The Cottonwood Hotel - Live Love Drink Travel

In our third and final installment in our Cottonwood series, we'll talk about our stay at the Cottonwood Hotel.

Her View

For our stay in Cottonwood during the AZ Stronghold Library Crawl, we decided to try out the Cottonwood Hotel. Going in we knew that we were staying a building that had been renovated for hotel rooms. It is quaint and right in the middle of Old Town Cottonwood; this is a nice bonus because you will be able to walk to lots of dining options and the tasting rooms. We typically do an AirBnb or stay at the Iron Horse Inn. But decided we would give this place a shot because they had an option for a larger room with a kitchen (we like to eat breakfast in our room) and a small living room. We figured this would be perfect for us for the 2 nights we were there.

The whole reservation system started out poorly. We made the reservation and there were some rules we had to follow in order to even do that. I understand that they do not staff an office and that completely makes sense since they are a very small hotel and to be honest, in today’s times, just about everything can be done online. But the system they use is a little different. There was a 3 week prepayment rule, a 15% rule and there was a cash rule. It was a lot when you are just trying to make a reservation, I mean it isn’t like we were trying to move in, it was a two night stay. So it didn’t start out real great, but not awful. We made the reservation, received our confirmation via email and set our calendar to pay the remaining balance by the due date (another rule).

On the day we went to pay the final portion, we could not locate a link in the email, nor could we login to our original reservation to make the remaining payment. We eventually sent a text to the number they list. The response was that there should be a link in the email, we confirmed that we could not locate one. We went back and forth a few times and finally, they stated that if we could not find the link then we can let them know and they will run our card on their end. Since we could not find the link we asked them to do that, but requested that we wanted to use a different card for the final payment. That did not happen they just ran the other card and ignored that request. That was irritating and now we were really starting to question our decision since just making and paying for the reservation was taking a lot of time and frustration. It was too late to find another place to stay and we really wanted to experience this little local venue.

The day of our check-in we were to receive a text with our keypad entry number and our parking space. We were leaving after I got off work so around 4ish. Once we got on the road we realized we had not received a text yet. So I sent a text and stating that we had not received anything about our check-in information and provided the room we were supposed to stay in and our last name. They responded with what unit and what car do you have. I was a little shocked by this since our phone number was supposed to be linked to our room and since I had JUST given them that information. I am thinking do they even read the text messages we sent over? Finally after a few texts she says, I have been sending the information to a different number with no response all day. This came across like we gave them the wrong number, so I pulled up the confirmation emails and sent a text back stating this was the only number that we had listed on the reservation. So now my big red alert is who has our reservation information, it was a little freaky to think that they had been sending all that information to someone else. We finally get the info needed just as we are pulling up to the hotel. We park in our assigned spot and try to figure out exactly where we need to go to get into the hotel. We find a side door with a keypad and figure that must be it. We use the code provided to enter and as soon as we walk in, I smile and say, yup that smells exactly like I think an old building would smell. Real musty, but again, not unexpected. The staircase is steep and narrow so we are calculating how we are getting all of our crap up the stairs. We get to the room and then make another trip to get all of the suitcase and food and water and all that jazz.

The bathroom is very tiny and the sink is smaller than a dinner plate and not much deeper. You will literally only brush your teeth with that sink, it isn’t deep enough to wash your hands even. We knew going in that it would likely be tight quarters as we have stayed in older renovated hotels before, however this seemed a little excessive. Also the shower did not have enough room to shave my legs so that was going to be an interesting task to resolve. Again, older renovated hotel, so not unexpected.

The living area had two leather chairs and a console tv tucked in an armoire. We were not really concerned about that, we had not really intended on watching any tv so that was fine and probably fine for most folks as well. You are not there to watch TV you are there to visit, explore and taste wine! The window off the living room was right off the patio that overlooked main street, be forewarned that this patio is of use to all guests. It was not that big of a deal since most folks would likely use it to smoke or check out the view in general. However, we were there during the annual Christmas parade and it was loaded with folks on Saturday. We ended up having to leave the room because it was getting too loud. Kind of a bummer because we were both working at that time, but the distraction of all of the noise was just too much. Older windows mean you can hear through them fairly easy. Definitely not a deal breaker, but still a little frustrating.

