The Elms Hotel & Spa, a Destination by Hyatt Hotel — Hotel in Excelsior Springs

We heard many things online about the Elms Hotel and spa, so we thought we would give it a try. We booked for our anniversary weekend. Friday to Sunday. First thing when we pulled up we liked the look of the area and the older building, very cutesy. But then immediately couldn’t find anywhere to park. There were cars parked in grass next to one of the parking lots. We ended up having to park back behind the building where the employees park, there is no entrance on that side so you have to walk up the little hill to the front. The lobby is very nice. The front desk staff weren’t overly welcoming or anything. And then we started off to our room which was quite the walk, but we walked past their ballroom and pool so it was nice to see some of the hotel on the way there. When we first came in the room it was a little smaller than expected, but overall it was cute and clean. There is not a mechanical air vent in the bathroom, the central air for the room does not have a option to leave the fan on (so if you need that noise to sleep be sure to bring a fan or ask the front desk for one right away), and my biggest complaint about the room was the mattress. It was surprising comfortable…BUT it was SO loud. I couldn’t roll over in the middle of the night without waking up my husband and he is not a light sleeper.

We wanted to go hang out by the pool before the spa day. But it was busy and there wasn’t enough lounge chairs. We walked out and people reserved all chairs with towels etc. it was definitely very busy and looked fun, but we wanted to be able to sit down. There were other couple that showed up after us who we saw leave too because they couldn’t find chairs. They have another pool in the basement, it is a looped lap pool. We did end up going down there for a little while. It was a little dirty in the areas surrounding the pool so that was unfortunate.

We had a couples massage and facial reserved at the spa. You have grotto access a couple hours beforehand and it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. You go into this room that has everything. It has a dry sauna, steam sauna, some lounge chairs (again, not enough for how many people were in there), a hot tub (I think it had like oils or smelly stuff in it), a hot shower, and cold shower. It was PACKED in there. Wasn’t really the relaxing environment we were hoping for. People were really talking too much or too loud, it was really the steam, it would go off every 30 seconds it felt like and it was SO loud. Eventually we left that area and went to the waiting room area. This is where they tell you to go 5-10 minutes before your appt starts and where they come get you for your appointment. They had a water station in there and hot tea. They did have “snacks” too but we did not partake because it didn’t seem very sanitary to us. It was like big containers of trail mix or like Chex mix and they had little like paper cones to put it in. This room was much more relaxing than the grotto, I almost fell asleep in there before our appointment. Our massage therapists were awesome! They did an amazing job, and our facials were so good too! This was definitely the best part of our trip. With that said I still believe this is over priced because I’m sure they are upselling to make up cost for the grotto etc, which we could have done without.

We ordered room service for breakfast and it was super good :) the little potatoes are delicious and my husband had the rancheros and loved it.

We went to the tavern and that was nice, we really enjoyed the environment. There was live music and it was very good. We really enjoyed listening to him play. The drinks were really good too :)

For our anniversary dinner we went to the on site restaurant and were underwhelmed. Our waitress was very kind. But food took forever, and the bread app was not good or not cooked correctly. The steak my husband got was so chewy he didn’t even want it and he is not one to complain usually. I just switched my food with his because I felt bad for him. So he ate the pork with grits I...

A Mixed Bag at The Elms – Staff Shines, but “Luxury” Falls Flat I will start by saying the staff is great! Young, but they're trying their best and you can tell thats the case. FIVE stars for them!

We decided to make a weekend trip to The Elms, just a small girls trip. Upon arriving we were greeted and checked in efficiently. Received our room key and headed to our room. There is much to be desired in our "luxury hotel" room. I've stayed at nicer Hampton Inn's as far as rooms go and never paid $400/night. I know this place is on the national register of historic places (ok that's cool) but dang...that doesn't mean you can't keep the rooms nice and taken care of maintenance wise. there were holes in our walls, places where you could see the nails behind the sheetrock starting to work their way back out, the caulking jobs around the sink were so much you could tell no one ever took the time to take the old off and add the new. The rooms were small but had room enough for me and my one friend to move about fine.

I would recommend NOT going on a weekend if you can swing it, This is a popular place for weddings and it was CROWDED as heck. Long lines for all the restaurants etc. That being said, also don't let them assign you a room on the 4th floor if you are coming in for a weekend stay. Apparently the 5th floor is the "party floor" by what we heard around the building from several people and guests are up at all ungodly hours of the night and into the wee early hours of the morning, I've never had worse sleep anywhere in my life, and I take an AMBIAN to sleep. Drunks stomping around over me all night long, people in the hallways hollering to other people down the other side. Just rude. Again not very "luxury hotel" of them to allow this. If they know the 5th floor is the party floor why not assign someone to monitor the noise??

