I'll start this review saying that I've usually had great experiences at Hampton Inn and was excited to stay in a brand new hotel while visiting my son's girlfriend at the local college in Kutztown.
I attempted to make reservations online about two weeks prior to our trip and had some issues to start. I had booked two rooms and only received a confirmation for one room, so I called the hotel. Upon calling, I explained the situation, was placed on hold for about 20 minutes, and then got disconnected. I called back and was informed they just opened & it was busy, but my reservation was corrected to two rooms for 10/5/19.
When we arrived on 10/5/19, we were told we had a reservation for one room, not the two that I had thought was corrected. So the front desk said they would find us another room and that was resolved in a matter of minutes but without an apology or acknowledgment of the reservation issue. After we checked in, we noticed one of the elevators was out of service. We checked our room and then went out to explore the area for a bit. When we came back later that evening, both elevators were out of service, so we had to haul our luggage up 4 flights of stairs to the 4th floor. Not ideal at 9pm. We were also going to take a quick dip in the pool when we got back, but didn't want to walk up and down 4 flights of stairs to do so.
When we woke up in the morning, we went downstairs to get coffee. One of the elevators was fixed by then, but we had to wait awhile for the other to come up to the 4th floor. The coffee was empty in both the lobby and the dining area. The dining area was filled with people as well. The front desk said they were making more coffee. We went back upstairs to get ready and pack up before attempting coffee and breakfast again. We noticed while going back downstairs that all garbage cans were full in the hallways and lobby. There was so much garbage that it was stacked next to the cans. Again, the lobby coffee was out but there was coffee in the dining area. We had breakfast, choosing the least messy table to eat at. The dining room was half full of people and the breakfast buffet area was also messy. After eating some breakfast, I again attempted coffee and the same thing...coffee was empty. We ended up just checking out at this point. The front desk did not ask how our stay was, no apology for the elevator situation or the lack of coffee. It seemed like they just wanted to avoid the topic, as I'm sure they had lots of complaints.
The day after our checkout, I received an email survey from the Hampton Inn, which I did complete with these same details. I received a phone call the next day from a manager at this hotel. He introduced himself and asked me questions about our stay. He wanted to know when we walked up the stairs and I informed him it was around 9pm, which he then agreed and said the elevators were down for about 2.5 hours. He said they were working kinks out still and seemed to reluctantly apologize for our experience. He did not offer anything except to say when we stay there again, to call him directly to book the reservations to ensure they were correct. I was very disappointed in the "resolution" that the manager offered of our experience.
Overall: While the customer service was lacking and the hotel had plenty of issues, our rooms were very nice. They seemed clean and the bathrooms were an upgrade from other hotels. I really liked the black washcloth for makeup. They had nice toiletries and the beds were comfortable. The pool area looked nice as well, but we didn't go swimming. I don't like leaving bad reviews and if the staff had seemed apologetic to the issues, I'd feel differently than I do now. I understand that things go wrong or being understaffed but it didn't seem like anyone really cared that this was the experience guests were having. read more