee and hip issues).
The room was extremely clean, and I like the retro look of the shower/​toilet area (sink is in room area). The room itself was modern and up-​to-​date, with lots of big fluffy pillows on each bed. The beds were SO comfortable! The hotel was quiet, despite being in a commercial area. The room had a fridge and microwave, and both worked as expected.
There are three reasons I’m not giving five stars. The first was on our second night, we got back to the hotel about 7:00 p.m., exhausted, and just wanted an early night. Unfortunately, our smoke alarm was chirping every few minutes, so at around 7:30 p.m. I called the front desk. They promised to have someone up to take care of it immediately.
At a little after 8:00 p.m., my companion went down to the front desk to find out when someone would be along to take care of this, only to be told that the maintenance man left for the day at 8:00 p.m. sharp. The only thing the front desk person could do was switch us to another room, which he did immediately, and it was only next door, but it was still a chore to have to pack up everything and move when we were so tired.
About 20 minutes later, as I’m standing outside on the balcony listening to the rain fall and trying to relax enough to go to sleep (all of the rooms in this hotel are outside access), a man comes along and uses a pass key to go inside our old room. He’s in there two or three minutes, then turns the lights off and leaves. I can only assume that this is the maintenance man that supposedly left at 8:00. This really did irk me a lot, and I wasn’t very appreciative of having to change rooms like that. I’m glad the hotel took care of it, but it was still an inconvenience I didn’t like for what should have been a two-​minute battery change.
The second thing is breakfast. The hotel has an excellent free breakfast buffet for it’s guests, and so far of the four hotels in the area that I’ve stayed at, theirs comes in second to the Hyatt in great breakfasts, which is saying a lot, because the Hyatt breakfast is superb. My biggest complaint is that some of the meat items didn’t seem very well cooked or weren’t very appetizing (the turkey sausage or the square cubes of some sort of sausage). I wish they would have had bacon instead of those items. The grits were meh, but the waffle bar was excellent. I would like to see much more fresh, in-​season fruit and whipped cream on the waffle bar, but otherwise it was a nice meal.
Last, but certainly not least, was that the pool area was still closed. They had no plans to open it until Memorial Day weekend. This was disappointing in that the temperature (when it wasn’t raining) would have allowed swimming on one of the days we stayed.
The wi-​fi was good, strong, and never gave us a problem.
Even with the loss of a star, I would still choose to stay in this hotel again over many of the other hotels in the area. They were also the best priced in the area.

Great breakfast, huge beds as well as comfort, very friendly staff, and a great value for the price

Had a okay sleep the first night guy at the front desk was really nice for being 2:30am when we arrived, although the bed was like a rock and the sheets are uncomfortable. The second night got back to the hotel at 4:00am ready to sleep until check out at noon. Let’s just say that didn’t happen first I wake up to a big crash into my window at 8:30am. I got up to see what it was and it was guys taking furniture out of rooms on both sides of us and throwing it up against our window. Second at around 9am room service comes barging in the room. I lost it and yelled at her explaining to her that check out is not until 12pm and to get out of the room and told her to tell the guys next door there are people trying to sleep. The guys stopped for about a half hour and went back to work banging and hammering and stapling the new floors they were installing with the tv blasting. I also tried calling the front desk to complain but what do you know the phone doesn’t work in the room. This hotel needs to change the times they have people working in there rooms to a realistic time like 12pm when checkout is. You don’t want to disturb your customers sleep so that they do decide to come back. For me I will not be back here.

Friendly staff; especially at front desk. Clean and well organized room with small fridge, microwave and coffee maker. Good size flat screen TV. Room location quiet; near pool with nice landscape view. Great breakfast! Location of hotel was perfect. Easy to find.

Thank you very much liked the hotel, clean bedding, clean bathroom, clean towels, a delicious rich breakfast, which we really liked! Thank you all liked it, everything was very good. good hotel! I recommend! The price-​quality!

Good value for area. Clean but dated room. It looks like a better than nice motel (no hallways, room open to pool courtyard).
It’s rainy this week and room smelled a bit musty when I walked in so I left door open a bit to air out. Staff efficient and friendly.
The walls are on the thin side — heard next door person speaking to who ever was with him and then continued to hear them as they walked outside. They were not being excessively loud — normal speaking voice. This time of year, not that’s many guests so wished I had no contiguous guest! !!
Meh. It’s okay. Okay value for area.

I came down from Pittsburgh for three nights. The room was clean, the staff was nice and my biggest surprise was the free breakfast. The breakfast had several hot choices in addition to the standard toast, bagals and cereal. No issues here!

Spent 4 days/​nights here and thought it was a real deal for the price. Room was clean, bed was comfortable, breakfast was great. Access to area is good, several eating places close by. Staff was helpful and informative. Will stay here again on next visit.

