Kimpton Cottonwood Hotel — Hotel in Omaha

First, I'll say we stayed here a few years ago and it was wonderful. Second, I'll say I travel a lot and NEVER leave these types of reviews but this was so bad and we have yet to hear anything back from them after trying to reach out about our stay, so I have no choice to but to leave this review. Third, this was a gift to me from my husband for my birthday which was communicated to the hotel ahead of time.

A list of things that happened during our one night stay: The power went out twice, once at 11:00 pm for 45 minutes and again at 7:00 am for 45 minutes. We were notified this would happen by front desk staff at check-in due to surrounding construction. Mind you, it was one of the hottest days of the year, they knew it was going to happen, and no A/C during a power outage, but they apparently decided to take reservations anyway and not offer guests anything other than a sheet of paper at check-in telling us it would happen. We were awoken at 2:00 am by THE FIRE ALARM going off for 10-15 minutes. Blaring. For 15 minutes. At 2:00 am. The announcement over the speaker instructed us to stay in our rooms and await further instruction. No further instruction was given, nor was anything offered to guests for the disruption. They offer additional special services, and my husband decided to choose a couple to make my birthday special. He organized AND PAID FOR these ahead of time. First, a charcuterie board was supposed to be delivered poolside at 3:00 pm. No charcuterie board was delivered, so at 3:45 he went inside and inquired. The staff was annoyed and said "well we didn't know who to deliver it to, it's in the back" and then went and grabbed it and handed it to him. He had given them our name ahead of time. We had checked in. With our name. It's not complicated.

He had also ordered flowers to be delivered to the room. When he was getting the charcuterie board at the front desk, he noticed a vase of flowers sitting behind the desk and said, "I think those might be mine too?" and they said, "Are you Jon Day?"

MA'AM. Yes. Sigh

He had also ordered chocolate covered strawberries to be delivered to the room at 8:00 pm. No strawberries came, so at 8:30 he called down and inquired, they had no idea what he was talking about but they made the strawberries and brought them up to the room at about 8:45.

So three items were pre-ordered and pre-paid, none of which were delivered and none of which we would've gotten if we wouldn't have asked about them. Yes, they had our name. Yes, they confirmed times and instructions for delivery ahead of time. Again, nothing was offered as compensation for the mix-ups.

This is more of a superficial complaint but the pool was filthy. There was a brown greasy sludge covering the tile above the water line and an oily film on the water. It had clearly not been cleaned for some time. Though, it may have been cleaned later that afternoon because it was closed due to someone defecating in the pool. BUT I DIGRESS. Again, nothing offered to guests for the inconvenience. Oh, I guess we did get a text about that one, so that's cool cool

All of this to say, we are both extremely disappointed and after years of recommending The Cottonwood to out-of-town guests, neither of us would recommend it to anyone again. I was recently looking for an Omaha hotel that was rated four or five stars (occasionally celebrities' riders include these types of requests) for a guest and was happy to see Cottonwood could accommodate, but am now strongly questioning the four star rating and would be mortified if I hosted someone and they had this type of experience. Never again would I recommend or host anyone at this hotel.

EDITED TO ADD: We did hear back from them after sending them an email about our stay.

They comped the strawberries and made excuses about being understaffed. Eek. I would've removed this if they made genuine attempts to make up for the mess but...the...

My stay at the Kimpton Cottonwood Hotel was mediocre at best. First time at a Kimpton, maybe my expectations were too high after reading the other great reviews of this four star hotel. As a preface to my honest review, I have traveled a lot and stayed in many hotels…

First, I did not receive housekeeping during my stay there. Furthermore, both days the housekeeping cart was just a few doors down from the room, but still appeared to skip over my room. By the time I returned to my room each night to find housekeeping never came, it was late and I figured housekeeping would come the next day. I leave cash tips every day in the room for housekeepers… I guess they saved me money this time.

