Hampton Inn Dry Ridge — Hotel in Dry Ridge

There is a manager named Sherri who was terrible to my parents and my family. There was a mistake made with our reservation, and we had to adjust ourselves and the hotel was unwilling to help accommodate us. We booked 2 rooms, both with 2 queen beds from calling the number on the Hampton website. We had requested joined rooms, as we were having 8 people and wanted to be close but unfortunately that couldn't be guaranteed. We were guaranteed though, that we would all be on the same floor.

We arrived at this Hampton at about 8pm. We asked for our room keys, and the desk clerk told us that only one of our rooms was ready at the time and the other still had about 20 minutes until it was ready. This struck very odd to me because check out at this Hampton is at noon. It was 8 in the evening and it still wasn't ready? We shrugged it off and got our room key for our room that was ready. It was on the second floor. Our room that was not ready was on the fourth floor.

It was just another odd thing because we were guaranteed rooms on the same floor. But we shrugged it off and decided we would wait in our room that was ready. So we go up to our room.

We open the door to our second floor room only to discover that there was only one king bed, not two queens as we had booked. The room was very small and the bed took up about 80% of the space and there was only one small sitting chair tucked in the corner. We immediately went down to the front desk and alert the clerk and bring up our reservation confirmation number.

He looks it up and says that we have 2 rooms, both with one single king bed. That was not what we called and reserved, and we couldn't have our group of people fit in those rooms. He had no idea what to do. It was his third day there, and he apologized. He was kind, and was trying his best to help us and we were being understanding. He radios the manager, Sherri. She said she would be right there.

At this point, the lobby was busy with people, and it was very clear this hotel was packed. The clerk was very overwhelmed and pacing, saying over and over again "They always leave me in times like this."

After about ten more minutes, Sherri appears and asks what the issue is. He tells her what has happened, and my parents do as well and offer to show the confirmation number once again. She looks at my father's phone, and at the computer a few times back and forth. She seemed confused as well.

She then turns very accusatory and she says, "Well it looks like YOU booked from a third party, and the room reserved was a king from that third party." She claimed that how we had booked it was wrong and the mistake was our fault as well. If that mistake was true, we would have dropped it right there. My dad, though, called the hotel and booked it over the phone. He had gotten the number from the hampton/hilton website and not a third party. We told her that and she kind of shrugs. "Most people don't realize that they are booking from a third party and select the wrong room." We tell her that we booked over the phone and spoke to a person, and a person booked the room for us. She shook her head no and told us that it was a third party.

My parents are very compassionate people so they were soaking this all in and being way more kind and understanding than if I had booked the hotel.

My father explained he had book over the phone and she just shook her head while he spoke. She told us they could wheel up a portable single bed to the room on the second floor and the room on the fourth floor had a hide-a-bed in the sofa. My parents said that would work for the fourth floor, but that we still would have someone sleeping on the floor in the second floor room. She said they had no vacancies and that there was nothing she could do. My mom was getting upset and she said we could make it work, but she was turning red and trying to stay positive. It was just sad to watch a hard manager bully my parents into staying in the room after a mistake was made, and not really making an effort to do anything. Not going back, I...

My husband and I stayed from Friday night until Sunday morning in May 2023. Some close family had come together to gift us with a hotel room and tickets to the Ark Encounter as our Anniversary gift. We arrived Friday close to 8 pm exhausted after spending 6 hours traveling (1 hour of that stuck in 3 traffic jams from Daytona through Cincinnati).

We approached the counter and there was only one Desk Associate and unfortunately, she was on the phone. Under normal circumstances I would not care that the Associate was on the phone, she was helping a customer. The problem I had was the desk associate never acknowledged us by making eye contact, a nod of the head, or just holding up a finger with the understanding "Just a moment, please". Instead, the Associate turned her back to us several times. She focused on her computer or the wall to her right.

After waiting close to half an hour and when two more groups of guests arrived another Desk Associate showed up. *Note: neither Associate wore name tags. This Associate came around the counter and after booting her computer up was super friendly. She checked us in and then she asked for the card that was used to book the room online. I explained our situation and she was very understanding. I even offered to connect her with the person who most likely booked the room. She waved me off and told my husband and me to enjoy our time at the Ark.

We did have our encounter with the woman who oversees the breakfast bar and she truly is friendly, warm-hearted, and hard-working. When we went for our breakfast she was bouncing around making sure everyone had everything they needed and was working as quickly as possible to make sure that the breakfast items were replenished in a timely manner. My only complaint was not enough seating. My husband and I had to sit apart from each other until a table could open up.

The room was nothing spectacular, it serviced our needs for the days we were there. It was clean and for the most part, stocked. My only qualm was not having bathroom floormats to stand on when exiting the shower. When my husband and I were leaving for the Ark on Saturday I happened to have seen three housekeeping carts near our room and was able to get a new box of Kleenex since ours emptied out the night before. The housekeeper was super friendly in accommodating the request despite the interruption of cleaning the room next to ours.

During our stay, we were exposed to the construction mess and noise. The elevators and lobby around the elevator were messy from the construction but it cannot be helped despite the best efforts of the hotel staff to keep it clean. As for the noise, our room was, unfortunately, under the rooms on the third floor being remodeled. The noise was loud in our room and, again, a side effect of the construction. It could not be helped.

Overall, I feel that the positive experience we had outweighed the negative experiences. We hope to make another trip down to the Ark Encounter again and we definitely know where we will be booking...

I waited a few days before I posted this review. We stayed at this hotel specifically for the Ark Encounter. It was an experience gone bad, however, management showed how much they wanted customer satisfaction. When we checked in on a Friday, there had been a water leak(caused by a frozen water pipe)on the Tuesday before. It started on the 4th floor and went all the way down to 1st, mainly in the middle of the building. We had booked a King Suite and ended up with a Double Queen room. We had also booked with a third party for what would seem to be a great deal. There was really nothing staff could do to make it any better at that point. We were informed that because we booked third party, no rate reduction could take place. We were on third floor, along with some unruly children that ran up and down the hallway until about 10:30. The bed was comfy and the room clean. We enjoyed the complimentary breakfast. Waffles were good. Eggs were hot and fresh. We asked about an upgrade and were given a standard King Room and moved our personal items to the new room. We left for the Ark around 8:50. This was a 2 night stay and upon our arrival back from the Ark, there was a sweet 16 birthday party taking up the entire common area. Wow! When we checked out I asked about the party and specifically if the hotel rented out the common area for such events. The person behind the desk said that they didn’t know what went on last night. Well who would know? I did get a pleasant smile.....2 days later I got an unexpected charge of $50.00 added to my credit card. I called my credit card company immediately and explained that at this point, this was an unauthorized charge. I got some good advice from them and decided to call the Hampton Inn at Dry Ridge. I was informed that this was a charge for incidentals. I asked why it was being charged 2 days after our stay and was told that it was probably because of the weekend. I took the survey that the Hotel emailed me and believe it or not, got a response from the Assistant Manager. She saw my survey and said that Hampton Inn did not come through with making us feel like were at home, which is the goal of every Hampton Inn and would like to refund a nights stay. Now that’s going above and beyond! Would we stay there again? Probably, but I think I’ll call and ask if there has been a water leak recently! This particular stay could never be 5 stars, even if it was free. Circumstances were totally out of control. It’s worthy of 3 stars though. I can’t rank customer service separately but they get 4 stars for effort...