The WORST wifi ever. It would have been nice for the front desk to warn us that a huge group of college students were staying here as we have young children traveling with us.

I actually stayed here back in Nov 2012 for 10 days and had no issues at all. The hotel is old but everything was kept up well. Breakfast was good and I had no issues with the wifi. Not sure of some of the bad experiences some are having. I can tell you all of the staff were on point.

This place is not bad. A lot of reviews dis the wifi, and it was a little slow. I was able to get to all the websites I needed but videos were unreliable. I was right next to the office too so in sure it’s location dependent. The office staff was really friendly. And they give you cookies when you check in which you can’t go wrong with. Bed was fine. Room was clean. No problems at all.

for the need of a place to stay, this place is great. its clean, the beds are comfortable, they keep up on the towels and soaps and such. the internet is fine, especially for a cheaper hotel. the price range is on the lower end, and its a nice, friendly hotel. I will be staying here again.

The Internet service in this place is absolutely atrocious. If having a reliable internet connection is important for you, I suggest you look elsewhere. My room was filled with so many dead spots that in more than one occasion I had to resort to writing my emails from the bathroom (the only place in the room where I could get a signal). That being said, rooms were very good. They were clean, the AC worked properly, and I had a 32 inch flat screen on the wall with an available HDMI port where I was able to hook up my laptop (with my own HDMI cable of course). Free breakfast is included, and it was barely ok. They only had like 7 things. Eggs, sausage, oatmeal, hashbrowns, waffles, pancakes and donuts. Which after 3 days of the same, starts getting old pretty quick. Oh and the lady who is the attendant at breakfast is extremely rude. She answered everything with monosyllables and never looks you in the eye. It’s like she’s annoyed that you are there. The front desk staff was a mixed bag. Some people were very nice and professional and there was one guy, who looked like a manager (white hair, glasses, mid 40s) who was extremely rude and could benefit from a company sponsored customer service seminar. Also there are no elevators. From the outside this looked more like a trucker motel on the road. Once you’re inside your room (which you reach by climbing a flight of stairs) then it’s ok. Looks like any other hotel.

We came to Fairfax for a wedding. There was a block for wedding guests here and the new, fancy hotel across the street. Unfortunately, we did not call in time and the other hotel was booked solid.
When we arrived to the Best Western, the staff was really friendly. The wedding block only provided a discount for the one night, however, the staff offered us the discount for both nights without even asking. I thought that was very nice of them.
Anyway, we got our keycards and headed to the room. When we walked in, it had that motel feel. I was like ugh this is going to suck. The furniture is older looking along with the walls and decoration. The decorations consisted of old dead president photos.
I am making this review sound really negative because of the age of this hotel/​motel whatever. The truly negative thing I do have to say is that you can hear people walking around outside. However, there is one point that I want to bring up that was awesome — the beds.
Sure, the room was old, and could use a fancy renovation. Regardless, the beds were amazing.
I found them to be incredibly comfortable. I slept like a rock the two nights we were here. We barely stayed in the hotel during the day anyway. We were just there sleeping or getting ready to leave.
For the price we paid, I am cool with the experience.

Least. Comfortable. Beds. Ever. Seriously, my air mattress gives me a better night of sleep.
The wireless and water temp are both sporadic. The walls are thin.
That all said, the staff was friendly, which did make for a semi positive experience, overall.

I’m not sure what room they other reviewer stayed in but i’ve stayed here multiple times and enjoyed both. I always stayed in the smoking king room and the beds were very comfortable and clean. The room had a couch, tv, standard bathroom that was clean, microwave and small fridge. What I loved most about this place were the employees, every time we were given the AAA rate when we didn’t have AAA. The rate is high during the week but it was still a great stay.

Too bad Unilocal has a one star minimum. I reserved my room because it was across the street from a training class I was in all week. I checked in and immediately regretted it when I saw the outside rooms. I tried to open the door and had to PUSH it open because it was stuck… I should have known from then this was bad. The first thing I saw ahead of me when I walked in was the bathroom sink… except it wasn’t in the bathroom… it was part of the room, and both the wall mirror and the sink were undeniably crooked. Weird, but ohhhh it gets worse.
I told myself to stop being a priss and suck it up, so night time comes and I lay down to sleep… not a minute later, I’m itchy all over. I start wondering if I’m catching scabies or bed bugs, and I pull out a pair of jeans and place them on my pillow so I could lay my head back down, and a pair of socks to eliminate skin-​to-​sheet interaction. It didn’t get much better, and to top it off, a large painting of Thomas Jefferson was staring down at me the entire time. I think I got 1 hour of sleep that night… checked out the next morning and went to the Candle Suites a few minutes away. If you’re considering this place, DON’T do it. Its not even cheaper than the other options…