The hotel room appeared as though it had not underwent a proper housekeeping service prior to my arrival. My first night there I noticed that there were long hairs on the wall, and the prior guest had printed a message in bathroom mirror which was visible when the steam from the shower had fogged the mirror up. The soap dispensers were also running very low.

The biggest issue happened on the last night there. I was woken up to an alarm blaring in the entire hotel around 6:55AM with a loud statement through speakers in the room that an alarm had been triggered and they were working to investigate the cause, and to standby. I wasn’t sure if a fire was in progress, or what was happening. After several minutes, the alarm turns off but there are zero efforts to notify the guests that there is an all clear or this was a false alarm. Flash forward to check out and I overhear the front desk agent tell some guests in front of me that it was a test that rang through the whole hotel in error. The agent gave the guests in front of me a $50 credit due to this inconvenience; however, nothing was credited for my stay. It is inappropriate to pick and choose who does and does not receive compensation when everyone has experienced the same disruption.

Throughout my stay, there were always valet staff either inside the hotel lobby by the door or standing directly outside the entrance way; however, a majority of the stay was met by the valet staff ignoring my presence and the door was rarely opened even with my hands full of luggage.

Now maybe it’s a Kimpton thing, but just a heads up the rooms don’t have any coffee machines. Water is also $6 per bottle, but they do have a filtered water bottle filler in the gym. Also a heads up that the air conditioners in the rooms are extremely loud, bordering on disruptive to sleep.

I didn’t try any of the restaurants so I can’t speak to those. I did try two drinks at the holiday hut bar, and the drinks were good.

Overall, I’m left unsatisfied from this hotel and the Kimpton brand. For a hotel that is indeed aesthetically appealing, it is a shame that the service was extremely mediocre. I won’t...

We just returned from a four night stay at the Cottonwood to celebrate our 47th anniversary and were very disappointed. We have stayed at many 4 star hotels and this is not one of them. The public areas are beautiful but the little touches that mark a quality hotel just are not there. Our room was very small with a desk and one chair. I called down for a second chair and was given a dining chair. Our view was of the other building. We had 2 towel sets and a bath towel hanging on the rack with hand marks on it when we arrived. We were supplied with one tiny bar of soap and moisturizer for our four days. Housekeeping service must be requested daily and apparently the housekeepers are only there during a day shift. If you need towels or toilet paper outside of those hours, you're either out of luck or the front desk girls will bring them when they have time. There are no coffeemakers in the rooms. You must stand in line in the lobby for coffee which seems to run out far too frequently. The water glasses in our room were filthy. I placed the glasses on the sink hoping to have them replaced with clean ones but returned to have the same dirty glasses turned over on new coasters. The trash cans did not have liners in them and the cans themselves were not cleaned. The one bathrobe was so old and tattered I wouldn't even give it to Goodwill. The bedding consists of 2 sheets enveloped over a comforter. Unless you don't move in your sleep, you end up with that unclean comforter on you. There is no information in the room about the hotel only a sign to get information via a smartphone. We are older and not that internet savvy. We had to ask at the front desk for maps and information but the young girl working there didn't seem to be familiar with the area. The biggest disappointment was the pool. It is absolutely beautiful, but the hotel sells memberships and day passes. It wasn't too bad on weekdays but at 8am on Saturday and Sunday EVERY table and lounger was reserved with towels and bags. There were 4 people at the pool, but all chairs were saved. As others have said the big speakers come out around 1pm and play hip hop music loudly. The pool was packed with 20 somethings that were drunk and doing cannonballs into the water. There were literally no spaces to stand in the pool near the edge. Not the relaxing day at the pool that we had envisioned. The staff was mostly very young and very pleasant. The valet was excellent but $30 a day for parking is excessive. As a IHG platinum rewards member, I also was disappointed that we didn't receive any acknowledgement of our 47th anniversary. We will not be returning to the Kimpton Cottonwood Hotel or...