The bedroom was a basic bedroom and works fine for what you need, which is sleep. There was a TV in the room, but again we did not really care about that. The bed was fairly comfortable and the decorations were quaint...you know, like the hotel.

Now we come to my biggest issue and complaint. I mean all in all we are pleased and looking forward to our visit and stay. When we go into the kitchen we see a microwave, a small stovetop and a fridge, you know the basics. I hunt for a coffee pot, finally find a 4 cup pot, which is super tiny, I am going to have to make 3 pots to get enough coffee for the two of us. But we could still work with it. I pull it down and clean it out, just because I am super paranoid, not that it wasn’t clean. Then I go to grab a coffee filter, and there are not any. I have stayed many places and there are ALWAYS coffee filters for the simple fact that folks do not know what type they should buy or bring. I looked around found some paper towels and figured I could still work with this. We only brought coffee k-cup pods so I needed to cut them open to use for the pot, we have done this several times in the past and it has been very successful. I open the draw to grab a knife and am shocked and dumbfounded that they only utensils in the entire kitchen is ONE...yes I said ONE fork. Nothing else. So I start opening cabinets and I see that we have 2 wine glasses and 2 coffee cups, no utensils, no plates, no pots or pans and no glasses for a non wine drink...you know, like water! Ok, now I am a pissed, how on earth do advertise a kitchen and have NONE of the items that go in an actual kitchen. Later when I asked about this, she stated that there was a regulation with the food department (paraphrasing here) and that they were not allowed to provide pots and pans. Cool, then do NOT advertise that you have them, also does that prevent you from having other normal things that I can get in most hotels even...like glasses! Or even plastic ware! So now the whole breakfast in the room with coffee was shot. So I guess it is just have coffee in the room and then go get some breakfast. Oh, wait, no we won’t. Because when we get up the next morning and I turned the coffee pot on, it did not work, the light did not come on and it never made a sound. So I wait a few minutes to see if maybe the light is burnt out or something along those lines. And still nothing happens. So I remember seeing one of those single serve hotel coffee makers in the cabinet and I pull that out. Problem with this is that you have to have those disc coffee filled pods and I don’t have any. I do see that she has THREE, for 2 people for 2 days, THREE pods. But I am desperate at this moment and fire one up. It works and we at least get a half a cup before we are FORCED to head out breakfast due to not really having that kitchen. When I complain about the kitchen issue, she states there is some regulation (she was very rude in her text messages to Derek, see below to read his review) that does not allow for them to have pots and pans for a two night stay. Really, I don’t know that I believe that, but even so, does that mean we can’t have plates, silverware or glasses to drink water out of? It just does not make sense.

Overall, the only reason I would not stay here again, was the attitude of the owner. She never accepted any fault in the kitchen issue, the booking issue or the check-in issue. Which leaves a bad taste for me. I decided after our stay to check some of the reviews and her responses to folks who had things to say that was not 100% positive was to attack them and blame them. Very unprofessional and some of the things she said were threatening in my opinion. In one review she actually said that she would have this couple blackballed from Cottonwood. I mean, for real! The rest of the stay was fine and the accommodations were totally workable once you have the correct information about the units and what they actually offer. However, the owners attitude was too much for me to want to revisit.

That said we love Cottonwood and are very much looking forward to our next trip.

— Taunya

His View

If you you have been following our current series you know we recently made a trip up to Cottonwood for the Arizona Strongholds library dinner crawl. We have stayed at several places before including several different AirBnb’s and the Iron Horse Inn, however for this trip we decided to give the Cottonwood Hotel a try. It’s a boutique hotel right on Main Street in Old Town Cottonwood.

Our experience started out with the hotel’s website. It’s a pretty simple site and not very polished, which is not unexpected for a small business such as this. There are quite a few pictures of each room which is a plus. The hotel does not have office hours (or an office), however the proprietor does provide a cell number.

The actual reservations are handled through a 3rd party system, Reservation Key. The reservation process is interesting. At the time we booked they were offering a second night at $100 which is a pretty good deal. They also offer a 15% cash discount, but have some odd and specific rules to get it, including a half hour non-negotiable check in window. It’s all outlined on the reservations form, but not in what I would call an extremely clear way. We opted to not do the cash or check option because we could not make the required check-in time. They only charged my credit card for half the total rate at the time we completed our reservation request. In our confirmation email it stated we needed to settle the remaining balance two weeks prior to our check-in date. Unfortunately, we received no further communication, so about 17 days before I texted the hotel owner to ask about how to remit payment; she provided her number in the email however it very specifically says "text only".

Hello, I have a reservation. For Nov 30th and I can't figure out how to pay the balance ( we were charged only 50% at booking ). I want to pay it so we don’t lose the reservation
From Me

There should be a link in the email to click on or you can send me your name, unit number and date and I'll take care of it for you. Thanks Karen Leff Cottonwood Hotel
Response

She had replied that the email contained a link, but there wasn’t anything in the body. In fact the entire email was exactly two sentences. From here I decided email was a better option, and I was in my email at this point anyway. When I emailed her I’ve checked both of the emails I had received and there was no link, she implied I must have done something wrong. I replied to her and asked her to call me at her convenience so I could give her a different card over the phone (since starting the blog, we now have a business card for expenses). However the next day she re-ran the card from the reservation; I was a bit annoyed because I only found out because of the emailed receipt and she used the wrong card.

On the day we headed up we both got off work early so we could head up to Cottonwood, and while we were driving it occurred to me that I had not gotten a text with the room door code. So Taunya texted her from my phone with requesting our code and gave her the confirmation number and our last name. She replied by asking for our room number and last name. After some back and forth, she replied had a different number and that we had not responded all day. Of course we didn’t as she was texting the wrong number! The implication was that we gave her the incorrect number, however we verified that my cell was correctly on the reservation and was in the confirmation email, so I don’t know what happened but it was on their side.

We arrived, found our assigned parking spot, and headed up to the room. There was a code from the entrance door to the stairs, and a separate code for the room. The moment I opened the outside door you are looking right at a row of mailboxes, confirming my assumption that the hotel was converted from an old apartment building. The stair are pretty narrow and steep, but it wasn’t too hard to get our luggage up. My first impression was that the stairs and hallway space smelt “old”. It was not horrible or overpowering, and my hope was that the room didn’t smell funky. Once we opened the door to our room I was pleasantly surprised. We stayed in the John Wayne Deluxe Suite which was quite spacious, clean, and tidy. The entire space was done in a western theme with some of the decorations bearing the actor’s likeness. There were two sitting chairs in the former living room space that were fairly comfortable. The kitchen was small but very adequate, and the there was a small bistro table and two chairs. What surprised me most was there was no plates, no silverware and no cookware. Ok, well there WAS a single fork. And a pair of wine glasses and a pair of coffee mugs. I found it odd to advertise a room with a kitchen yet provide nothing to actually utilize it. Fair warning, the bathroom is pretty small, with a shower and toilet and very small sink in in corner. There is definitely not room for more than one person in there at a time, but again perfectly adequate if not extremely tiny. Another warning, the sink is also not very deep, and I’m a big guy with big hands, so water ended up on my shirt and on the floor at different times. There was also a medicine cabinet, which is odd for a hotel, so of course I had to open it. Inside was a can a glade air freshener, and the pièce de résistance; you don’t get a spoon or a knife, but by god there was a container of hemorrhoid wipes!

The queen bed was pretty comfortable, however we brought our own pillows so I don’t know how the hotel’s were. Pillows are a big thing for us to sleep comfortably, and bad ones can spoil a hotel experience so we often bring our own if we are not flying. Overall, the room was actually pretty good, and felt more like an apartment than a hotel room which is what it was at one time. The owner Karen did text me around 7 that first evening to make sure we got into our room ok, which I liked. The next day Cottonwood was doing it’s annual Christmas parade, and she also invited us to join her on the hotel balcony for bloody mary’s and to watch the parade.

The next morning Taunya tried to make coffee but could not get the 4 pot coffee pot to work. We only brought a few K-Cups with us, so we wasted a pod that we opened and a Macgyver coffee filter (also known as a paper towel). We went across the street to Crèma for breakfast and coffee, then came back to the room to work on a blog article. The room was at the front of the hotel, and the hotel balcony was right outside our window. We ended up leaving the room a little after eleven because the parade watching party was going full swing. It was pretty noisy and too distracting to get any more work done, so we headed out for our first wine tasting. We ended up watching the parade from the AZ Strongholds tasting room with people we knew, which we found more enjoyable I think than had we joined the balcony crowd.

On our final day, we ended up leaving pretty early. This had nothing to do with our experience, but something we often do preferring to get home and prepare for the work week so we can enjoy the rest of our Sunday. We ended up leaving a short note, which quite honestly was not the nicest note we could have left, explaining some of the issues we had over the weekend. I ended up receiving a text message from Karen later that day. The message included a picture of the apparently working coffee pot. I choose to simply respond to her text with a polite, simple and deescalating reply.

Coffee pot working fine??? If you needed something why did you not let me know??? Pots and pans for extended stays ONLY. Health dept regulations. Sorry to hear you were so unhappy. I met you in the hallway yesterday. Communication is always good. I asked how everything was. You seemed to be in an extreme hurry. Thank you. Karen Leff Cottonwood Hotel
Her Text

When you advertise having the kitchen, we assumed that meant there would be plates and cups and knives and forks etc. I understand about the pots and pans, but did not remember reading anything about that on the room description. We could not get the maker to work, but the other one did so we weren't worried about it at the time. Have nice day.
My Reply

I'm assuming her mention of “an extreme hurry” was a reference to our early departure. Granted, I’ll concede our note was not exactly “nice”, however I found the proprietor’s response to be unprofessional. This feeling was further cemented when I received a receipt email that asked me to not post a negative review but instead send an email to the hotel if I had a bad experience. I can honestly say I have never been asked to only post a positive review from anywhere before. Now I understand it’s a small town and a small business, however that means customer service is even more important, and quite honestly if I had not already felt that I was being blamed for the reservation and check in issues, I might have been more forthcoming during our stay. But rather than ruin our weekend, I instead choose to wait until after checkout.

So would I stay at the Cottonwood Hotel again? Honestly, although the location is great, as things currently stand I would not. I understand that the hotel is not a 5 star resort, however I just don’t feel like I’ll get the experience I want if we go back. Quite honestly the owner's attitude will always be a concern for me, as she does not seem to subscribe to the
“customer is always right” philosophy. We also checked out some of the hotel reviews since the hotel seems to be highly rated on Google, Yelp and TripAdvisor. The thing that stands out to me is that the owner does not seem to handle bad reviews very well and seems to take them too personally. She seems to have a running list of excuses, comments, and insults anytime someone posts a bad review. Several of the bad reviews seem to be related to making reservations or calling her directly to inquire about information.

There were both positive and negatives to our stay, but I have to be honest about my feelings regarding my experience so I hope that I have expressed both sides adequately. I think with some adjustments to their processes and reservation system, an attitude adjustment, and some clarifications to their room descriptions the experience would be elevated. Like updating their website room descriptions to say kitchenware available for extended stays only. If that happens perhaps we’ll try staying there again. But then again, based on some of her review responses I might be banned... Oh well, the Iron Horse and Tavern hotels are similarly located on Main Street. 😊

— Derek