The Ballantyne Hotel & Lodge

This is a beautiful hotel with quality, well-trained staff. Evan, at the front desk, was especially helpful at check-in. The room was large and felt sumptuous - one of the most comfortable beds I have ever slept in. Thought we would hang by the pool and read but it is overrun with kids. But hotel is gorgeous - I will absolutely stay here again.

Rudest staff EVER!! Not worth the price!! Do not stay here! You’ve been warned! Grounds open to everyone so just come enjoy those if you want but the food is meh to say the least. Do not stay here. Rudest staff ever. Never met front desk staff like this in my life. And I stay at high end hotels regularly.

I was at this hotel for a spa girls weekend. Not the experience we expected from a “luxury advertised” hotel. I will start with the positive the hotel itself halls and rooms beautiful. The outdoor pool area staff was great and it was clean. That’s where it ends. The interior pool was dirty, there were no towels in bin, dirt towels covering every chair and around the pool. Cups left begging on the tables, including glass which seems dangerous. The hot tubs were look warm. One not working. I called the front desk from the pool area day one. Day 2 the pool was exactly the same. Very disappointing. Spa day my first service started late and was cut short to get me to the next service. So I paid a crazy amount for not a full pedicure then late to my massage. The massage therapist was great although she spent the beginning of my service trying to find me. How does the spa not communicate where guests are or start on time? Spoke with the spa manager who asked my room number so I assumed she planned some compensation. Nothing. Plus waited 25 mins to speak with her. Disappointing. Also day two our room was cleaned mid day to only come back at 7pm to find house keeping in our room again? Called desk they said we do turn down service and refill towels. Interesting cause I read a review of a goes there in May who didn’t even get cleaning at all but we get twice a day? Seems odd. Since we were at pool all our belongings were out jewelry, purses, etc not expecting someone I our room at 7pm At check out spoke with a very nice girl at the desk she seemed concerned and said a GM would call in half hour when he got in. No such call ever came.

Avoid this hotel, not worth the money! The indoor pool area was filthy with empty glasses, and wet towels everywhere. There were no dry towels to use. One of the hot tubs didn’t work, and both were luke warm. The spa canceled my massage appointment 5 minutes after it was supposed to begin and the facial was below average. I was never offered any complimentary champagne like every other guest was. Manager said she would send something to our room for troubles, and never did. TV in the room did not work and one morning there was no hot water. I addressed all of these issues when checking out and was told manager would call me immediately. Days later and I’m still waiting for call. Completely ruined our girls trip! Unacceptable on every level.

My family and I were so excited to book a hotel stay at the Ballantyne for Memorial Day weekend as we read many great reviews about this place. Never did I imagine to have one of the worst hotel experiences and encounter such a condescending front desk staff and manager (Blake) over basic housekeeping matters. Who would have thought that asking for standard housekeeping would be a huge undertaking for a reported 4 star “ luxury” hotel. My husband and I were met with such disrespect and disregard that I’m utterly baffled as I am writing this. We left our room in the morning and came back around 1 pm and saw that our room had not been cleaned. We understood that it was still early and that housekeeping would likely be on their way. No big deal. We left again around 3pm and on our way out, we spoke to the concierge and kindly asked that our room be clean at some time within the next three hours (I wanted to make sure we put in a request as well). We got back to the room at around 630pm with our two young kids, ready to get them settled for bedtime only to find that it still had not been touched nor had the towels been replaced. I called down to the front desk staff expressing my concern. She told me that they would be by within 10-15 mins. I hauled both my kids down to the lobby to confirm that housekeeping will indeed be there to clean up the room and refresh the towels. I also wanted to get them out of the room so housekeeping can do their job. Instead of confirming, she tells me that housekeeping had three rooms ahead of me. I informed her that my children will need to be in bedtime by 8pm and if they could prioritize our room since they seemed to have missed it during the day. Instead of letting me know that they would make an effort to prioritize our room, she states that rooms are only cleaned by request. I asked her if the hotel provides daily housekeeping to which she says “yes”. I reminded her that I also put in the request for housekeeping. Blake, the manager, than comes over and I explain the situation asking that our room be prioritized since it was missed earlier. To my dismay, he says that housekeeping needs to prioritize check ins. Again, it is now 630pm and check in for the hotel is 4pm. Feeling completely unheard, I say that I have a 2 and 4 yo and they would need to go to bed soon. Again, I ask if our room can be done sooner rather than later as the room has dirty diapers in the trash that I wanted to have discarded. He looks at me with a blank stare and just nods his head indifferent to the entire situation. He than says that housekeeping cleans until 9 pm so they are still within their window. Again, taking no ownership of the situation while making excuses. I remind him that I have two young kids and I did not want to wait until 9 pm to have the room cleaned. He continues to nod and looks at me with a condescending stare. He than says he is just hearing about this situation and he can have towels be brought up to the room if I did not want to wait. Mind you, before coming down to the lobby, they had told me that it would be 10-15 minutes. Now, I’m being told that it could take until 9pm before the room is cleaned. Realizing that these people could careless about our situation, I literally just walked away because I could feel myself getting so frustrated that I wanted to cry. As a mom with two young kids, I felt completely disregarded and treated like trash. I never thought I would have to beg a “Luxury” hotel to clean my hotel room. If they had just simply said sorry, we fked up, we’re going to do whatever it takes to get this fixed so you and your kids can have a clean room with clean towels, I would have been fine. Instead, I was told that we weren’t a priority because we weren’t checking in while also giving the excuse that house keeping is only by request ( even though I had requested it) to “ housekeeping cleans until 9pm so they are still within their window to “ we can’t control the housekeeping schedule.” One excuse right after the other. Needless to say, this will be the last time we stay at this hotel. We were looking for a hotel spot that we could stay quarterly and make it a staycation location as we are from the triangle area. They showed that they don’t respect our business so we’ll be taking our business elsewhere going forward.