The Willows Historic Palm Springs Inn — Hotel in Palm Springs

Stay here for the peace, beautiful landscaping/grounds, and privacy of a Palm Springs experience that’s like staying at a wealthy friend’s mansion. Stay in the Rose Room for some space to move around and the best bathroom EVER. Stay in the Rock Room for a suite-like room that’s steps away from the pool and hot tub. We needed to bookend rooms around our Backroads tour and didn’t want to pay more than $1000 per night to do so at the Ritz, so we went for something completely different and were so glad we did! Our experience arriving from a long day of flights from the Midwest (30 degrees) was that of checking in to paradise! After getting buzzed inside the gate at the Willows we dumped our luggage in the room and scampered out to the pool where we were happy to sit and admire the flowers, landscaping, and mountains. Even though it was a busy Saturday, we felt like we had complete privacy. The service was great—always someone around when we had a question. We had the Rose Room for the first night – it offers beautiful antiques, space to spread out, and the best bathroom I’ve ever encountered in a hotel: Sparkly white subway tile, marble tile floors, a beautiful tub and huge shower. There were windows galore and you could open them up—perfect for fresh air. The common areas are inviting and open in a classy but laid-back breezy way. A word about the breakfast: fabulous! Instead of a tired buffet, you get a gourmet meal prepared for you in courses and eaten in the dining room with doors opening to a waterfall view. Our second evening at the Willows was spent in the Rock Room, because why wouldn’t you stay in a room that had a giant boulder jutting into the shower? Since this is in the lower level of the hotel, the bathroom is darker than the Rose room’s and the shower hardware is also a bit of a challenge to use—the huge bathtub is still available. The benefit of this room is that you have more space – like a suite, and the sofa is long enough to sleep on. Also, you are literally steps from the pool and hot tub. Sleeping was quiet and comfortable. On that first Saturday night there was some noise in the evening—you can’t avoid it on a busy night as the Rose Room is just off the lounge area, but it all stopped by 10:00. My only regret was that we had an early flight on our last day and missed that...

Overall our stay was a five-star experience.

Martinel (?) and Mia were wonderful staff, very friendly, helpful, genuine, attentive, and felt like friends to us.

We were surrounded by nature, secluded yet walking distance to the Art Musuem, restaurants, etc. There was also a beautiful short hike up the property where Albert Einstein spent a lot of time in overlooking Palm Springs.

Unfortunately, there was one issue that detracts at least 2 stars from our experience- A Hispanic-looking lady with wide build, black hair, and high pony tail with curls, who was part of the cleaning staff. Because we were communicated very different things the previous day to the day we checked out, we checked out of our room slightly later. We felt bad, but we tipped both the cleaning staff $20 and the evening crew $20. And because staff from the previous day told us that we can hang by the pool as long as we want after check out, we did so until about 2pm. When I passed by the Hispanic cleaning lady, I said "hello" to her, and she didn't respond for a minute, and instead said "goodbye" to me, which I found odd.

Later on my boyfriend went to ask for water from the staff, because they asked everyone else by the pool except for us. When he came back, he said that the Hispanic lady didn't give him water, and told him that we need to leave; that when we check out, we have to leave the entire property.

In 12 years of staying at hotels around the world, I have never experienced this. All the policies are usually that we can stay on the property and/or leave our luggage the next day until a certain time.

The Hispanic lady was so rude to us and made us feel like intruders. I was looking forward to stay again at your property, but now I feel a bad energy about the place, even though we had mostly a...

We've stayed here for the last five years in a row, with other couples, all attending the Tour de Palm Springs bike festival. The overall 'wow' factor is fading and those extra bits that justified the high price are no longer here. Examples: wine happy hour - it used to come with gourmet food bites/tapes, such as proscuitto wrapped asparagus, and warm quiche bites etc... Now basically nothing. First night was some nuts and cheese (no longer brought to you - just left on a sideboard). Second night was a flatbread pizza (also left on the sideboard). Another example: we arrived at the happy hour 10 mins early and were told the only way we could have a glass of wine now was to buy a bottle (our 3 couple group pays over $2,000/night to stay here - so $4,000 for the weekend) - this was really cheap and cheesy. We caved and bought the wine - red was essentially hot - stored in the kitchen clearly. Turn down service: nothing happens other than a 50/50 shot at getting a chocolate or cookie on your bed. Newspapers at breakfast - no longer offered. Coffee service pre-breakfast: tough to come by now - no set up to get coffee from. Snacks in rooms: getting smaller - used to have chocolate covered raisens, plus many other goodies - now a small bag of nuts and pretzels. Still no HBO or movie channel. The room we stayed in had the laundry machines across the hall. The room service team would leave the door open as they did laundry so the loud noises, beeping, and chatting / commotion all afternoon long in there makes it hard to rest in the room. While the location can't be beat, and it is a lovely building, one just senses its suffering from attempts at cost cutting rather than doubling down on being better. We'll likely look elsewhere...