Americas Best Value Inn Horseheads

0/10 do not recommend. My family and I came up to the upstate NY this past weekend for the NASCAR race at Watkins Glen and chose to find a cheaper stay 30 minutes from there. The website and photos to this place made it seem like a decent spot. The photos are an absolute LIE. I don’t even know how this place is still operating. When was the last time it’s even had an upkeep cleaning done, let alone a deep clean? Hallways and carpet reeked, poor ventilation. The stairwells were filthy with gum on the steps. Our room had so much dust, I could go to every piece of furniture and swipe my finger and collect a thick line of it, dead bugs and dirt along the windows, stains everywhere in the carpets, mold in the refrigerator, horrible stench came out of the ac/heat unit, dirt and grunge in the bathroom, the shower pressure was way too much with no adjustment and the water just got hotter the longer you were in, did not even budge when you tried to adjust it. Thankfully we only stayed one night and found things to do after checking in until we came back to sleep and checked out as soon as we woke up in the morning. An occupant one room down from us BLASTED their music whenever they wanted to, even waking us up at 5 AM with it, along with slamming doors and whatever else around. Homeless people or close to homeless wandering the parking lot, very poor area with lots of sketchy people out and about. At least the police station was right down the road and they were frequently patrolling the lot. I’m pretty sure this motel is a place for people to live out of more than anything. Even the gas station with a McDonald’s attached to it was filthy with filthy looking employees working. My advice to anyone planning a trip to the Watkins Glen area: just suck it up and pay to stay in town. You’ll thank me. Best part was, the motel refused any sort of refund so Booking.com gave me a whole $11 credit towards my next stay…woohoo….

We booked two rooms for one night - one for me, one for my daughter and her partner. Lying in the bed before going to sleep, my daughter suspected a smoke detector on the ceiling had a camera in it, so they examined it at 9:30 pm - just looked closely at it, did not disable it. At 12:45, three security personnel pounded on their door, demanding to be let in. My daughter and her partner refused, yelling at them to go away. They inserted a tool under the door and forced it open, then pushed their way into the room. They never looked at the smoke detector and left. Do not stay at this hotel.

We needed someplace to stay for less then 8 hours that was pet friendly. Because we needed 2 rooms and we were staying for such a short time I was looking for something cheap. We arrived late and was able to still check in. We wanted both rooms next to each other and the nice lady at the desk accommodated us. She was very friendly at check in. We got up to our rooms via stairs no elevator. The one room even though it was smoke free still smelled very badly of smoke. I called downstairs and the lady here again was very nice offered us a new room and was even willing to bring us the key up. The new room smelled better but the air conditioning was not working properly. The fan that blows the air was not working. We didn't want to bother again so we dealt with it. The other rooms air worked great and did not stink like smoke but was more outdated then the other room and was not clean. The bathroom had dead bugs and hair on the floor. The curtains had stains and burn holes and the walls look like some one just smeared something down them. When checking out we encountered another nice lady. There was no breakfast of any sort and I am not sure if that is because of Covid. Overall the staff was pleasant and helpful. Given that I spent less then 50 a room I did not expect to be staying anywhere fancy. If you need cheap and very short term this hotel is it.