Fourwinds Lakeside Inn & Marina — Hotel in Bloomington

Let me begin by sharing that I travel a lot for work, more than 100 flights/year and many hotels so I'm writing this predicated on my extensive travel. Overall the hotel facilities and landscaping are nice. Sure there are some opportunities for improvement but overall decent. They draw quite crowd too on the weekend for the bands, which is great. Why the low review? It's hotel management (not the hotel staff). The hotel staff is great and friendly but hotel management has established a culture that drives poor customer experience. I stayed with several other adults that all had separate rooms but similar experiences. As a customer, it feels as if the hotel management has a complacent and an almost "entitlement" behavior because they have a captive audience; more specifically since you are so far from any other sort of hotel, restaurant, or services it's their way and without regard to what you want or need. Key areas are service, safety, convenience, and reservations. Let me elaborate with some actual examples:

1. SERVICE at the WindJammer restaurant is ungodly slow. We ate here twice. Both times beer/spirits took more than 15 minutes to be served. We ordered nachos (just chips, cheese, and ground beef) with approximately 2/3 of the restaurant empty. Because of the tardiness the night before for food, I timed it. It was 45+ minutes. Horrible customer experience (CX). The food selection is limited too and if you eat here for several days, it gets real old. It's a bit over-priced too (be aware). The breakfast buffet is really pricey, esp give the quality of food -- most hotels like Hampton Inn and Holiday Inn Express offer this for free with more selection and better quality.
2. NO FREE DRIP COFFEE in the morning. Every hotel I stay at -- Hampton Inn, Holiday Inn, Ramada Inn, and even some very high end resorts like Destination Deliver Resorts, all provide drip coffee free of charge as a customer positive satisfaction driver. Instead you have to wait to find a waitress in the restaurant, get charged $2+, and refills aren't free? Really? It's 2016 and a great customer satisfaction multiplier for minimal cost to the lodge. If you want coffee for free, be ready to pay about $13+ for a very simple and not "wow" appealing buffet, which many other hotels like Hampton Inn and others provide for free.
3. RESERVATION. My reservation was wrong -- wrong dates, room type, and rates. The staff at the front made notes to correct but they would have to talk to the manager (Mr Deeds) to change b/c they weren't empowered to do it. I had to circle back three times before I found the manager and then I was told in an almost "we're doing you a favor tone of voice" that he would change it because I gave enough advanced warning (3 days). Really? I booked flights 4 months in advance and am sure I wouldn't book my hotel past my flight. By the way, there was a line of irritate customers standing at the front desk too -- a softball team who's entire reservations were cancelled and other big party that had missing rooms/rates.
4. SAFETY Dead bolts on hotel rooms turn wrong way, which is critical during a fire with smoke and panic to know that turning a deadbolt to the right unlocks the door (mine was left). There was also considerable amounts of trash bags, including numerous linen/laundry bags from the hotel, limiting hallway access, which during a fire/smoke could cause tripping and delayed egress from the building.
5. SUGGESTION BOX -- If you have a suggestion box at the front desk then label it such. Also provide a pad of paper and a pen for customers to write and submit such content. And then don't leave it sitting full of comments. And the hotel staff says it gets checked infrequently (like a month plus). All of this screams to my original point that hotel management is complacent and not concerned about the customer experience. If there was more interest in making it the best customer experience then demonstrate it. Would I go back? Yes but I would want to see changes and a better...

Summary

This resort is cute and has a lot of potential and I hope the management team can step up the quality and experience for future tourism. This review is about my stay Friday and Saturday in early June 2024. Unless the resort steps up to its potential and quality, I am not sure I would return.

