Park Place Hotel and Conference Center — Hotel in Traverse City

We ended up adding an extra night unexpectedly, because of a winter storm in which we didn't want to travel on what would have been our check-out day. This extra night ended up necessitating a move to a new room, so we ended up staying in a standard 8th-floor lake-view room, and also a 9th-floor city-view "suite".

Location is walking distance to lots of dining, shopping.and coffee shops. The coffee shops are EVERYWHERE, in fact.

The staff was great. Very friendly, helpful and accommodating. The views are pretty nice from any side of the hotel -- even the non-lake city views are expansive.

The restaurant gets a solid 4 stars on its own. The menu has good variety and the food preparation and presentation were above average.

The bar on the top floor is small, but has amazing views. The bar tender did a great job. There are apps and desserts available in the bar -- they bring them up the elevator from the restaurant on the 1st floor.

The indoor pool and hot tub were very nice. We were lucky enough to use them when no other guests were around, so we had the whole space to ourselves. There's a dedicated children's pool that's shallow enough for little kids and has a water shower umbrella you can turn on. I'm sure kids would love it. We turned it on just for fun.

Both rooms looked quite old and run-down, but everything seemed to work. The lobby and restaurant have definitely gotten a lot more cosmetic attention than the two rooms in which we stayed.

Our "standard" room was small for the price IMO. There was barely room to move around the king bed, and the only places to sit were a single non-reclining easy chair and an office chair for the desk. The bathroom was microscopic, with hardly any horizontal surfaces on which to unpack our toiletries. Even the toilet -- which can usually function as a make-shift table for clothes when showering -- was unavailable: There was no toilet seat cover to put down, and there was no tank on the back.

The bathtub/shower combo had jets in it, which we did not use. The jetted tub design made for relatively high walls. Combine this with the fact that the whole tub seemed to be set around 5 or 6 inches higher than floor level, and the maneuver into and especially out of the tub was downright dangerous. I can't imagine my parents trying to get in and out of that thing. I think the only safe way in or out is to sit on the side and swing your legs over.

The "suite" was much more spacious. It also cost about twice as much as the "standard" room. It had two queen beds in it, which wasn't ideal for us, but was good enough, considering that we booked it at the last second due to weather. I think the "suite" would have enough room for a group of four that desires two queen beds -- although sitting space is again limited.

The bathroom in the suite had a bit more room in it than that of the standard room, but still lacked horizontal space to unpack. At least the toilet had both a tank on the back and a cover for the seat, so I could use it to place clothes when showering.

The suite also had a private covered balcony that overlooked the city. Since we visited in January, it was mostly just a novelty. But if we'd stayed in the summer, it would have been a great place to hang out during any down time. The private balcony has no functioning lock on the door, which should only matter if you have a bad relationship with Spider Man, because it's on the 9th floor.

My biggest gripe about the suite was the lack of outlets. There are three open outlets on the table between the two beds and a pair of them by the floor in the entry hallway -- and that's it. There are NO open outlets at the little desk in the corner. I unplugged a lamp in order to plug in the laptop I'm using right now. My phone is sitting on the floor in the hallway charging (because I refuse to sleep with a cell phone anywhere near me).

I'm almost out of characters, so I guess...

My mom and I stayed at the Park Place Hotel during the Cherry Festival this year. I'm embarrassed to admit how much we payed per night, but suffice it to say that it was during a peak time, and for three nights, our bill was more than an off-season, three-night stay on the strip in Las Vegas. I'll echo what another reviewer earlier in 2021 said, which is that this is not necessarily a bad hotel. It's just old. And you can tell that the owners are trying to do as much as they can to avoid gutting it and completely redoing it while still charging guests premium prices. In our case, the room furnishings were new (sheets, wallpaper, furniture, etc.), but the bathroom fixtures and electronics were old (probably out of the late 90s-2000s). My mom and I commented on how low the shower head was (I had to bend over pretty far just to get my head under the water), and the ceiling tiles in the bathroom had dust hanging out of them. Some of them also had water damage. The quality of the room reminded me of an older Hampton Inn that had been updated, which I normally would be fine with. But for the price we paid, that wasn't what I was expecting when I stayed here. We didn't take advantage of any of the other amenities the hotel offered (restaurant, pool, fitness center, internet) apart from a brief browse through the lobby's antique shop and using the complimentary parking. The parking lot was nice and never seemed to be full, even though we were visiting during peak season. I wish the rooftop lounge would have been open during our stay, as I would have stopped by for a drink in the evening, but I get with being short-staffed it wasn't possible at the time to have it open. The staff we interacted with were helpful, but not overly pleasant or welcoming (except for the woman running the antique shop - she had one of the most positive, welcoming personalities I've witnessed in a shop-worker). In the case of the staff member who checked us in, he seemed almost flustered just by having to speak with us, which was odd, since the front desk wasn't busy at the time. Overall, I'm giving this hotel two-stars because the room, while nowhere near being bad, was extremely underwhelming for the price. You're definitely paying for the proximity to downtown Traverse City, which, unless you're planning to spend some serious time downtown or hate dealing with parking, isn't worth it to us for the price. We probably would have been fine forking over the money for a parking meter, or parking a mile or two away from downtown and walking, for the day and a half we spent downtown. Even though we didn't use most of the amenities, I also think the hotel as a whole (lobby, elevators, decor, etc.) could use a serious update if they're planning to charge as much as they charged us...

Overall, it was a pretty good hotel. I stayed on the 6th floor, which was very clean and beautiful with a grand touch to it. I never went to the restaurant there, but I did go to the pool and my kids absolutely loved it. I have to say, even I, a 46 year old man, was excited by your pool. However, besides all of the great reviews, there was one thing off about the place. I can’t recall exactly what room number I was in, but I remember that it was the on the sixth floor, on the northeast corner of the building. I woke up to the sound of a woman crying, my wife had passed away 5 years ago, and everyone in the hotel room was a male, so this didn’t make any sense. I figured I was dreaming, but that theory changed on my third night there. Again, I heard the woman crying, at first I couldn’t understand what she was saying, so I got up and walked to the bathroom to investigate, no one was in there, but the crying got louder and turned into a screaming. She was saying “bloody corpse” over and over again. I was freaked out and I eventually decided to say it was my imagination, until I looked at the mirror. What I saw was a bathtub full of blood with a woman on a noose dangling over it. I fainted and woke up in the bathroom. I asked my sons if they heard the same thing last night and to my horror, they did and my eldest son said he saw the same woman I had seen. This meant what I saw wasn’t my imagination and it was totally there. This crying had eventually become a routine, and on the fourth night, I didn’t hear crying, instead, I saw a woman with empty eye sockets and a forced grin staring at me from the entrance of the bathroom. Out of nowhere she screamed and started crawling on the ceiling, and then hung right over me. I was horrified and fell asleep. The next morning, I saw wet foot prints on the floor, which didn’t surprise me at first because I assumed they were my sons’ who went to the pool last night, but then whoever’s footprints they were, turned into walking on all fours and then to my horror, they went up the wall and onto the ceiling. That’s when I decided to get out of there and stay at my mother’s house nearby. I don’t know what I saw in that room, but I highly advise anyone else who stays at the hotel to leave if they experience the same thing, because I have no idea what happened in that room, but it seems to have some...