Omni Richmond Hotel — Hotel in Richmond

Overall, the Omni Richmond Hotel is beautiful, and in a great location within downtown Richmond, Virginia. The room I stayed in was clean and well-kept, the shower had incredible water pressure and very hot water, and the bed was very comfortable. Oh - and a nice view of the city - I could almost see the Capitol building from my room.

Here are a couple of things to be aware of:

1. The cost of parking is ridiculous. I think the hotel needs to adopt a flat-rate / come-and-go price for hotel guests. I would leave in the morning (paying $25 for the full night), return after a few hours, and then leave again in the late afternoon or early evening, it was almost another $25. It adds up if you have a lot of activities throughout the day in the city. My advice is for Omni to provide a card for hotel guests so they can come and go all throughout the day and pay one rate.

2. There is no room service, which is odd for a hotel of their size. I did not realize this when I made the reservation. I understand there are challenges and costs, but even a baseline level of food services for after-hours would be great. For example, Omni could offer 2 sandwich items, 2 cooked items (hamburger / grilled chicken), some fruit, a simple salad, chips, soda, water, etc. You don't even need to serve fries since that would require a fryer (chips are a fine substitute).

3. Restaurant hours were odd. There are not many places open (for some reason) on Sat and Sun in the surrounding area. The Starbucks closes early (like by 12 pm) and the quality is poor. That said - the patio breakfast was great, even though the wait was long (45+ minutes). You could pull in more people if you had better hours and maybe offered TV (NFL RedZone for Sunday).

As far as staff is concerned, I have to give props to Stefon (outside bellman) and Stewart (Patio restaurant waiter). They were OUTSTANDING! Stefon asked us what we wanted to eat (since the hotel restaurant did not open until 4 pm), gave us options and recommendations and then walked us a short distance to a restaurant. He said customer service is in his heart and important to him, and we appreciated him - a genuine, hardworking young man. Stewart was a gentleman and a professional and a worker. On the morning we ate at the patio restaurant - they were short-staffed with a lot of orders that caused a delayed. He was apologetic. He said he wanted us to have a great experience and to have positive memory of the hotel. He took care of us as we waited and kept everything positive. By the way, the breakfast food was great! He said he appreciated our business and wished us happy holidays. Both of these guys are great people and are the kind of employees you wish other hotels and restaurants employed.

Lastly, breakfast at the patio restaurant was excellent. I had 2 eggs, potatoes, sausage, and I had a Greek yogurt with granola and fruit and a light berry sauce. Fresh. Well-cooked. Delicious.

I recommend the Omni Hotel. Just be aware of the little things I mentioned above. It's a great hotel. Walking distance to some key sights, very close to the canal walk (Casa del Barco is not far and a nice Mexican restaurant), and other attractions. Easy to get in and get around. And like I said above... bed was great, shower was great, room...

I'm disappointed to be writing this review. We had stayed there multiple times in the past and had lovely experiences. However our most recent stay was incredibly disappointing due to the staff's poor attitude.

We had traveled and attended an all day work event and decided to stay with the Omni hotel because after such a long day we wanted to treat ourselves to a nice evening out rather than driving the additional hour and a half home.

Our neighboring hotel room had a couple that was loudly arguing and blaring music the entire night, and we finally called the front desk at 4:12 am and requested to change rooms.

This was firmly denied and they immediately said that they were instead going to send up security to remove the other couple. I let her know we did absolutely not want to do that just wanted a different room to stay in. She said that she was not going to do that. I told her we had a long ride and just wanted to get a different room so we could get some sleep, and she said no again so I got off the phone.

That at no point did the hotel ask us which room the noise was coming from, and that they immediately mentioned removing the other guests makes us think they must have been getting multiple complaints regarding the volume of the noise and already knew which room it was.

Hotel staff did knock on their door and talked briefly with them, but as soon as the staff member left the music and yelling resumed until about 5:30am.

At this point my husband and I finally got a couple hours of sleep 5:45-7:30 when we had to get up and start getting ready for the day.

We mentioned the experience to the front desk and we were completely dismissed.

After a 12 hour work day and 6 hours of driving my husband and I just wanted a few hours of sleep. We were willing to move rooms in the middle of the night for it, and our request was denied, we were given no reason for it being denied, and had to listen to further arguments from the neighboring room afterwards.

Ultimately, we spent $300 on our stay and the hotel did not care that there was a domestic situation going on in the room next to ours, or that our room was unusable as a result of the noise of the arguments.

I hate contacting the manager, but considering we were staying in an upscale hotel we decided to mention it. The manager only wanted to refund the hotel parking fee originally, and after multiple emails was willing to do $70+ the parking fee.

I let her know that it was not an adiquate response for what we experienced, and that she could keep it. The whole conversation struck me as incredibly petty, and I'm shocked that no genuine concern was expressed concerning the quality of our stay.

Our stay could have been salvaged, but due to the failure of the staff to help come up with a working solution or the general lack of concern they expressed regarding the situation, it wasn't and we're incredibly disappointed.

We had been looking forward to staying there based on our previous experiences, were disappointed with the response of the staff to...

Disappointing, would not stay here again. We got a premier room 1 king bed with a prepaid rate, total including $40 early check in charge and taxes was $300. This was the worst 4 star hotel I've ever stayed at, worse than many 3 star hotels I've experienced.

Pros

The view was nice The toiletries in the bathroom were nice, Nest brand. The bartender made excellent drinks, and service from him was fantastic.

Pro...ish?

The bar served good, albeit VERY expensive drinks. Only other time I've paid $18 for a Manhattan was in Bermuda at a MUCH nicer 4 star hotel. Also be advised you can't take pictures at the bar if the James Center is in the background (according to the police officer in the James Center, more on that below).

Cons

The room was small. The bed was uncomfortable, felt cheap. The pillows were awful, reminded me of a motel. The towels were rough, reminded me of a motel. The toilet in our bathroom ran every 4 minutes. The service (other than at the bar) was not what I expected for a 4 star hotel. When we arrived there was one guest checking in at the counter, and a pair of guests were being given tips on where to take photographs by another employee. Upon finishing this conversation that employee went behind the desk and disappeared into a back room. She popped her head out a couple times in the several minutes we waited to check in but did not check us in, despite clearly seeing us standing in line. Fine at a motel, not at a 4 star hotel. The self parking was expensive and the recommended location at the James Center was confusing to get to from the hotel. The valet parking is only slightly more expensive, had we researched more we would have gone that route. The location (James Center) was downright inhospitable. I was harassed by a police officer for taking a picture of one of the planters in the open foyer of the James Center. She charged over to me and barked "did you know you just took a picture of a bank?" I didn't realize taking a picture of a bank was illegal (spoiler, it's not). The planter I took a picture of was in front of a Wells Fargo office building, in the atrium of the James Center, which is full of seating and has the Omni restaurant/bar directly across from the Wells Fargo. The best part is the James Center website has a photo of the atrium showing FAR more of the Wells Fargo adjacent to the planter that I was trying to take a picture of (circled in photo). We did not feel comfortable in the James Center afterwards, which unfortunately is where we parked.

To wrap it up, I won't be back and I encourage you to stay somewhere else in Richmond. Stay at the Hampton Inn instead, you'll save $100, have a nicer room, and you can still go to the Omni bar if you want good service and tasty (albeit expensive) cocktails. Just don't take any pictures of the...