Country Inn & Suites by Radisson, Cedar Rapids Airport, IA

Triple check the airport shuttle... Added a star only because the two front desk gals were so kind and helpful. They’re the gems of this place. Booked online last November after calling the same day to confirm the shuttle to the airport began at 4am since we had a flight at the crack of dawn. Called again at the end of May to double check when I finalized plans for our July trip and confirmed my sister’s reservation and shuttle time for the week after. Upon check in last week, we were told the shuttle begins at 5am and had changed just a couple of weeks prior. Obviously we didn’t have a plan B since I checked not once, but twice, on the time for the shuttle. The gal at the counter said no problem, the night person would take us, all good. She was very understanding of our situation. When we went down to return the luggage cart, my friend stopped at the front desk to double check on the ride for morning so we weren’t scrambling with luggage and a child and no ride. The general manager appeared and said the night person would not be allowed to take us and we “should have known about the shuttle” because it was on the website “for months” that the shuttle starts at 5am now. First of all, who goes back to a website after they have booked a hotel when an actual phone call was made? Second, it is now more than a week after our stay and the website still shows the shuttle leaves at 4am to the airport. Note the screenshot taken on 7/16. It showed this on the day I checked in, as it did the day I booked the hotel. Accusing us of not seeing something online that is STILL incorrect is wild. Third, why on earth would an airport hotel have a shuttle that doesn’t leave until 5am?! The GM sited “corporate” but the hotel across the street is owned by the same brand and runs a shuttle 24/7. The accusatory attitude of the GM worsened what could have been a simple miscommunication corrected by the hotel and instead had to be handled by the front desk staff who shouldn’t have had to deal with it at all. I canceled my sister‘s reservation for the following weekend and booked it at the Comfort Inn (24/7 shuttle), a Lyft picked us up on time, and we won’t stay again. The front desk staff deserve better jobs at a hotel that values their guests with a GM that doesn’t lie to customers.

Clean and respectful and awesome employees Employees and other guests were respectful and polite and friendly and kind and helpful and this hotel is extremely clean and also the room

Facility needs a lot of help This hotel may not be old in years, but it is old and tired. I will give it to the staff that works there, in that they genuinely are doing the best they can with what they have. They were super helpful, but I was embarrassed by how often I asked for their help. Two things out of their control were our room being next to a stairwell and the stomping convention in the room above us. Those two go to part of facility’s poor design. The stairwell is not a primary access route, yet people stomping up and running down the stairs, dragging luggage, echoed in our room. Not sure why the stomping convention or wrestling match above us until 1:00am was necessary, but a properly built hotel would not have left us worrying about the ceiling caving in. I attached two photos of other issues. We had a broken toilet seat and most of the door jambs were rusting at the floor. Another odd thing was the little toiletries in the room. There was a tube of conditioner, but no shampoo. The small hand soaps were all broken. One thing which was really good here, was the breakfast offering. Everything you might want and it was put out earlier than they stated, so if you had an early flight, you could still get breakfast. One really bad thing was the lobby coffee. That was some of the worst coffee I have every tasted. The room coffee was actually pretty good. Last example of the hard luck this facility faces is the room heating/AC. The units are old, but they have installed modern thermostats. That thermostat makes it easier to control, but the hum of the unit working is pretty loud, as is the thunk when the compressor stops.

Don’t book here!! Stayed here 1-21-24 thru 1-24-24 booked a suite and all I can say is it was one of the worst rooms I have ever stayed in. The door opened without having to use key card so our things were never safe had to take our belongings every time we left. Toilet would not flush without using a plunger every time. Wouldn’t let us keep the plunger so staff had to be called every time bathroom was used so desk staff wasn’t very nice to us nor were they fast. Would not move us to a different suite but said we could use the pool later than close for our inconvenience but our room didn’t lock so we couldn’t use the pool. To top off this great little weekend Monday morning maintenance staff walked right in our room while we were in bed naked without knocking and just stood and watched said room was listed as vacant. Bathroom door had lock completely missing. Front desk lady was super rude refusing to give us her name. Sent complaints to the hotel parent company Kinseth hotel group and can’t even get a return email. Poor poor customer service in a shotty hotel. Nice job. Trust me there are 3 other hotels within a block do yourself a favor book anywhere but here

