Hampton Inn Kalamazoo

“Gaslight Artistry”

The Hampton Inn of Kalamazoo gaslights as an art form. For our family of four, we booked a 2-queen-plus-sofa room for our weekend stay. The room was large and comfortable. After the kids swam and showered, we realized that there is only one place in the whole room to hang a towel -- one towel (see… more

The Hampton Inn of Kalamazoo gaslights as an art form. For our family of four, we booked a 2-queen-plus-sofa room for our weekend stay. The room was large and comfortable. After the kids swam and showered, we realized that there is only one place in the whole room to hang a towel -- one towel (see photo) -- and the housekeeping policy is helpfully posted near that one towel-hanger: they will replace a towels every other day. This is very helpful to us, as we were staying for two nights, three days, so we should have fresh towels .... after we check out on the third day. During my first morning shower, I learned that the shower door that has handles and is the furthest from the spigot is fixed in place. The handles make lovely decorations. Luckily, I carry suction cups with me; otherwise, I would have been unable to slide the handleless (inside the shower, under from photo) one door that moves closed. Breakfast was normal for such a hotel, but they one-upped all competitors by providing paper plates so thin that soggy foods immediately caused it to falter under their weights as I carried the plate to table (see photo). This too, was very thoughtful -- dare I say, hospitable -- because it gave me my morning exercise by causing me to run through the dining room to catch an open table before the plate collapsed from its burden. Lastly, the keys (oh, the keys!). I used the Hilton Honors account to book this hotel, and with it came a new and exciting method of remote check-in coupled with a virtual key through Hilton's app. The virtual key does not work at the hotel's exterior entrances, which is great because that gave me more opportunities to request assistance from the helpful and caring staff -- such as when I fumbled helplessly with my phone-key at the glass front door in front of a hand-written sign saying the door was locked for safety until 7am while the receptionist watched me from the safety of the lobby's comfy chair (sorry, no photo, due to the quite refreshing, yet dystopian, discombobulation of that moment). I pressed the "call for help" button in Hilton's app, and was helpfully told by an AI voice to contact the hotel directly for access. If there hadn't been a landline phone in the entryway to communicate with the receptionist who so helpfully watched me through the glass door, I don't know what I would have done. Upton phoning to gain entry, watching the receptionist dismount from her comfy roost to walk behind the desk to pick up the phone and then buzz me in, I learned that even though the Hilton app says it opens the exterior doors, it does not actually do so. The receptionist made me a physical key card for that purpose, and also to allow access to my room (just in case). Shortly thereafter, my family broke our nighttime fast together in the aforementioned dining room. Upon returning to our room after our meals, each key card, as well as the phone's app, failed to allow us entry. One child ran down to the lobby to get a new key card, where a new receptionist explained that the keys reset daily. This was so helpful and thoughtful, because we definitely needed morning constitutionals back and forth and back and forth to the front desk for new keys that worked. Note that even my physical key that the prior receptionist gave me an hour before had also been wonderfully disabled. Did I compliment the staff, you might wonder? Oh, did I compliment! After chatting through the app with the receptionist, she offered to cancel my coming night's reservation so that I may find accommodations elsewhere. I called Hilton for help in transferring my reservation to another hotel in the area, and the phone rep was so kind as to cancel my current reservation without helping to arrange an alternative. It was a gift to be given a taste of the fear of homelessness that I rarely get to experience in my life as a professional. Hilton phone rep supervisor then came to my rescue and offered to book me a replacement room elsewhere, before unintentionally muting himself for ten minutes as I repeated "Hello?" "Hello?" and then hanging up on me. I called back, and a new Hilton rep said that only the hotel itself could rebook me elsewhere and that the manager would be calling, which he immediately did. By calling so quickly, I was reassured that this man would understand hospitality best of all. The manager told me that "I am sorry you feel that way." And I was so grateful to be taking responsibility for my own emotions that I agreed to stay the second night at this hotel. All keys miraculously returned to working order, and I await my well-slumbered family to join me once again breaking our fast upon the thinnest of paper plates.

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