Metropolis Resort & Conference Center — Hotel in Eau Claire

If it were possible to leave negative stars, I would. We booked a block of rooms at the Metropolis for our wedding next door at The Florian Gardens and our experience with the Metropolis was a nightmare from the beginning. When we initially called to reserve a block of rooms, I called twice and left messages for Lauren, the "wedding coordinator" and did not hear back for three days. I then had my husband call, and he was finally able to set up the reservation. He asked that the contract be emailed to me. After two MORE days, I still had not received the contract so I had to call AGAIN to ask that it be sent to me. Long story short, it took four phone calls just to set up our block. This should have been fair warning.

A couple months later, my husband and I were trying to plan out our three-night stay at the Metropolis and decided to go online and see the hours of the waterpark, included with our stay. To our surprise, we see that the waterpark is CLOSED for the entire month of September for construction. This was never communicated to us while booking our block of rooms. In fact, we specifically discussed the waterpark while booking, because we wanted to be sure there wasn't an extra charge for our guests for using it. When we called the Metropolis to discuss this, the front-desk person was unable to find our reservation. Since quite a few parties had already (supposedly?) reserved their rooms, this was very concerning. After three more phone calls including several transfers to various different people and managers, we came to find out that WE (the bride and groom!!!) did not have a room reserved, even though we were the ones who called to make the reservation and specifically requested a room for us for Wednesday - Friday nights.

We finally got a hold of Lauren who said she would see what she could do as far as compensating us for the waterpark (the main selling point of the hotel!) being unavailable. She initially said she would give us free admission to Action City OR $10 off our rooms, to which I replied that we should really have both of those things since we had already had such a terrible experience, and we were still months away from the wedding! Finally, she agreed to $10 off everyone's rooms for each night, plus free admission to Action City. She also comp'd our room for Friday night, which was much appreciated.

This past weekend was the wedding and once again, terrible/confusing customer service from The Metropolis. First of all, when you walk in the door, the girls at the front desk stare at you like you just walked into the wrong place, instead of greeting, asking how they can help, etc. Almost ALL of our guests mentioned the unfriendly stares they received upon walking in to The Metropolis. Upon checking in, we were given free passes to the trampoline park, NOT Action City. We had about seven parties check in who were given the wrong passes, so we had to go up to the unfriendly front-desk people each time to make sure our guests got the correct passes. The passes themselves were very confusing. We assumed that we would get free admission to Action City our entire stay, since that is typically what is included with the waterpark but again, the waterpark is closed. We were given 3 hour passes, one-day passes, trampoline passes; basically everything EXCEPT free admission to Action City. It was a confusing mess, not to mention that Action City is only open until 9pm which was very inconvenient. The unfriendly service continues while checking in at Action City once we finally got the correct passes. The girl working was also clearly confused by the multiple kinds of passes, and basically seemed as though she had no idea what she was doing. Once you get into Action City, your "free" admission goes out the window since only a few games are actually free; the rest you have to pay for. The ONLY good experience we had here was at the inside go-kart track. The kid working was friendly and helpful.

If you are considering The Metropolis because of it’s location, NOT WORTH IT! This place is the...

We went to Metropolis for a family weekend Feb 12th - 14th.

Check in: We paid for early check in and our experience with Grey was great. He was very knowledgeable and friendly. He made sure we had all the information we would need without us having to ask any questions. One of the smoothest check-ins I have ever experienced.

The room: We rented the family locker room. It was a nice enough. The vent above the shower was in desperate need of a cleaning, so much so someone before us carved "clean" in the dust caked on it, and there was a pair of earrings left on the shelf, other than that the room was fairly clean. The beds were comfortable enough. The one bed was off kilter some, so on our trip to the lobby we let Grey know, he was beyond polite in explaining what happened to it and getting maintenance up there right away to take care of it. There was a bit of a problem regulating heat in the room, even with the thermostat set to 78 it would constantly drop to the low 70's, and none of the beds had blankets, but other than that it was your typical room experience. The walls seem to be thinner than in most hotels, the noise level from the hallway in the AM actually woke up my heavy sleepers, who were still overtired from being kept up by the booming music in the room next to us. Chase at the front counter was amazing in helping us deal with the neighbors who finally quieted down after 1am, and in helping us get blankets since we had none.