Do not use the park and ride at Country Inn & Suites I would not recommend this hotel because of a frustrating experience late at night with the front desk staff. The hotel room & amenities are good, as was my shuttle driver to the Eastern Iowa airport -- but the late night front desk staff handled my return to pick up my car very poorly. I will not return to this hotel. If I need to stay near the airport in the future, I'll go to the Doubletree Inn very nearby. They had a reliable airport shuttle still available at 11:25pm -- and their sympathetic driver pointed me to where to wait for the taxi ride I was told to expect. Here is the story of getting 1 mile or so from the airport to the hotel, and why I am leaving such a negative review. At a few minutes after 11pm on Monday, Jan. 22, I needed to get from the Eastern Iowa airport about 1 mile away to pick up my car in the hotel lot. I had parked & paid for this service at the hotel before leaving on a 2-week trip. The story begins Jan. 8, the day that blizzard-like conditions rolled into Iowa and lasted for almost 2 weeks. I stayed at this hotel so I could be very near the airport in the hopes that a long-awaited international trip might still take place. It did -- hooray! -- and I left my car in the hotel lot with agreement and payment at the front desk accordingly. I took a 5:00am shuttle to the airport from the shuttle. The driver was a great driver & fun to talk with. She told me that when I return, call the hotel front desk for the shuttle back to the hotel. Ok so far! I was gone from January 9 through the 22nd. My flight landed at about 11pm. I promptly called the front desk at Country Inn & Suites and was told that no shuttle service is available after 11pm. I needed to get a cab. The hotel would pay for that cab, and I should look for a cab waiting at the airport, or she would call for a taxi for me. (It took me a couple of times to understand; at first, I thought the staff member was telling me I could not get a ride to the hotel.) Ok so far... but then the staff hung up on me without including information like where to look, what the cab they'd approve would look like or who the driver would be (I'm used to Uber!), or any idea that she might call me back to tell me those things after she made the call. In a few minutes, I called a second time to say I didn't see any taxis, and please call for one for me. She said she would. Ok. I began to wait, but already felt the front desk staff wasn't really inclined to help. I had never seen a taxi area at the airport, and have always been picked up in Arrivals which turns out to be located entirely out of sight of the taxi area. I needed more help. The staff member seemed not to like the customer service aspects of her job. A few minutes later, the Doubletree Inn shuttle van drove directly past the Arrivals waiting area & I ran over to find out if they also would drop off at Country Inn & Suites. No, but the driver pointed out where taxis wait -- and I finally saw it. I began to wait just inside the airport doors & watched the taxi area. I waited 35 more minutes. I called once more to ask if she could check when the taxi would arrive, if she had called a taxi where you can see where the driver is (again, I know Uber well), and if there was a new ETA. I also asked what the taxi would look like so I'd recognize it. (I'd already seen a taxi that someone else had actually called for, and walked to it expecting it was possibly the one I was told they called for me.) Description of the taxi? "A yellow taxi" in a tone of voice that sounded like she thought I was an idiot. That turned out to be a taxi COMPANY name, not just the color of vehicle. I needed more help -- she was not good at customer service! So, the front desk staff this time said she'd have to call the taxi company to find out when the supposedly-ordered cab would arrive. I said ok, or I could do that -- and she gave me the taxi company phone number. I called. THE OPERATOR SAID no one had ever called from Country Inn & Suites for a taxi ride from the airport! WHAT? I figured I was about to be abandoned at the airport. But wait! The operator then said, But I've got a driver about to pull up at the airport -- and lo and behold, I saw a yellow van pulling up as she spoke. The driver knew the Country Inn & Suites shuttle system using cabs after hours, and said he thought they never called, just let people wait for whenever another cab arrived at the airport. IT WOULD HAVE BEEN CONSIDERATE OF THE FRONT DESK STAFF to tell me that, rather than string me along and apparently falsely tell me she called, she knew an ETA, or knew anything about a taxi coming at all. I would have called for myself. I could've walked to the hotel, if not for snow, much faster. Final complaint: I expected that in the 2 weeks of snow & icy cold, my car was probably very well buried in the parking lot. I asked the front desk staff if they had a shovel or anything else that I could borrow to clear snow from my car. "Oh, we don't have anything like that... someone comes to do that for us..." Seriously, nothing at all anywhere? It seemed more likely that she didn't want to look around. I was irritated & told her, "Great. I'll dig it out with my hands, then." and hung up, as she had previously hung up on me without closing the call suddenly. But ironically, she could have been helpful by telling me that on Monday the weather had warmed up a lot, and a lot of snow had melted. It turned out that my car was mostly cleared, and remaining snow wasn't hard to use my hands to move off the windshields. I could pull out without digging a path for the tires. Thanks for reading my saga. I was exhausted after a long day traveling, and jet lag, and I was disappointed by how poorly front desk handled this situation. Before writing this review, I called the hotel on Wednesday, Jan. 24, asking for the front desk manager to share an experience with car pick-up that I thought needed to be known to the manager. The daytime front desk staff said they would take a message & I would be called back. I have not received any callback yet, Monday, Jan. 29. So I wrote this.