DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Lawrence — Hotel in Lawrence

This property could be very nice with a complete change in management. All of the things I will address in this review would've never happened if this hotel had an effective management team.

I was staying at this hotel out of convenience as I was attending an event being held there. The event required a pre-purchased ticket, so the hotel obviously knew the number of people to expect. However, a good deal of people were forced to stand for the event because the hotel did not bring out enough chairs.

The hotel knew the crowd coming for this event but the management did not staff the hotel properly. In the hotel restaurant, there were one bartender and two servers. This was clearly inadequate. Myself and two friends attempted to eat before our two pm event. We had a bit over one hour. There were only two other tables sat in the restaurant and he made it clear we'd be pushing it to be finished on an hour. This was rather surprising to us. We ordered nachos instead. They were nothing special.

After the event, I sat in the lobby to do some work. I witnessed the chaos that was the restaurant at this time. They ran out of clean glasses and were serving drinks in plastic cups. Food was taking more than an hour. This entire time not one manager came to assist.

The hot tub in the hotel wasn't working. Apparently, it hasn't worked for a week was the rumor I heard.

The hotel rooms themselves are ok. Mine was very musty smelling and the sheets and pillows almost felt damp from it.

The room looked nice but very little space. If one was to use the sofa bed there would be literally no one to walk. There becomes a point when you have to decide enough is enough with furniture and the rooms were over filled with furniture.

At the breakfast buffet, the person who was making omlets was on break for 30 minutes. If breakfast is only four hours, why would management allow him or her to take thirty minute break without someone to fill in for him?

Then to top everything off, my car was greatly damaged on their property. I parked my car on Sunday at noon and was not back to my car until 11 on Monday. Clearly someone hit my car turning in, and then out, of the spot next to me. I spoke to the general manager who with absolutely no sympathy or empathy immediately went on the defensive telling me it's not his fault and that his property takes no responsibility. It was clear after this intersection with the general manager why all these other problems are present at this hotel property.

I would never recommend this hotel...

Not returning. Ever. Was here for a family member’s wedding, who reserved two of their meeting rooms and multiple hotel rooms were being occupied by friends and family, including me. The two employees at the fromt desk in the morning are extremely rude, and have the urgency of a sloth. My sister went to the fromt desk to request 15 towels for the wedding party to shower and get ready, which was a previously agreed upon accomodation. The woman at the desk demanded to know why she needed so many towels, and then took an extreme amount of time getting the towels to the group. The same happened with the fold out couches. (Aain, previously arranged) I arrived early and needed to check in so I could change for the wedding pictures, also taking place on property. The front desk guy litterally LAUGHED at me and said nothing is promised before 4:00, which is check in time. Well, pictures are at 2:00. (What hotel won’t let you check in until 4:00!?) I tried to explain the situation, but he just shrugged, and tried to hold back more laughter. The room was a little musty, and the bed was like a comfortable hammock. The sheets were damp. The flooring around the pool area is dangerously slick; there should be different flooring in that area that is not so smooth. There are signs everywhere in the parking lot alerting you to park at your own risk, making it very clear that management is not responsible for damages or lost possessions. This is stupid from a security standpoint, as it is an invitation for people to target the parking lot. Try using your brains and spend the money on fake cameras or signs that indicate the property is monitored, instead of a sign that tells thieves they have a chance. We observed someone casing automobiles, and notified the front desk, who said they would ‘call someone’. In the morning I went down for coffee, and there was only one container, and it was empty. I went into the ‘complimentary’ drink area and a sign indicated that a hot coffee in there woild be $5. We checked out and went to ihop for breakfast, because we were done playing games with the terrible high school level...

Checked into our room at 4:15 for the night. Room 402. Showerd, got ready and went out to our friends engagement party. Came back around midnight to go to bed. Our key got us into the front door but didn't get us into our room. When we went back to the front desk to enquire, Campbell informed us we were checked out of the room and moved to a different room. For some reason housekeeping packed up all of stuff I guess because the new people they checked into the same room said it was dirty. We weren't called nor made aware of this. Things were just smashed into bags, water yeti's dumped out , personal items that shouldn't have been touched moved into differnt bags, and cell phone chargers missing. All of this while Campbell made no attempt to correct the situation and somehow it was our fault. After arguing and explaining the situation and demanding to get a manager involved she contacted her. The manager comped the room by my request, and moved us to a different room after bringing out our stuff that was somehow behind the door of the front desk. Kind of feels weird someone went through our stuff and we were missing our phone chargers. It is potentially understandable things can happen but usually when someone realizes a mistake has been made they would be hospitable in the hospitality and service industry. Completely unacceptable and hopefully the employee gets some training in customer etiquette. It was nice that housekeeping stuffed our room key card envelope back into our bag as a reminder of what room they checked us into and room our stuff was in. After waking up this morning and getting ready we noticed not only were the cell phone chargers were missing so was all of my wife's makeup products and perfume. Hopefully this hotel tries to do something to correct this situation. Not sure if we should file a police report or not. This isn't like something got stole from our car. The hotel did this directly either via the new people put into our room or housekeeping wrongfully...