As Omaha locals, the Cottonwood is synonymous with a good staycation. I'd guess we've stayed here…read more4-5 times in the last handful of years, usually as a summer anniversary overnight stay.
There's a lot we love about this property:
Gorgeous, charming, historic and everything feels very carefully curated
The pool - with its in-water loungers, padded seats, large umbrellas, and helpful servers
The gym is a great one stop shop: Peloton, treadmills, yoga mats, free weights, benches, water station, bathroom right inside the gym, too
Rooms themselves are also well kept, beautiful and elevated
And then there's a few things that miss the mark sometimes:
The food and beverage service here tends to be pretty underwhelming in my experience (albeit, to be fair: I have not eaten at the Chophouse)
Our various credit card perks have included breakfast for most of our stays and we have always found the options to be a little lackluster. For example, one or two of the breakfast entrees specifically says it comes with "lyonnaise" potatoes...but then they're served with fried, cubed potatoes that could be mistaken for grocery store frozen breakfast potatoes.
The coffee offerings in both the coffeeshop and the Orleans room are passable - admittedly, I'm fairly picky on this point so my guest is that many guests find it sufficient to meet their needs. But I have yet to try anything that could compete with some other local spots.
And then the real big bummer this time around: the pool club being operated differently almost every season. By nature, I'm kind of an over communicator - I like posted rules and visible expectations so that I can plan accordingly... And I take note of those things and keep them in mind when I return to a particular spot. However, I have vivid memories of being served around the pool side directly from the Orleans room a couple years ago... And that's no longer allowed. I also remember distinctly being able to bring in our own meal to enjoy around the pool, whether it was a snack from a nearby grocery store or a sandwich from a local eatery in Blackstone... And that is also no longer allowed. In addition to those restrictions that were new to me, it seems clear that there's been a big push toward more pool club memberships/day passes and one of the downsides is that only a third of the pool seating is actually available to Hotel guests. This meant that on more than one occasion during our 3 days there, we had to be strategic about finding seats... And when you have spent your hard-earned money to enjoy the beautiful facilities, it feels pretty irksome to get caught in a cutthroat game of saving chairs. It honestly felt a little bit like the hotel guests were treated like a nuisance rather than welcome guests who paid to be there. One other way that this showed up for our particular stay was with regards to using property credits to pay: as a generous benefit of one of our premium credit cards, we were given a $100 property credit. The fine print before we came stated that it could be used on food or valet costs or other incidentals at the hotel except for taxes and actual room payment... We were very much looking forward to using this credit across our few days to cover poolside lunches... But because the pool club is operated as an independent entity, they could not charge it to our room, therefore making it impossible to use our property credit to cover lunch. Again, I'm aware that this issue does not apply to every guest (and when we asked the front desk about it, they stated that it was explicitly listed on the exclusion paperwork they gave us at check-in.. but we didn't take that with us to our room, because we thought we already knew the exclusions from scanning the emails and booking materials ahead of time.. it was a different statement than what was provided online).
Overall, we still love the Cottonwood, but the ever-changing rules and policies are making it a little bit harder to feel eager to be loyal.