The Spa: Our services were GREAT, I had a massage and my friend got a facial! However...don't let the photos of the Grotto online fool you into thinking is it "luxury" it is disgusting and unkempt. The floor had visible dirt/mud on it, they had the lights so low it felt seedy...that's not a spa experience. A spa is light, and airy...FRESH!! This was not spa like, in the least. I spent 5 minutes on one of their broken lounge chairs with torn cushions, and felt disgusting so we left and waited two hours in the lobby for our services to begin. This experience shouldn't be included with every spa reservation...let people pay extra for it. It was shoulder to shoulder people in there and again, all those bodies, not enough places to sit people just standing around looking at you with nothing to sit on...so gross.

The Pools: The lap pool in the basement was nice, not super busy. I would think twice about sitting on any of the lounge chairs down there though, like the chairs in the Grotto, they don't look like they have ever been washed or cared for, just thrown in and forgotten about. Stains very visible even though you can clearly see they have zippers and can be removed and washed. I had to spread a few towels over them to make them feel clean enough to sit on. The outdoor pool had just been opened the day we arrived, although it was too chilly for us to want to get into it was clean and looked nice. The staff at the pool outside were great, however they must be allowed to choose their own playlists to play for guests over the speaker and I noticed enough to mention that they skip through songs THEY don't like instead of just allowing the playlist to play though which is mildly annoying...pick an appropriate play list and let it play...I don't want to be relaxing and hear 30 seconds of 4 different songs until the bar tender finds a song he/she likes again...just not professional.

Overall: It’s struggling to live up to the “luxury” it advertises. With better maintenance, more thoughtful guest experience planning, and some investment in cleanliness and professionalism, it could be a great destination. It’s just okay — and only worth it if you know exactly...

Such a disappointing experience at The Elms. My fiance and I booked a last minute trip because I had an expiring certificate to use(I’m a Hyatt Explorist). We thought this would be the perfect place to celebrate our upcoming anniversary and recent engagement. (We live in KC).

Check in was actually the best part of the stay. Leslie was super sweet and she was informative about everything the hotel had to offer. She acknowledged our anniversary at check in which was nice.

We started with dinner at Three Owls. Very disappointing experience for the price point. We waited forever for our cocktails, the waitress acknowledged it was taking a while because the bartender was new. My martini wasn’t good at all, I ended up sending it back for a glass of wine. The glass of wine came in a stemless glass, i could see stemmed glasses sitting behind the bar so Im a little confused why they wouldn’t use those considering I ordered one of the nicer Cabernets. Small issue but I really prefer to drink red wine in a stemmed glass, again- especially at the price point of the restaurant. Our dinner wasn’t great either. My fiancé had the chicken and he left dinner still hungry, the portion was very small. I had a salad and it really was just meh.

The rooms were fine and comfortable, but lacking attention to detail. Hair left in the shower, ripped up towels in the bathroom, ripped up shower curtain (photos included).

The Spa- we were interested in the Salt infrared sauna service. For some reason this service wasn’t bookable on the website. I emailed the spa 3 days out and never received a response. I called them twice, no answer. By the time we checked in Monday night they were closed, i had to physically walk down there to book the service Tuesday morning. We arrived and they walked us to the service- we quickly realized after it started that the girl at the front desk booked us for the wrong service. This was just the salt therapy room, and it was cool with blankets. We wanted the warm sauna experience. There was also a bottle of essential oils advertised as part of the service, ours was completely empty.

Upon checkout at the spa the girl let us know there was a 21% service charge added to our bill. I questioned this as we did not have a service. She was very snarky and pointed to a sign on the desk that mentioned the service charge- the sign was small and the spa is so dimly lit that it was easily missed. Also, i booked the service directly with her an hour prior and she never mentioned it. Listen, I completely understand a service charge for an actual service- massage, facial, nails, etc. But we did not have that- someone literally walked us to the salt room and we sat there by ourselves for an hour!!!! On principal alone this is insane. The whole interaction wiped away any relaxation we had just achieved because we left very annoyed.

Other things to note- cleanliness overall of the hotel- there were room service trays and glasses outside multiple rooms on our floor, they were there when we checked in and the same ones there the same day we checked out. We saw multiple housekeepers during our stay, why was no one picking these up??

Also we requested late checkout at check in and that was honored due to Hyatt status, however our keys were not working when we returned from the spa which added more frustration.

Overall, just a really disappointing experience and serious lack of attention to detail. Even with acknowledgment of our anniversary at check in- nothing was done to celebrate it during our stay. Go somewhere else for your special...