Hampton Inn Iowa City/University Area — Hotel in Iowa City

My girlfriend and I stayed at this hotel for two days July 2nd thru July 4th…and needless to say the service was appalling, generally speaking.

We got there on the 2nd around 530 PM to check in and instead of being greeted by a real person, we were greeted by a sign that said they were away and if you need immediate assistance press 0 on the lobby phone. After waiting a few minutes - we pressed 0 on the phone…after doing that, nobody answered and we were still waiting to get checked in. Finally after 10ish minutes - a guy showed up, apologized that we had to wait and gave us our room key. However, he almost forgot to give us our Hilton Rewards benefit for staying at this hotel - he did correct it and we were on our way.

When we came back on the evening of the 4th - to our surprise, our room was not serviced at all! Trash wasn’t emptied, towels not restocked, or bed made. Totally blew my girlfriend and I away - we tried calling front desk using the room phone and it was inoperable. Finally got a hold of someone using our cell phone multiple times - the clerk came right up to change the liners and brought up a few towels so we could take a shower after a long day. She said she would work with Housekeeping and would notify the front desk of the issues to address when we check out the next day.

My girlfriend was on her way to check out and overheard the front desk clerk, Ryan and housekeeping and maintenance gossiping about another guest that experienced similar issues the same day. It was truly appalling to hear such gossip right in front of other guests. My girlfriend told front desk clerk about the issues we had and he basically said that there wasn’t anything that he could do for us. No discount on the room, no comped room, or even an apology. As she walked away he should hear them resuming the gossiping of disgruntled clients.

Overall, we stayed because of the convenience, price and based on our positive stay last time at this hotel - but after the horrid treatment and lack of hospitality the front desk displayed toward my girlfriend, I will be contacting General Manager at this property, the management at Hawkeye Hotels (who is the owner of this property) and Hilton Guest Services regarding this experience. Hopefully I hear back from from management regarding our stay and hopefully they will be interested in making a terrible experience into a positive outcome, because I’d love to update my review to reflect the hospitality that is usually shown at Hilton Hotels. Otherwise, I’ll dispute the charge and let our credit card company take care of them for us.

UPDATE

As mentioned in the previous post - if I heard from the hotel management regarding my stay, I would update this post.

I did hear from the General Manager, Adam via email the following day. He was extremely apologetic and appalled that his team dropped the ball. He did refund my stay without any issues and will be using the review originally posted as a teaching tool for his team.

After talking with Adam - it sounds like this was an isolated incident and would definitely consider staying at the Hampton Inn in...

We are Hilton Gold members and always chose Hampton Inns here possible so we have come to expect a certain standard. This place failed miserably on all counts. It is old, dark and in Ned if an update. This we ours live with but…. Greg was a new receptionist and as alone with a queue of about 5 people when we arrived at 5.15. We waited about 20 minutes to check in. He struggled with our reservation for at least another 20 minutes and stated he did not want to call his manager (clearly he was concerned about her reaction). Finally we were assigned a room but when we got there it had not been cleaned. Bed was unmade, dirty towels on the floor and all this despite a reassurance of extra cleaning because of Covid! We went back downstairs rather tired and frustrated at this point. Another long queue with only Greg working. We told him to deal with his queue first. I went and sat down but my husband stayed at the counter. When Greg got to him he was clearly agitated about what to do. He actually went and looked at the room himself and agreed it had not been cleaned from the last occupant. Eventually at my husbands insistence he got his manager. By this point my husband was asking for a complimentary room because of all the hassle ( he would have accepted any compensation for our poor experience and risk to our health). The manager came out clearly irritated at being asked to handle the situation. Instead of offering any sympathy or satisfactory resolution to “their lack of oversight” she got very annoyed at my husband, told him she was not going to give us any room that night and went “next” to deal with a new queue forming behind us. Greg was clearly embarrassed by her lack of professionalism and we were flabbergasted at her failure to handle the problem and just wanting us to go away so she didn’t have to deal with it! Luckily for us we called Hilton and they booked us into the Hilton Garden Inn downtown. This was a much nicer and newer hotel, for the same price with covered parking (it was very hot and humid). The staff there were well trained and wonderful and were equally stunned by our story but said it was run by a different management company. I implore you to book there over this disgusting place for the same money and just a mile away, there is no comparison. We have told the Iowa department of heath and the business licensing division as well as Hilton, and the Hawkeye hotels that...

I have been in Iowa City frequently due to the serious illness of a family member. I have been staying at this hotel for weeks to month long stretches since Jan 2023. Usually, I have been pleased and thankful for their "hospital rate" until my recent stay from Sept 21 to Oct 27, 2024. First, the one washer was out of use for about 3 weeks (and still is) of the stay, and as you can guess, I needed to wash my clothes. Even though I am with my son at the hospital from 8 am to 8 pm seven days a week, I tried to be understanding and went to the laundromat. Yesterday, I wanted to extend my stay for another month and was told it would be $169.00 a night for a standard 2 queen bed room...even higher than I could book online. When I questioned this, the desk clerk said she called her manager and told me that she could reduce the to hospital rate except for the hawkeye football weekends (2 weekends or 6 days) for which I would need to pay $169. per night. I told her that I may have to explore other options later but that I guessed if I couldn't find anything, I would just have to pay the higher rate. I went to my room and 15 minutes later received a call from the front desk and was told she made a mistake and her manager called and told her I would be charged $300 a night for those two weekends! As you can imagine, I asked her to cancel the extension. I was supposed to stay until the Oct 31 but checked out the next morning at which time I was told "I don"t know what happened last night but we can give the room to you at the hosiptal rate if you want to go ahead and stay." I declined because by this time I was frustrated, packed, and had already booked at Mainstay Suites in Coralville for a month. They honor the hospital rate and each room has a kitchenette, a multi washer and multi dryer laundry among lots of other amenities and they helped me take my bags to my room as well as giving me early check-in. I mention this because I know if you are like me and have a family medical emergency thay funds are tight AND you don't need someone to try to take advantage of the situation by attempting to price gouge over football weekends. I hope they do better. I won't be staying...