Pros

Located inside a state park recreation area Hiking trails near the inn (bring tick spray). Tick Warning: Check yourself and your family. Even with spray I still got one, so bring tweezers and a small first aid kit to remove the potential ticks. Views of Lake Monroe Small Private beach Paved outdoor activity/recreational area with lounge chairs, chess, corn hole, and other activities with the view of the lake/marina Rooms seemed to be in decent shape, remodeled but not newly remodeled Flat screen TV with Showtime channel Not sure, but I think the honored my reservation request for extra pillows for the room. Indoor/outdoor pool located near the restaurant and able to hear live music Pool was open late until 10pm

Cons:

WIFI did not work during my stay. Small private beach needed raking No chairs, sitting areas on private beach Not much to do inside the resort if it rains Breakfast not included (see section for additional review) Upon check-in, we had issues with the refrigerator not being cool, but maintenance came by and fixed that issue. The room included body wash/shampoo/conditioner in the shower but the body wash container was empty. Please make sure that the supplies are stocked for the room. The product quality for shampoo/conditioner was excellent, but used our own body wash instead of bother the front desk. One Restaurant on-site - expensive (see Windjammer section) $35 early check-in fee (we were about 1 1/2 hours before check-in) Parking restrictions for resort guests No life guard on duty in pool or in the private beach area No maid service during our 2-day stay Approximately $20/day taxes extra for the double parkview room No hot tub or spa that I saw in the pool area.

Breakfast

Breakfast was not included. They said continental breakfast was included but it was not, nothing there. Only choice was a $15 per person buffet for food (not many choices) that seemed low quality and poor tasting food. This should had been included with the room rate for charge only something like $7 per person, because that was not even worth the price.

This is an opportunity where the resort can step up and improve the quality and guest experience. Offer free a full hot breakfast for guests included in the room rate and step up the quality/variety of breakfast food offerings.

Windjammer Restaurant (On-site)

Beware there is only one restaurant on-site for the resort and they serve lunch/dinner. Basic offerings of pizza, burger, etc.. They also have a bar/serve alcohol. The burger I ordered was pretty good tasting, as well as the frozen alchoholic drink. Another night I had a cheese pizza, and was disappointed in taste. They offer kids meals Food is pricey. Service was well staffed and excellent. Food was delivered in a reasonable time. They had live music during my stay and apparently...

Where to begin... The hotel experienced a power outage due to a tornado warning and flood. Of course, this is outside of anyone's control - that's not what I have a problem with. The hotel had no backup power. Emergency lights were not working. Complete darkness in the hallways and the stairwells. The elevator did not work for the entire weekend.

Oh wow, no AC during summer time and a holiday weekend... Well, suppose you go drive into town for an escape? Not quite. There is only one road in/out of the park, and it's blocked by downed power lines. From 600-1530, no power, no communication, no travel.

The front door to our room had a map, albeit only for the floor we're on. Navigating through the dark hallways was based on memory. No maps in the stairwells, nor posted in public spaces that I could find.

The hotel, unannounced, offered food around lunch time of sliced bread, bottled water, some cold cuts, and berry fruits.

Customers were on their own, every man for themselves. We were lucky enough to have bought & brought our own food and ice packs. We shared with neighbors. Cars were lined up waiting on the side of the road for the in/out to be cleared. We found out the road had been cleared when we drove to the road blockage & saw with our own eyes.

Even though power was restored, communication and compensation was not. Of our 3 day stay, our room was cleaned once. "Cleaned" meaning new towels for the bathroom. Dirty dishes remained & piled up in our sink, no laundered sheets. We were told we would have a complimentary "to-go" breakfast on Monday - this was not the case. Our key cards stopped working Sunday afternoon & we needed new ones, for whatever reason

We asked for financial compensation on Sunday & were told we would get "half off" (unclear if that is half off for one night or for the entire trip) On Monday, when we got our initial statement, it was full price. I encouraged my family to make a stink about it. We walked back in & discussed the discount we'd been told we would receive, and the front desk explained, "we gave you the wrong statement by mistake". Our new statement removed the power outage day from our bill. We will keep an eye on it with our credit cards & banks.

Emergencies really show the true nature & how prepared everyone is. And the unfortunate fact is that they were not. It's frightening to imagine what might have happened had this power outage lasted longer than 1 day. We overheard from another customer that their father missed his dialisis treatment.

Communication & hospitality was severely underdeveloped. Staffing was extremely short because the in/out route was blocked.

This hotel would greatly benefit from emergency planning, leadership initiate, and customer...