Kimpton The Forum Hotel — Hotel in Charlottesville

Hotel building is great; but far from a great hotel – needs better leadership oversight.

Stayed weekend of Oct 3 through the 6th. Knowing this was parent weekend, we chose to price ourselves out of the chaos of the weekend. We elected a corner one bedroom suite.

The Good:

1.) The room was fantastic – clean, great bed, plenty of linens/towels, GREAT two zone HVAC, great shower etc etc. 2.) Room had two fridges . . wow that was great 3.) Room had in room safe - a plus 4.) Room service came every day! Not all hotel do that anymore. 5.) Hotel service people and front desk where all friendly.

The Bad:

1.) No coffee maker in the room. This is a show stopper for us. We rented one of the most expensive rooms in the hotel and upon numerous requests for one in the room (they said they can provide) they said other guests already took them. Very short sighted of the hotel. I stated this to the front desk . . 2.) The hotel said that coffee is offered in the lobby from 7am to 10am. If you want some prior or after – you are out of luck. There were a small line for the coffee and the creamer kept running out. The hotel is also not within convenient walking distance of a coffee shop. You are trapped. 3.) Valet is terrible – not managed well – no one making sure a lane is always open etc. We heard everyone complaining about it - long times to get the car etc. Be forewarned. A chaotic mess. 4.) The hotel steak house (birch and bloom) was not good. Very much over priced, pompous and poor execution. When asked if the steak was prime – the waiter merely said it was grass fed and organic. . . Did not seemed to understand the significance of my question – I did not push it. Food was COLD – sides were cold. Daughter ordered burger – which did not state it came with fries – so she ordered some. Well we had two fries. A good waiter should have caught that – or offered to fix it afterwards. The worst part though it that we made reservation many month ago – we arrived and the main portion had a great steak house ambiance – quiet and rich looking . . the host though attempted to sit us in the party room – full of people – loud as can be – triggering my tinnitus. We asked to switch our table to one of the empty tables out front. The host acted I was asking the impossible. Saying it was full etc. . . but I insisted a table for 4 is a table for 4 etc. He eventually complied. From that point on I noted the other tables near by were never occupied throughout the evening (within an hour of closing). We saw several other small groups complain of the noise in the back room and questioning why they were sitting back there. (btw we do not have small kids – all adults) 5.) I checked out of the room at 10am – apparently unlike every other hotel I have stayed at – the keys become disabled in about 15 minutes. The was a huge pain for us trying to move our luggage out of the room especially with the car valet mess and valet carts missing. 6.) Valet carts – there was not valet person when we arrived offering to take our luggage to the room. Upon leaving – other guests hoarded the valet carts – so hotel staff had no access to them – nor did the guest. Valet should always have allocated carts for them. This was painful for us – carrying 50lb plus bags across the property. Again – hotel management practices need to be reviewed. 7.) There is NO gym. Hotel charges 10 dollars per guest per day to use UVA gym. Website sounds like access is included. It is not. This is being greatly overstated.

So with all this in mind – for the price this was NOT worth it. An attempt to be 5 start but run like a 3 star.

There are lots of choices of excellent well managed 3 and 4 star hotels with easy parking and with walking access to fantastic restaurants. (and great gyms as well)

Will not consider visiting this hotel again – unless there is confirmation that it overcame its...

