Gateway Conference Center - Ames

It 's been awhile since I wrote a hotel review, as really, most hotels are average. Sometimes you have an excellent above average experience and you want to note that. And then there 's the below average, terrible hotels. And the Gateway is one of those.Firstly, it 's way overpriced for what it is. Sure, it 's got a good location. Sure, it 's got the large capacity and conferencecenter, allowing for even wedding receptions or other events. Convenience is worth something. But it 's fairly dated and drab.The only modern room furnishings I noticed from the last time I stayed here when I was in college 10 yrs ago is an LED bathroommirror. The rest of the room hasn 't changed since the 80s or 90s probably. All of these notes probably only drop my review onestar though, because I 'm nice like that and an Iowa Stater, so I do appreciate the Gateway 's collegiate ties. But, but, but.What I can 't accept or forgive is the complete lack of comfort that I had while attempting to sleep here. The bed was hard as arock and didn 't provide a sliver of give to my body. Maybe it 's only designed for military men used to hard cots? And even worsewas the pillows. I honestly can 't remember worse pillows at a hotel. They aren 't even full size! When we laid down at night weactually thought they were tiny square ones! Turns out they actually are slightly rectangular but they certainly aren 't fullsize. Have fun with your face constantly falling off them. Oh and they have zero support to them. There 's "down feather soft "pilows and then there 's so soft that they completely flatten. Trying to stack two of them throughout the night tossing andturning did not work. My biggest regret for this weekend will end up being that I didn 't bring my own pillow from home, andperhaps an air mattress.

The room had all the standard amenities and was decent sized. Door had a chain lock as well as the standard bolt (and the need for an electronic key of course) which is nice for wary travelers. Front desk service was fantastic and varied from justprofessional to professional and friendly depending on who was there, which was fine. The cleaning service however waslackluster, as when we got there the provided glass had not been cleaned (could still see lip marks from the previous people)and there was trash under the bed skirt (a plastic dasani water bottle). Note: the rest of the review might be a little skewedfor the same reason why I'm not able to review the pricing; we stayed on the friends and family pricing and thus paid less.

The location, rooms, accommodations were very good. Although the biggest let down was how absolutely terrible the internet was. I did several speed tests and the highest it went was 3-4mbps download and 0.1 upload. This is basically unusable internet forpeople who need to use for business and has basically made using mobile data Hotspot mandatory for web surfing.

Hadn?t been back to the Gateway Hotel in over 10 years. Not much seems to have changed, but that?s not always a bad thing. The IowaStater Restaurant had good food. The service, while understaffed was extremely friendly and very on top of things. The hotelrooms seem to be somewhat outdated, but they suffice for the price we paid for the rooms. The building is a cool space and formy visit to Iowa State, it worked out just fine.

Negative: Hot tub was not in working order. The on-site restaurant was not open at all. Additional $10 for continental breakfast . Seems like these hotels should be obligated to update thier websites when the amenities that they advertise are notavailable.