The Iron Horse Hotel — Hotel in Milwaukee

UPDATED REVIEW in 2024: 1/5 stars. Stayed here two years later and had a very different experience than the first (original review at bottom).

PSA: Buckle in, this is a long review. My husband and I got married at the Ivy House two years ago (4.16.22). We stayed at the Iron Horse after, as well as a lot of our guests after doing a block with them. Although it was on the pricier end, we felt that the location and atmosphere was worth it. And it was, two years ago. Now, I would not recommend any aspect of this hotel other than the room itself.

My husband booked a room for our anniversary which fell on a Tuesday night. He requested the same room we stayed in when we got married & it was available. Yay! There was no acknowledgement of our anniversary on the phone, or even when we arrived. No gift, no coupon, not even a "happy anniversary" from the person working the front desk. Disappointing start.

We had drinks and dinner in the bar. Online it shows tacos & tequila on Tuesdays, and there is a happy hour menu. We were there during happy hour and it was a Tuesday. Neither of these things were mentioned to us, and when I asked our server, she had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. She said happy hour is for the outdoor restaurant. Weird. I asked the front desk person and he said both should be available. The bartender cleared this up for us (kind of). I was under the assumption that the tacos and tequila menu was a good deal. The bartender suggested a tequila to us so we got two margaritas. They were in the smallest glasses and we found out when we got the bill that they were $17 a piece. What? We would not have ordered those... the bill was incorrect and confusing but they took some money off to make up for it. At least the cheese curds were good!

Our room was gorgeous and clean. Room cleaning services walked right into our room without knocking at 7am so that was annoying. Other than that, no complaints about the room itself.

The absolute worst part of this stay was the room service breakfast we ordered. It was appalling. I cannot believe they served us that food. We ordered two mimosas, biscuit and gravy, a side of bacon, and chicken and waffles. The total was $120 with tip (ouch). We were really hungry and looking forward to this since it took over an hour.

The biscuit and gravy included one biscuit (if you can call it that) which was burnt. There was minimal gravy and then a bunch of scrambled eggs thrown on top. The chicken and waffles came with an over easy egg. This was really confusing. It's not mentioned on the menu, and I was not asked how I'd like the egg to be cooked. My husband hates runny eggs. Not only was this random egg splattered all over his meal, IT WASN'T FULLY COOKED. Actual egg yolk membrane was on this plate. The bacon was the only edible portion of this meal. The mimosas were good, but not for $16 a piece. I called the front desk to talk about how disgusting the food was. He credited us half of the meal. We essentially paid $60 for two mimosas and bacon. I guess giving your guests salmonella isn't worth a full refund.

We will not be spending future anniversaries at the Iron Horse. This really bums me out because we loved the idea of that tradition. I'm not sure what is going on over there, but it's not worth your money. My husband and I will check out the Pfister next year and pretend that's where we stayed after our wedding.

FIRST REVIEW in 2022: 4/5 stars. My husband and I got married on April 16, 2022 at The Ivy House in Walker’s Point. We needed a hotel for the weekend, for ourselves and guests. The Iron Horse was nearby our venue and exactly what we were looking for to fit the overall theme of our wedding. Our experience with them started out a bit rocky, but turned out to be amazing! The Iron Horse definitely lives up to the hype! The beauty of this hotel is obvious the second you step inside the lobby. The rooms are gorgeous, especially our suite with the incredible view! We enjoyed hanging out at the bar. Thank you for a lovely...

After checking in we immediately discovered that not a single light in the room would turn on. I notified the front desk and a maintenance worker did come to the room promptly to investigate. However, he was initially stumped and unable to immediately correct the issue. He also noticed that the AC was not working as well. We stood around in the room while he was working, kind of uncomfortably, unsure what to do. Was starting to look like the issues wouldn't be fixed and we doubted the hotel had other available rooms. We had plans elsewhere before the evening festivities but had wanted to shower and get ready before we left at the hotel. However, we didn't wish to use the bathroom in the dark. We ultimately canceled our plans and settled on leaving the room as we were and had a light lunch downstairs at the bar. The light issue was eventually fixed. Was told it had something to do with the thermostat. We were very disappointed we had to change our plans because we were placed in a room with no source of light other than the windows like the stone ages. The thing that really upset me was then when I went to check out the next morning, I discovered that somehow somebody else's $90 food and beverage bill had been applied to our room. I knew this certainly was not from us. I voiced my displeasure to the desk clerk. He was unable to tell me what it was exactly for and how it was applied to my room. Said there was nothing he could do about it at the moment and that he would file a claim or something like that and I would hear from the hotel later that day after it was investigated. So, I reluctantly paid and left. I also found it strange that the desk clerk didn't provide me copy of the receipt. I later was able to obtain one when I called asking for it. Never heard back so I called back Sunday evening. Was fed the same excuse that it is being investigated and that I will receive a call back. Monday came, I was yet to get called back so I called again. Was told the same thing, still being investigated. Tuesday, afternoon still didn't hear anything so I called back more irritated. Your staff tried to push me off again but I wasn't having it this time. I demanded to speak to the General Manager. I was transferred to the Food and Beverage manager or something like that. He acted quickly and I was then refunded the $90 back quickly. Which I was thankful for. I still am curious as to how this even happened. Did another patron mistakenly give my room number? Did another guest purposefully try to stick somebody else with their bill? Did a hotel employee make a simple mistake? I have never had this happen to me anywhere else. Nor have I ever heard of this happening before to anyone anywhere. The rest of these are minor but they just add on to the foul taste I have in my mouth about the room not having any lights and the battle I went through over somebody else's food and beverage bill. As apart of the Casino Royale event it was my understanding there was supposed to be some sort of food or "walking hors d'oeuvres" provided. I'm not sure if they were ever put out. I never saw it. If they were it was only for a short period of time or they were so few that they were immediately eaten and gone. Maybe that was only for the VIP guests but the hotel staff informed me it would be there and as a result we were disapointed further. There was supposed to be a welcome glass of champagne. Never received or saw it. I understand this was a party and it was New Years's Eve and space is limited. However, I don't believe the space available was used properly and there was too few casino games available for the event for the number of people in attendance. The gaming tables were packed and we hardly had a chance to partake in any of the games. Which was very disappointing. This was the primary reason we had decided to spend New Year's Eve at the Iron...

Rooms were cute, and the vibe of the hotel was nice, but staff was honestly not great. The only good staff members were the waitress who took care of our family for breakfast, and then the old guy who's a bartender. First off, they don't have food service available?? Only a bar? The restaurant inside the hotel seems like it's breakfast only? And you have to pay for that separately. It's not apart of your reservation, which is wild considering the rooms are kinda expensive. We ordered pizza that they had a menu for that delivered until pretty late at night which was nice, but then when we ate in the lobby and played pool, there was no trash cans to throw out our trash(which was a small pizza box and a small brown bag). When I asked the front desk if they had a trash I could use, she gave me a real dirty look and said "well... No... I GUESS I can throw it out for you" and rolled her eyes. I said at that point "I'll take it to my room since it's an inconvenience" and had to bring our trash all the way up to our room. Even then, we still didn't have a normal sized garbage can to throw it out in? Housekeeping seems very on top of it, but too much on top of it. They're very loud when announcing themselves, and will literally come and clean your room at 11:01 when check out is at 11:00am. I had some random person stop me(thinking I worked there) and asked me if she could go back in her room to get something even tho check out was 11:00... It was only 11:03. If you need a new key, they have to deactivate every single person's key just to get a new one. My family had accidentally taken my purse with my room key in it, and I got locked out, so they told me they had to deactivate EVERY person's card I was staying with, so we ended up only having 1 key card that actually worked, because it seemed like we were such an inconvenience to the front desk when we needed a new one that we didn't even want to get 2 more for the other 2, people in our room. Along with all of that, we were getting ready for a wedding and the AC wasn't working. Multiple people tried to call the front desk and got NO answer what so ever, so we had to go all the way down to the lobby from the 6th floor to ask if they could fix it. The thermostat was set for 45⁰ the night before, and at midnight with the windows closed and the room was still 75⁰ and rising. The following morning, we needed to open the windows in order to idk... SEE what we were doing? The rooms don't have the best light fixtures, and they're all dim yellow lights, so of course we needed the windows open. The room got up to 82⁰ in there with 10 people getting their hair and make up done, and all the front desk AND maintenance had to say was "that's not my problem, you're on the corner of the floor with the windows open, so yea the AC won't work". Yet... One of my family members rooms who's on the corner of the floor had windows open and their room was 68⁰ and the AC was working????? The maintenance guy came into the broken AC room and said "it's blowing 62⁰, I don't know what to tell you" for the temperature to get up to 80⁰ after he had left. When asking if there was anything they could do, they FINALLY offered to bring up some fans. It was almost like I had to cut my arm off and offer it as a sacrifice to get those fans brought up to the brides room. When they brought them up, they were old and rickety fans that didn't do anything about the heat. We had them pointing the air out of the room with the hotel door open just to TRY to cool it off, but it never dropped below 80⁰(did I mention the thermostat was set for 45⁰??????). on top of ALLLLL of that, they have valet parking that is EXTREMELY expensive. And the valet boys didn't really do anything but sit on their phones anyways, so was it really valet service? There was 1 singular older valet boy that was very helpful, and we gave him a cash tip...