After looking at the hotel website, my girlfriend and I booked a room for the weekend. We were in town for a Reds game. Check in was a little rough. We arrived at 500PM. We had reserved a king, but it was not available. We waited while the front desk staff tried to reach the housekeeping staff. They finally found a room for us, but it was a queen. As stated in prior reviews, the hotel looks like it has not been updated since the 1980s. Our room was nice, with a minibar and comfortable bed. No view at all! The bathroom looked very old, and the toilet barely flushed. We had issues with smelling cigarette smoke, worse in the bathroom. Front desk said that it might have been from other people smoking in nearby rooms, even though this was a non smoking hotel. He offered to bring up a Ionizer. We agreed, but then her called back and said that it was not safe to use with people in the room! Overall, I was happy when we left. If you do decide to stay here, pay the $28 for valet. The walk around the block, especially at night was a little scarey. Alot of homeless people and people doing things they shouldnt be doing.

Wife and I stayed at the Cincinnatian Saturday night for our anniversary. We arrived around 4:00 and valet parking had no waiting. We booked a movie package king room and were upgraded to whirlpool room at check in. The room was awesome! The bed was extremely comfortable, great views of the city, huge bathroom, also loved the robes. We had drinks at the bar and ordered room service for dinner and breakfast. The food was great. The staff was attentive and friendly. We forgot toothbrushes so called the front desk and two were sent up to our room within 2 or 3 minutes. We will definately be going back.

I want to start out by saying that I made a phone call to the reservations desk after I stayed and yelled at the woman working there. I am sorry for that as she did not deserve it...I was just really upset about our stay. I booked a room for one night at the Cincinnatian because it was described as a "Historic Hotel" and named as one of the Historic Hotels of America. For two years I worked for a historic 4 diamond hotel but the lobby interior was original 1923 as well as many of the fixtures and antique English furnishing in the room. This hotel is only historic if you consider the mid-1980s to be history. Our room had blue plush carpet, a dark blue armchair with 80s fabric and nautical blue and white 1980s curtains, and tan striped wall paper that has seen better days. Oh, and we enjoyed looking at all of these things with the huge magnifying glass that was in the desk (strange) The tile in the bathroom was tan with white, moldy grout and it smelled like mold. Our brown toilet flushed...but barely. Even the turn down service seemed outdated as they left a little white towl on the floor next to each side of the bed. There was a floor lamp which you turned on by putting your foot behind the chair and stepping on a button, the picture frames were black lacquer and the oversized white shiny lamps screemed "Pretty in Pink". The lobby of the hotel has not maintained its original appearance either. It is totally 1980s with 1980s picture frames, decor, and fixtures. This was disappointing as I read on the website that the hotel had undergone a complete rennovation. All of this would probably go unmentioned if the next thing had not happened. I checked rates for the night and booked a room that was after tax $186.04. It was the cheapest rate on the website but there was really no distinction and I (wrongly assumed it meant room size) I would have been happy to pay $20 more if the room had actually been rennovated. Anyway, we checked our bank account on Monday only to find that $455 had been held aside off of our debit card and not yet returned. I called the reservation desk and was upset explaining that this had caused my bank account to go into the negative. Instead of trying to calm me, the woman on the phone literally refused to listen and talked over me...uh, hello customer service? She kept saying, "I hope this answers your question" and when I told her it did not answer my question she just kept talking. I never got a full explanation out of what was wrong and she refused to let me get a word in edge-wise. I will admit that I was upset and began to raise my voice because of my frustration. She eventually transferred me into the voice mail of the Comptroller who called me back about an hour later. He was actually very nice and reassuring. I went to my bank anyway and spoke with them. They have put a "watch" on my account to make sure the proper amount of money is being debited tonight. Apparently, when you use your debit card they hold a certain amount of money aside in case you spend "to protect themselves." I get that but NO ONE TOLD ME AND IT WASN'T ON THE RESERVATION FORM. They said it was posted at the front desk. To top it off, the mold count in the room was so high (in my opinion) I am now sick...

My boyfriend and I met in downtown Cincinnati to attend a concert at the US Bank Arena, which is within a manageable walking distance. Since I was planning on arriving before he was, I had called the hotel earlier that morning to see if my name could be added to his reservation. The woman I spoke with on the phone said that it wouldn't be a problem. I was pleased with that, but then I started to wonder: Shouldn't there be some sort of system in place where they confirm the changes with the holder of the original reservation. Any schmuck of the street could say they are with someone and then get access to their room. All that aside, I thought the interiors of the hotel were charming at first impression. Check-in was simple and kudos to the front desk staff for handling the woman in front of me because she seemed like a real demanding witch or a pejorative word that rhymes with "witch". The room was on the fourth floor and looked out into the interior courtyard space. Someone flew a paper plane into the gridwork open roof system; looks like it was there for a while and I thought that was cute. The room had a bit of stale air to it and I couldn't open the windows to vent it out, but once I turned on the climate controls, the air circulated and the tiny odor was gone. The room itself was a great value. I've stayed in rooms double that price that didn't have such a great shower. Dual-headed and room for two. Should be required in all hotels. I've never had a scale in a hotel bathroom before. Nice touch, except that I probably weighed myself 200 times. The hotel doesn't use a card key system, they use the older-style of actual keys, which I thought was kind of charming. When I checked in, they gave me both keys for the room and the mini-bar key. When my boyfriend arrived two hours later, he wanted a key (didn't know I had both already) but they told him that there are only two keys for the room. This made a little paranoid at the concert - I was so worried about losing our keys. Turndown service left a cookie for us. Honestly, you should leave two if there are two people in the room. Maybe a little bottle of water like other hotels too. If you park in the garage next to the hotel is it only $9 overnight as opposed to $28 for valet or the more costly parking in the area. The WiFi is free, which is so refreshing because the last hotel we were at charged $9.95/day. If we stay overnight in downtown Cincinnati again, we'll probably come back to this hotel.

The hotel was a really pleasant place to stay during a recent business trip to Cincinnati. I've not stayed in US hotels before, so can't really run a fair comparison but, compared to all the European hotels I've stayed in, the service at the Cincinnatian was 10x better. The room was as expected, if not slightly better. Personally I wouldn't recommend their restaurant that highly. It did a good breakfast, but the lunch I had was somewhat lacklustre. For the price - and even if it cost 50% more - the Cincinnatian was a great stopover.