The valet lost the keys to my car. Turns out they left it in another person's car. That person was nice enough to return the keys the next day. I asked for my car, so I could get dinner for my family and distilled water for my CPAP machine. This was around 9:15 pm. After about 15 minutes of looking through multiple 'piles' of keys on the valet stand and on the valet wall in their office -- no keys. First thought was that someone stole the car. I asked where it was parked and walked to it. Luckily it was still there and no damage. Keys are nowhere to be found. About 10 pm, my wife remembered that we could use the cell phone to start the car, so we did. By then, the place we had ordered and paid for food from was closed. So we had to find a janky fast food place to get dinner for the family. My child and mother-in-law didn't like dinner items on the hotel room service menu. Got back, and still no keys. I waited a while for someone to tell me something, then insisted that I park the car in the front of the hotel so that if someone did steal the keys, the car would be on camera. After a long week of working 14-hour days, I really wanted to get some rest. Because of this, I couldn't. I go to bed early cause my body automatically wakes up by 5 a.m. each morning. A big inconvenience for me. Then the hotel manager the next day became my problem. Without taking the time to listen to my ordeal, offered to comp. one room "to pay for the key." It's Sunday, and the local BMW dealership is closed. I explained to her that the key for my Honda costs $600, and I doubt comping one room is going to pay for the key. So she offered to comp two rooms and look for the key. What she didn't get was that she should be comping me for the inconvenience of it all, not the key. I will not be staying here again, and I don't recommend anyone else. I recommend the GM take a look at the video from that night between 7 p.m. and 12 p.m. Check out the valet stand with keys strewn everywhere. More importantly, look at the reception the next morning when I talked to the manager the first time and the second time. I'm calm, and I don't argue. She lied about comping me for two rooms and then about comping me for 1 room and meals for both rooms. That's an integrity issue. I was charged for one room and meals for both. While it would be nice to get compensated or given a ton of points for my inconvenience, it's the lack of integrity on the manager's part that got me. Review the tapes. Check-in was on Sept. 2 in the evening around 7 p.m., and check-out was around 12 p.m. on Sept. 3.

Rooms get a 3 because the TV in one room wasnt working. It was fixed fairly quickly. The balcony door wouldnt look, so repairman had to force it to lock. and the big black lights in both rooms were not working. Told it was a known issue. Didnt need much light. Wasnt planning to entertain:).

Service score is for the managers lack of integrity and not keeping her word. She needs to understand the lifetime value of a customer. If she kept her word this would have been a 5 star review. I'd like the General...

Let me start by saying this hotel is very beautiful and the arboretum behind is gorgeous. The rooms are very spacious. The staff I will say are friendly but that’s where it pretty much ends. We came for Valentine’s Day weekend (checking in Friday and checking out Monday) and quickly started to notice that they are severely understaffed. From the moment we had to check in, to anytime we had a question for concierge to waiting at the two restaurants at the hotel to place food orders! The first morning we couldn’t tell if we had to seat ourselves or be seated. We saw a young man walking around , stared at us many times , went and handled coffee, etc to tables but anytime we signaled for him, he walked away or pretended like he didn’t see us. After about 10-15 minutes of standing, we just sat ourselves, to then being waitered by another man in a suit who quickly gave us a bit of attitude for seating ourselves. The other man “shadowed” him.

That evening, the sports bar informed me that their kitchen closed at 10. I headed there from the hotel lobby bar to place an order of fries as the lobby bar informed me they couldn’t do that. Walked into the sport bar, multiple waiters would walk through the double door, see me and immediately walked back into the kitchen. There was no bartender, and the food offered by the lobby bar wasn’t really anything I was in the mood for. So after waiting 15 minutes, I eventually left. We spoke to the hotel about this the following morning, they were extremely apologetic - offered us credit .

The next day, we headed out for predominately the whole day and only experienced one interaction with a bartender, who went above his way to get us a bottle of wine that apparently can only be offered to purchase at the hotel lobby bar but he was willing to make an exception and got it for us. While we are very thankful for that, I’ve been to many hotels and the wine list regardless of which spot in the hotel you are in, will always allow you to have it. So we found that a bit odd.

The next morning, our last morning, we went down to breakfast around 8:15/8:30 am. It’s a Monday! They only had one person to seat and place orders for the many people that were walking in for breakfast. We were seated immediately but then waited about 10 minutes, nobody came to place an order but our waters were refilled by the busser a couple of times but was unable to place any food or beverage order for us. We noticed that after 10 minutes, there were still about 3-4 tables in front of us that had not been attended and to be honest, we were running out of patience since we still needed to pack, etc. so we walked out.

Check out was a breeze but did have to wait a bit for our vehicle via valet since that’s the only...