Chaos waterpark: Our experience here was less than stellar. The water was freezing, everywhere you looked people were covered in towels and shivering. The hot tub was a mediocre heat, but loaded with toddlers and young kids so it was hard to obtain a spot to warm up. The life guards need some upgraded equipment, they all had visibly damaged red tubes, one was missing huge chunks of foam and barley had any red left on it. The air temp was freezing as well. Our kids, who have to be drug out of other waterparks, only spent a few hours of our whole trip in the waterpark. There wasn't an adequate supply of tubes half the weekend to supply the waterslide and lazy river demand. The waterslide that didn't require tubes could use a little more water pressure, I watched numerous kids use their hands to keep them flowing down the slide.

Action city: This is where we spent the majority of the weekend. The arcade prices for the ticket games were a bit on the high side, but everything else was very affordable if you bought the all inclusive pass. Every staff member at the ticket counter was very helpful the entire weekend. The only staff that wasn't very helpful or friendly in all of Action City was one set of employees at the Dairy Queen. If you are staying the night it is definitely worth it to buy the hotel jump and play pass for everyone. Even us adults had fun jumping, racing, and everything else.

The Pub: We went to breakfast around 10 am Sat am, when the crowd had finally died down. Despite there being not being many other patrons in the restaurant, service was extremely slow. The food was priced very reasonably and came in huge portions, almost made up for the lack of service. We went back for dinner that night. We sat for around 10 minutes before someone finally asked if we had been helped yet, I'm guessing we weren't in his section as he was under the impression we had already been helped. From the moment he found out we hadn't been helped yet, he was probably one of the best waiter's we have come across in a long time. Very attentive and friendly. Vinny definitely changed our whole experience in The Pub to a positive one.

My overall biggest complaint was the temperature. Everywhere in the entire building was freezing, our warm winter getaway was anything but. Other than that, the kids had a great time and that is what...

3 years ago, my best friend and i met for the first time, and chose to stay at this hotel. And during a categorized blizzard, we still had access to lazy river, action city, the pub, AND they had waters and snacks in the fridge available to charge to the room after the stay was over. We also had excellent service from staff. We got married and chose to stay in the same hotel room for our honey moon, remembering the amazing service we had, telling everyone this is the best hotel in Eau Claire. A month in advanced we called, and asked for our original room to be reserved for our honey moon. The hotel staff argued with us every week, right up until the day of booking, that they couldnt accommodate our request unless we booked a honey moon suite. Even after explaining the sentiment of the specific room we asked for, we were given the run around, and they didnt even bother to make a note for us a newly weds. Upon our arrival, we did end up getting the room we wanted, but the lights above the bed were broken open, there were scuff marks all over the furniture, the blankets had blood stains on them, and there were no room amenities!!! I half expected at least some congratulations on our marriage as we made it crystal clear thats why we were even there, but instead were informed (AT THE MOMENT OF OUR CHECK IN AND NOT DURING THE 3 PREVIOUS CALLS WE HAD) last minute that not only would we not have access to lazy river, or action city, but also the pub wouldnt be open, so no wedding drinks or breakfast. Why didnt the hotel staff tell us this prior to us showing up knowing we wanted to book for that day??? We called for room service that evening and no one answered the phone. And when we went downstairs there was no one available at the front desk. And in the morning (November 16th of 2021) we quickly realized that the same gentleman working the front desk was the same gentleman that brought silver ware to our room, so understaffed that he had to leave the front desk, possibly missing potential hotel guests calls or standing there waiting for service. That guy was super nice and pleasant, and did all he could to accommodate us and even himself considering the circumstances (seriously we feel aweful for him, he deserves more money for working 3 jobs, desk, house keeper, etc)

Last but not least, and this is my biggest complaint. We paid your hotel $60 for a late check out the night prior, even after dealing with the disenchantment we experienced throughout the night and the following morning, and nobody so much as even wrote a note to let the house keeper know, so we were disturbed at 11am. And ended up leaving early anyways because we were so dissatisfied with the quality of our stay. We decided home was a better honey moon than your Metropolis Resort, which used to be hands down the nicest stay in Eau Claire.

If this is how you treat newly weds, who planned to bring you a party of guests this summer for our summer reception, i cannot fathom how you treat regular customers. We will never stay here again, and we most certainly will be finding a new hotel, who will gladly accommodate our needs (which were standard hotel stay expectations, not even newly married couple expectations) and our...