Lots of Pomp without Circumstance: The Allison's great hard product & subpar service

My husband and I, along with 2 other couples, traveled to Oregon to see the total solar eclipse this past weekend. We spent 1 night at The Nines in Portland before heading to the Willamette Valley for 2 nights at The Allison Inn & Spa--much closer to the eclipse totality zone.

The Allison has a fantastic, modern hard product, with great facilities, great accommodations, and all the bells and whistles. Yet we encountered numerous and stupid service shortcomings that shocked us for such a well regarded property. We also found the property design, while modern and comfortable, to lack character or any sense of place. 

The exterior (the top level was the 4th floor penthouse floor where 2 of our rooms were located):

The lobby indoor seating/bar area:

Outdoor seating area:

The main bar area between the lobby indoor/outdoor seating areas and the Jory restaurant:

The Jory restaurant:

Beautiful staircase:

The swimming pool and spa on the ground floor:

The lawn seating area:

Entry to the spa:

Gym:

We arrived around 1:30 pm after a very easy 40 minute drive from Portland. The valets took our bags and another parked our sexy mini-van.

The lobby front desk area showcased the clean, modern style that was mimicked throughout the property.

Unfortunately, that's where the first service miss occurred. 

We were told our suite was ready. Our friends were all told their rooms wouldn't be ready until 3 pm, but that their rooms would also be on the Penthouse level like ours. That turned out to be incorrect for one of our friends' rooms.

Below are descriptions and photos of the three room types used by our group: Penthouse Deluxe King Suite, Penthouse King Suite, and Deluxe King Room.

PENTHOUSE DELUXE KING SUITE (4TH FLOOR):

Our Penthouse Deluxe King Suite was very spacious and comfortable--and the air con was magical. The room had been pre-cooled to 68 F as I had requested.

Our living room:

The living room (unfortunately busy with our friends and all of our belongings!):

The small deck off the living room:

The view from the living room wasn't much to speak of, was it was pleasant:

The bedroom:

A small closet was more than sufficient for our short stay:

The bath was spacious, too:

View from our bedroom was more of the same--just fine:

PENTHOUSE KING SUITE (4TH FLOOR):

Two of our friends had booked a penthouse king suite, just a few rooms down the hallway from our suite.

Apologies for the mess, but they didn't realize I wanted to take photos for my fellow FTers!

DELUXE KING ROOM (3RD FLOOR):

Our other friends who had been told they were also on the 4th floor with us and our other friends later discovered their room was actually on the 3rd floor. The hotel later denied telling any of us otherwise. Not impressive.

But the room was fine otherwise.

Service was troubling on many occasions, but the management response and service recovery were pitiful. That is unquestionably the biggest weakness for this property. 

(1) The first service miss was at check-in when they informed us that we all had rooms together on the 4th floor. One couple of friends learned later that they were on the 3rd floor for no given reason. When pressed, they lied. Not impressive. We all heard them.

I then asked the hotel to offer them something to make up for the miss--drinks at the bar, a free massage, something. They never did. They did much later try to offer them a 4th floor room, but by then our friends had unpacked and weren't willing to move. The hotel could've handled this better.

(2) The biggest service miss was housekeeping. We departed for our eclipse event (arranged through the hotel concierge) at 6:30 am and returned around 2:30 pm--to discover that our rooms hadn't been cleaned. (Not one of our three rooms had been cleaned, we later realized.) I was apoplectic. I called to complain and was told housekeeping would be there immediately. After 30 minutes and no housekeeping, I spoke with the Director of Rooms. Suddenly, housekeeping appeared. I was as shocked by the Director's cavalier attitude towards the service miss, in fact. I told him so, and he refunded us $100 and sent us a bottle of nice wine as an apology. 

(3) Bar service was tragically slow. It was blatantly obvious that the bar was seriously understaffed. Our server actually was fabulous (I made sure to compliment her to the bar manager and GM later), but she was working too many tables and also obviously helping with restaurant duties. In 75 minutes, I barely had 2 drinks. I had to complained to the bar manager--who only then tried to help her. 

(4) Breakfast on our final morning was problematic from the start. First, we were told it would take 15 minutes to seat us at 9:30 am...despite there being literally 12 empty tables for 4 persons and another few tables for 2 persons. Then after finally being seated, breakfast took 30 minutes to be served to us after ordering. Not impressive at all.

(5) At check out, our friends tried to get the same $100 refund for the lack of housekeeping that we received. (Keep in mind that they didn't get housekeeping service until almost 4:30-5:00 pm!) The manager declined...but said he'd be happy to split our $100 among all three rooms. I was flabbergasted.

Other than our Jory dinner serving team and the one server at the bar, we really had no impressive service experiences. But we had numerous service fails.

I ended up introducing myself to the GM on our final day and explained our disappointment in the service shortcomings we'd experienced. He said he was aware of the and apologized again. But nothing more. 

In my opinion, the hotel does not function well when it's full. The hotel not only was short staffed and thereby delivering poor service, but it responded poorly when those shortcomings were mentioned. Service starts from the top, and the GM here clearly does not run a good service operation. His own attitude showcased how everyone's service suffered.

Dining was mixed. 

BREAKFASTS WERE OK TO POOR

We had a very nice continental breakfast buffet made available for our first morning of the eclipse--since so many people were departing so early. (We departed the hotel at 6:30 am.) It was a very reasonable $18. Sorry no photos--it was too darn early!

We had a disappointing breakfast on our second morning in the Jory restaurant. We were told it would be a 15 min wait despite the fact that there were 12 tables available--I literally walked through and counted. I couldn't believe it. Breakfast then took 30 minutes. My egg white omelette was pretty good, but my husband's and friend's meals were underwhelming. 

My omelette was delicious:

My husband's pancakes were doughy and not particularly flavorful. But they looked good!

Our friend's breakfast also lacked flavor and was disappointing:

We chalk up the breakfast fails to the same reason we believe service was lacking everywhere at this hotel: insufficient staffing. We even heard servers commenting about being called in because the restaurant was understaffed. That certainly would explain why it took so long to supposedly get a table despite many being available..and why it took 30 minutes to get our meals after ordering.

DINNER AT JORY WAS OUTSTANDING

Dinner at Jory, on the other hand, was sublime. We had dinner there on our second night, and it really was fantastic. We loved everything.

We splurged on wine!

The location was great, if a little farther north of the eclipse totality zone as we otherwise might have preferred! There were tons of wineries and restaurants in the nearby area, and it was just a 40 minute drive to our eclipse viewing event at Cristom/Bethel Heights Wineries. It also was just a 40 minute drive from downtown Portland on Sunday morning, and a 1.5 hr drive back (with serious eclipse traffic) to the Portland airport on Tuesday afternoon.

We enjoyed the accommodations and facilities of the Allison, as well as its proximity to the wineries and eclipse totality zone. My husband and all of our friends also used the spa and said it was great--they all really enjoyed their massages.

But the service was a total letdown...and the food/beverage other than dinner was disappointing. We are sure this is because of poor management in allowing staffing shortages. If you're going to charge upwards of $400-600 and more, you need to deliver on service. This hotel doesn't deliver.

We also felt the property lacked any sense of place; it had no particular character and could have been anywhere. Even the art had no connection to Oregon or the Pacific Northwest. That was very disappointing, especially at this price point.

If we had to be back in the Willamette Valley, we'd consider returning to the Allison--but try to make sure it was not a high demand time. Otherwise, we would not choose to return because of its poor service and management's poor service recovery interests. 

On the other hand, we did get to see this: