Lied Lodge at Arbor Day Farm — Hotel in Nebraska City

I've visited here before years ago though I was there for literally only a few hours and then had to head home (in town for a funeral and just got the room to change and head out). The building is just as beautiful as it was but now that I've stayed for an entire night, I probably will never select this place ever again. I will consider sleeping in my two seater convertible before I pay to be irritated all night by this unreasonable sound tunnel. The rooms are so-so. Paper thin walls. The building appearance would suggest to you that they'd be higher end with nice amenities and high quality fixtures. Nope. The door fits very poorly, you can see light all the way around it and if someone were to whisper out in the hallway you'd hear it all. Unfortunately you also have to slam it to get it to close and so does everyone else. So there's no quiet way to enter/exit at night because when you shut your door, all the loose doors down the hall jiggle back and forth. This, from inside the room, sounds like someone trying to open your door, so it wakes you up thinking someone's trying to "join you". The bathroom is large but the wimpy shower and creepy crusty folding bench screwed to the shower wall is unsanitary. I'm all for ADA requirements (I actually need them myself) but we like things to be able to be properly cleaned just like everyone else. Now comes the personal experience portion of the floorshow. We arrive about 9 PM and check in. There's a lot of noise in the reception area and we are told that our room is just right around the corner from the reception desk. This causes us to ask if the extreme amount of noise from the boisterous reception room crowd and the rented conference room (also very loud) would be an issue. We were assured it would not as the time for everything to be quiet was set at 10 and all would be well shortly. Mhm. This obviously did not happen. The conference room was still as loud as ever and the loudmouths in the hall just wouldn't stop well after 10. This continues in waves until after midnight. Shortly after 1, I had to personally (and unceremoniously) invite the hall dwellers to be on their way. Mind you, the staff were standing fewer than 10' from where these inconsiderate mouth breathers were yelling, impossible for this spineless do-nothing to not have heard. I called the desk to complain and he states he'd "do a hall check" as though he hadn't heard them blathering on or me yell at them. Seriously, just wear a t-shirt to work that reads "don't care - will not do anything" so we don't have unrealistic expectations. After being told how sorry he was (if he'd actually been too bothered he'd've done his job in the first place) he ended up deducting the price of the breakfast I'd pre-paid for thinking it was actually as advertised "Breakfast in Bed". Nope again. Regular old breakfast buffet in the dining area that all the loudmouthed drunks from last night can attend as well. Woohoo. We'll see if my credit card gets charged for it anyway. Food was not bad the next morning and the guy making the omelettes was very pleasant. I on the other hand hadn't slept at all and wasn't feeling that great. Best part of the experience was seeing it getting smaller in the rear view mirror. Sad. Pretty setting, pretty building, pretty day, poor management, weak staff & loud mouth inbred local bar flys pandered to by a place that traffics in pseudo-environmentalism and exudes all of the smug attitude that tends to bring with it, all the while poorly maintaining the serene experience they boast of on their website. Seriously over priced for a Motel 6 experience with some logs slapped on it. Maybe management should buck up and actually deliver on...

(Excuse any formatting issues)

My husband & I stayed at Lied Lodge & Conference Center for 3 nights (F-Su in October) in a 'One King Bed with Vaulted Ceiling and Orchard View' room. We paid $686.06 incl taxes & fees. We were assigned room #415.

ARRIVAL/CHECK-IN: We arrived around 9:15/30 PM; check-in took approximately 15 minutes.

ROOM • Amenities: Standard. We're glad the room had a mini refrigerator, but no microwave. No extra blankets or pillows & only 2 towels. • Bath: Tub/shower combo. Decent pressure; plenty of hot water. The bathroom is smaller than an average hotel. • Bed: Comfortable, but not as luxurious as were hoping for the price. The linens were rough/scratchy, the mattress pad was about 6-8 inches too small on both sides, & the pillows make a "crinkly" noise, offered little support, & were literally falling apart. See photos. • Cleanliness: Average • Decor: A bit dated, but we did like the high ceilings & wooden beams. • Heating/cooling: It was a very cold weekend, so we were glad the room warmed up quickly. • Sound: Thin walls, so we were awoken by our neighbor's shower & the doors slamming. • TV: A LOT of cutting in & out/static our entire stay. Perhaps because of the location (as there were no storms in the area)? • View: Lovely on the orchard side • WiFi: Not a strong signal & cell coverage for T-Mobile was spotty.

COVID-19 RESPONSE: I was pleased with the attention paid by the lodge staff - everyone wore masks, maintained distance in the restaurant, plexiglass partitions, & frequent sanitizing.

CUSTOMER SERVICE: Top-notch! Friendly & quick to respond to emails.

DINING: We ate at the on-site restaurant Timbers 2x. Total cost including tip for each meal*:

• Sa breakfast: $36.10 for two stacks of packages w/ bacon or sausage, one hot tea, & one soda. I'm not sure, but it appeared the restaurant was operating on a limited breakfast menu so there weren't a lot of choices. We chose to eat elsewhere for the rest of our breakfasts. • Sa dinner: $93.85 for two entrees, one cup of soup, one dessert, & one soda. No appetizers or alcohol. It was delicious(!), but in order to save $, we ate elsewhere on Sunday.

*All other meals were eaten off-site

GROUNDS: Lovely. Very inviting &, well-kept.

HOUSEKEEPING: No services provided unless specifically requested. The front desk staff does not advise guests of this, but there's a note on the mirror. It doesn't appear to be related to COVID.

OTHER ACTIVITIES:

• Hot tub/pool: Large, clean, but as expected.. very busy on Saturday. No clean towels when we arrived. It took the staff approx. 30 minutes to replenish. We returned on Sunday, & it was much quieter! • Spa: My husband & I both received massages from Cassandra Woods. I arrived at 10:45 AM for my 11:00 AM massage (we were instructed to arrive 10 minutes early or else our service would be shortened). The massage began around 11:15. The lodge definitely needs to factor in some extra cleaning time for the busy spa employees. The massage itself was very good! Cost: $95 + $17 tip per person ($224 total) for a 50 minute massage.

PARKING: Plenty of free, on-site parking

Would we recommend? For the area, yes. Would we stay again? Possibly.. if the weather was warmer/dry & a few key changes were made:

Upgrade bed linens & pillows Larger trashcans & extra towels if you're not going to offer regular housecleaning services Fix television reception issue More breakfast options

Not to mention, $228+/night is a bit pricey (compared to other, higher rated hotels) considering what was mentioned above. The view, although nice, didn't warrant paying...

Wife and I stayed for our anniversary. The lodge is beautiful on the outside, small on the inside. The room was very small, bathroom is tiny, barely any room at all and no exaust fan. The bed does not have a fitted sheet, you lay on a sheet/blanket and the mattress was mediocre. AC worked well when we used it. Nice big TV. Walls are paper thin. We heard all kinds of noises especially at night on our last night we could hear kids running around/bouncing a ball up stairs at 10pm until around 1am and then again around 5am until 8am. We didn't sleep much with that going on combined with the mattress quality. The front desk apologized, but didn't seem that concerned and didn't offer us anything. We were sure to request a late check out prior to our stay and confirmed our late check out during our stay. We were still hit with a surprise when they de-activated our keys 2 hours early. You can't get in your room or even in the building without a key. It's an inconvenience when you are trying to haul your luggage out and return a luggage cart and you are locked out. They apologized for this inconvenience too, but only offered to reactivate the keys while we were leaving which was no help at this point. Another surprise was when we got the itemized bill. Lots of surcharges for food which made our meal packages not worth it. We were better off ordering off the menu instead of adding these food packages, we easily lost over $100 over our 3 day stay. Also, so you know, Timbers doesnt let you use these packages on the more expensive items on the menu. The final hotel bill also did not match the original and it was not due to the taxes. They couldn't figure out why it was around $65 more at the end. They didn't offer a solution and we had to pay it. In summary, we came in the off season to have some peace and quiet and to save some money. I do not feel the end cost was worth the experience we had. I cannot imagine what people will be paying in just a few days when Arbor day hits and it peaks for the near same experience. If you must stay, do not get food packages and utilize the trails and paths and see everything there is to see on the outside of the lodge, that's...