Hampton Inn & Suites Roanoke-Downtown — Hotel in Roanoke

We are entering the third night of our 4-night stay for our honeymoon. We are visiting from Pittsburgh and were looking for a small city for a getaway and stumbled upon Roanoke online.

I literally did "inni, minni, miney, mo" to decide between booking here or at the Hotel Roanoke, this hotel's chief competitor, because both hotels seemed to have their pros and cons. The Hotel Roanoke seemed to ooze historic charm. This property does not. This property offered corner suites with balconies. That property does not. This property is in the heart of Downtown. That property requires a bit more of a walk to get into the action of the city's core. That property offered self-parking in a surface lot. This property offered self-parking in a garage (sheltered from the weather).

Overall we have really enjoyed our stay here. We are staying in Room 939, which is a top-floor corner suite overlooking Mill Mountain and the Roanoke Star. We enjoy laying in bed and just admiring the view while watching TV (see attached photo).

I would probably give this place a 4.5/5.0, but I am rounding up because all of the staff have been pleasant/cordial.

When we first checked in I asked about how the garage parking works (i.e. if we have to take a ticket and have it validated, if we tap our room key and have in/out privileges, etc.). The front desk associate chuckled and just said "Yeah. We've been having problems with the garage. Your room key should work. If not, take a ticket, and we will put a paid sticker on it." Sure enough at 5:15 PM on a Tuesday when we were arriving there was a line to get into the garage. A security guard just raised the gate and waved everyone in, so then I was having anxiety about how to exit. THANKFULLY, the next morning when we left for our hike at McAfee Knob the room key WORKED and let us out of the garage. Otherwise the entry was still not working as of the time of this review, and we had to keep grabbing a ticket. Minor inconvenience. This is not the fault of the hotel but rather the fault of the city's parking authority I would presume.

Breakfast has exceeded expectations! During COVID we got so used to breakfast being a brown paper bag with a banana and apple inside at other hotels that it became depressing. Now? This property has GREAT breakfast! Waffles! Yogurt. Fruit. Muffins. A heated catering dish that usually has omelettes, sausage links, and potatoes. Juices. Coffees. Cereals. On our first morning the food was ample, and the woman was working hard to keep everyone fed! On the second morning we came down and saw the omelettes were gone. We were sad. Five minutes later a woman came rushing out with more Western omelettes, and we all rushed over like zombies! Haha! They were worth the brief wait, and the woman was working very hard to make sure everything was being replenished.

While we were disappointed that what we thought was probably one of the fanciest rooms in the hotel does not have a bathtub, the shower is more than adequate. It had an adjustable showerhead with different water volumes. Hot water was a bit of an issue. We had to wait about five minutes for water that I would say is warm---not not hot---but the trade-off with the pulsating/massaging feature of the showerhead was fine.

I was asked upon check-in if I wanted housekeeping or not. I declined to try to save the hotel a bit of time and resources since we usually clean up after ourselves anyways once daily. As such I can't rate housekeeping. The room itself was very clean.

One thing I will say is that this hotel should consider tying weights around the legs of its balcony chairs (at least for Room 939). It was windy the other day, and I heard a loud noise. I went to the balcony to see that a gust of wind had blown two patio chairs around the bend of the corner balcony and against the railing! This could have definitely hurt someone below on the sidewalk if another gust of wind had flung them over the railing. I managed to secure them somewhat better by pinning them between the bistro table and...

Yikes! We typically love a Hampton Inn but this just missed the mark all the way around. We stayed for a family wedding, even switched from the Liberty Trust because we heard of the noise issues there, and maybe we should have taken our chances! ||First - check in was interesting. We were part of the wedding party, much of whom had the same last name, and were asked if it mattered which first name we were registered under. We then asked about the parking, got a very strange explanation, then after much discussion, finally understood that we had to get a small sticker to put on the ticket, and had to return each time we were leaving with a new ticket to retrieve a new sticker. ||We are Hilton Honors members so upgraded our room. It was dirty, the bathroom looked like someone had used it, the closet door was practically coming off its hinges, and all the furniture was worn. At least the room was big. ||The key cards were an absolute DISASTER. Once used on an external door or elevator they no longer worked on the room. Spent much of the three night stay going back to the front desk for additional keys. Used the app with the digital key, but due to WiFi issues it only worked half the time. Incredibly frustrating. ||Housekeeping service only comes every other day during your stay. Not a huge deal, but the trash cans are small and we took ours out to the hallway and didn’t have a bag to replace it with without calling down to the desk. ||Felt like there was something going on with air conditioning, as the hallways consistently felt like they were over 85 degrees. ||The final straw was our light going out in the bathroom. Wouldn’t have been a huge deal, but given the setup of the room with the toilet and shower in their own separate space, and that being the only light in said space, it needed to be dealt with. I called the front desk at 3pm to be told that the maintenance team member had left for the day and would have to be called back in. I noted we would be out of the room by 5pm, so not to rush. Was basically hung up on, so didn’t have high hopes. When we returned to our room after 10pm, not surprisingly, the light was still out. Called the front desk and was told someone would try to come up and replace the lightbulb. Thankfully a team member came right up. She wasn’t sure it was going to work, but was able to replace the lightbulb. Shout out to Holly!||I get that Roanoke may not be a premiere destination, but for what we paid for the three night stay, which is more than we have EVER paid to stay at a Hampton Inn, I expected at least a standard Hampton Inn experience. Sad to say, this was...

After checking into the hotel, I took a nap and woke up to a bug crawling on the comforter. I immediately jumped up out of bed to confirm that it was actually a bug and it was! I grabbed my phone to record it so I could show the staff at the front desk. After showing the staff all of our first thoughts were a "bed bug" after reviewing the video several times and matching it up to images online of bed bugs. The front desk staff immediately moved me out of the room and apologized. The video was sent to the GM Shelia that night who was staying on the property with her family. That night I could barely sleep thinking I would wake up to another bug crawling on my bed. The next morning I headed to front desk to speak with the GM to get some clarification on the situation but she was unavailable. I headed out to work hoping someone from the hotel would contact me that day but they neglected to. I returned to the hotel at 6:30pm and spoke with the front desk staff to see what was going on with the situation. As I'm speaking with the front desk staff the GM walks in with her family. The staff member quickly approaches the GM about the situation and the GM walks off and totally disregards me. I asked the staff member was the GM going to speak with me and she looked at me with complete shame and disappointment and apologized. She then called the executive of housekeeping to try to shed some light on the situation. The executive of housekeeping apologized for no one contacting me and said that she was coming in from home to speak with me. She promptly came in to speak with and I showed her the video of the bug on the bed. She continuously apologized and I applauded her for coming in from home to speak with me when the GM was clearly staying on the property and totally disregarded the situation and me. She told me that chief engineer would be calling me the next morning to let me know what was going on. Now this incident was initially reported on Friday at 11pm and now its Saturday at 7pm and we still have no clarification on whether this was a bed bug or not. So here's another sleepless night because I was booked at this hotel through my company until Sunday. The chief engineer calls me at 745am on Sunday to come down to lobby to speak with him. He's completely apologetic and says that it possibly could of been a beetle. At this point the GM still has not contacted me and the issue is not completely resolved. Bed bug or beetle, it should not be taking...