Kimpton Armory Hotel Bozeman — Attraction in Bozeman

When Virgil took Dante on a tour of hell, he showed him that the innermost circle containing the worst form of punishment involved a frozen ice lake, in the middle of which Satan was chewing on Judas. Turns out, Satan was merely saving Judas from staying in Room 314 at the Kimpton Armory Bozeman. Buckle up, fellow traveller and join me on a whirlwind tour of what might just win the gold medal at the “worst room at a 5* hotel” Olympic race, for this monstrosity is the Usain Bolt of such races.

We begin with the defining feature, the view. I can only assume the architects’ brief for positioning Room 314 at the hotel was: “I want the guests to have a view from a window that would have made even Nelson Mandela break on day 2 of his prison sentence” and to their credit, they succeeded. Naturally, every tired traveller getting to Montana and paying $600 per night will be delighted to pull open the curtains and see… a back staircase with garbage bins at the bottom. Luckily, there is a second window, which offers panoramic 360 views of… a brick wall with a massive pole in front of it that contains more industrial electrical wiring than a Google Data Centre.

Dazed and confused, you decide to curtail your disappointment by just grabbing a shower and going to bed - a terrific plan on paper, but it doesn’t take into account the bathroom at the Kimpton Armory. A shower with a stylish curtain that might echo warm feelings of familiarity of a recently paroled convict has clearly been designed in collaboration with Wim Hof as the very thought of having a nice warm water temperature is deemed offensive and unacceptable. Optimised to punish you for your earthly sins, the shower will either run so cold that your desire to sleep will disappear or indeed, scald you with hot water that stings as if you’re Beelzebub and the water is holy. As an added kicker, perhaps at the request of Greta Thunberg, the water temperature will vary between these two extremes at random even if you don’t tinker with the settings, just to remind you that climate change is real and you will be a victim of it. The bathroom experience is not all negative though, dear reader, for the sound isolation is so poor that you can hear other fellow guests talking loud and clear, so perhaps you might be able to make back that $600 per night if you’re lucky enough to stumble across corporate espionage or pick up an insider trading tip.

With life energy and hope drained of you as if you’re a balloon to be deflated, your tired head finally hits the pillow, only to of course, be woken up at 6 in the morning by the garbage truck loudly picking up the trash with a decibel level that even a Boeing-737 taking off would envy. This process, of course, takes 30 minutes to dispel any hope of you being able to fall back asleep. At this stage you’re actually surprised that the management of Kimpton Armory doesn’t think of something a little extra by bursting through your door with guard dogs, handcuffing you to the bed and cosplaying Abu Ghraib guards, but they’re probably brainstorming next year’s improvements at a corporate retreat.

Deciding to cut your losses, you check out early and the lady at the reception naturally doesn’t ask you how your stay was, since she knows you were in room 314 and is thus acutely aware your stay was about as pleasurable as a colonoscopy performed with a 1950s Hollywood camera. Even if you take a curious pleasure in seeing how much pain you can have inflicted upon you for $600 per night while your favourite BDSM club is closed for refurbishment, I can assure you that there are better alternatives in Montana - paying $100 to enter a rodeo and having a bull gore you might be more pleasant and leave you with $500 for medical bills. I can confidently say that the only way that you will have a 5* experience at the Kimpton Armory is if you have just completed a stellar trip as an Uber driver and are dropping off an...

Stayed for two nights. The overall experience for me was just “meh”.||The pros: |Location can’t be beat. I didn’t have a car and everywhere I wanted to go was within walking |Front desk staff was amazing. I arrived at 11:30am, fully expecting to have my bags held until check-in time later in the day, but was not only given my room key but was also upgraded. I was also provided a great list of recommendations for dining and was also able to arrange for late check out. |The room, tho small was very clean and the mini bar was well-stocked.|The Sky Shed bar had a great drink selection with fun, interesting cocktails, and the app I had was tasty as well. ||The Cons:|The PoolI was so excited for the rooftop pool, but was so underwhelmed when I saw it. First the pool itself is tiny and there is only poolside seating for, I’d say, less than 15 people. Not exactly ideal on a sunny, 82 degree summer day. The upholstery on the pool deck furniture was stained and dirty. The glass surrounding the pool was streaked and dirty, which took away from the beautiful Mountain View. Just seemed poorly maintained. ||The Room my biggest issue with the room was that there was absolutely no place to hang clothes. No closest, no garment rack, not even a few hangers that I could’ve used to hang over a door. There are four large wooden hooks in the bathroom but without hangers to keep things flat, they wouldn’t have been much help, plus after the first day there were wet towels and swimsuits on them. There’s a rather awkward nook in the room with a standing lamp in there as well as a chair. Seems this would have been much better used as a closet, or at least a garment rack. Also, found out the hard way ( after I’d stepped out of the shower and was looking to get dressed) that there is no steamer or iron in the room. I know you can call the desk and they can provide you with one, but I did not feel like getting dressed (and there was no robe) just to let someone in the door, so I ended up hanging my clothes over the bathroom hooks and running a hot shower for a few minutes to steam out the wrinkles. Not ideal, but it worked. Found this odd, as I don’t recall ever staying in a hotel in the the states where this has not been a standard, in-room amenity. ||the guest amenity fee The hotel website boasts a “daily mixology class at SkyShed”, which to me, implies every day. Was super disappointed to learn that it was not, in fact, daily, and was not being offered on either of the days that I would be staying there. Was rather irritated, as I had planned one day’s activities around this. It also notes that there are Luxury Spa Slippers in room, which I was not provided. It also notes that”Complimentary, in room, bottled water” is provided, which I also did not receive. What I got were two unlabeled, reusable glass bottles -with an unsealed lid…which I can only assume was tap water. Essentially I paid $70 in amenity fees for amenities that weren’t provided or even available. ||All this being said- I absolutely cannot justify the expense for what I got. Next time I’m in town I will try the hotel...

I was very disappointed with my stay at the Kimpton Bozeman. I had a friend recommend here as he said it's one of the 'cooler and trendy' spots in Bozeman. I had a team of 8 people stay here for a work event for roughly 3 nights each, as we rented a conference room for a work meeting. In total we probably spent roughly 7k-8k between the hotel rooms/ conference room/ restaurant, etc. The hotel guest rooms were great, but the level of service we received from the event coordinators was terrible. We had a miscommunication on bringing in lunch one day, and it felt as though we were walking on egg shells the rest of the time. We apologized and said we were sorry and would pay the fine as we didn't know this was a rule. From there the service continued to decline. One person on my team purchased a Redbull at the front desk that was unopened, and when we were on a break it was taken out of the room by the staff (due to the no outside food and drink rule), even though we purchased it there. When I asked a lady who worked there about it she said she would get us an answer, and we never saw her again.

In addition, upon arriving to our conference room we went to drink the coffee provided in the room and all the cups were used and unwashed. One person on my team drank from one as she was in conversation and assumed cups would be clean. In addition, we never actually met the event coordinator in person, we just received a passive aggressive email from her, along with a note on the whiteboard telling us of what we did wrong with the food situation listed above.

What makes the situation the worse and led me to post on here is the fact that I left a voicemail for the GM. I was not seeking any reimbursement or anything, I just thought he should know that it was not a pleasant experience and they has some stuff they could work on. Though I asked him to call me back to discuss, I never heard a word from him or anyone else. All this to say, I would strongly recommend a different hotel if you have an event in Bozeman in the future. The "coolness" factor is mainly the rooftop bar which anyone can attend as it's a restaurant. It's not worth feeling uncomfortable when spending so much money on a venue. I don't recall the last customer review I've left, but this was so bad I felt the need to say...