My stay at the Kimpton Cottonwood Hotel was mediocre at best. First time at a Kimpton, maybe my expectations were too high after reading the other great reviews of this four star hotel. As a preface to my honest review, I have traveled a lot and stayed in many hotels…

First, I did not receive housekeeping during my stay there. Furthermore, both days the housekeeping cart was just a few doors down from the room, but still appeared to skip over my room. By the time I returned to my room each night to find housekeeping never came, it was late and I figured housekeeping would come the next day. I leave cash tips every day in the room for housekeepers… I guess they saved me money this time.

The hotel room appeared as though it had not underwent a proper housekeeping service prior to my arrival. My first night there I noticed that there were long hairs on the wall, and the prior guest had printed a message in bathroom mirror which was visible when the steam from the shower had fogged the mirror up. The soap dispensers were also running very low.

The biggest issue happened on the last night there. I was woken up to an alarm blaring in the entire hotel around 6:55AM with a loud statement through speakers in the room that an alarm had been triggered and they were working to investigate the cause, and to standby. I wasn’t sure if a fire was in progress, or what was happening. After several minutes, the alarm turns off but there are zero efforts to notify the guests that there is an all clear or this was a false alarm. Flash forward to check out and I overhear the front desk agent tell some guests in front of me that it was a test that rang through the whole hotel in error. The agent gave the guests in front of me a $50 credit due to this inconvenience; however, nothing was credited for my stay. It is inappropriate to pick and choose who does and does not receive compensation when everyone has experienced the same disruption.

Throughout my stay, there were always valet staff either inside the hotel lobby by the door or standing directly outside the entrance way; however, a majority of the stay was met by the valet staff ignoring my presence and the door was rarely opened even with my hands full of luggage.

Now maybe it’s a Kimpton thing, but just a heads up the rooms don’t have any coffee machines. Water is also $6 per bottle, but they do have a filtered water bottle filler in the gym. Also a heads up that the air conditioners in the rooms are extremely loud, bordering on disruptive to sleep.

I didn’t try any of the restaurants so I can’t speak to those. I did try two drinks at the holiday hut bar, and the drinks were good.

Overall, I’m left unsatisfied from this hotel and the Kimpton brand. For a hotel that is indeed aesthetically appealing, it is a shame that the service was extremely mediocre. I won’t be returning.