The Highlander Hotel

The highlander was great - our kids loved it! Not to mention the service and the food were perfection.

Lots of good...but this hotel has fallen into disrepair externally and in various ways internally. It felt strangely vacant and rather than attracting the claimed hip modern crowd, it seems to attract a crowd that wants to stay at a place that is called hip...but are more bargain hunters than hip. The exterior is needing tons of TLC, with lots of weeds, broken pavement with grass coming through, unmaintained surfaces, etc (see pictures). When you walk in, it is a cool but strange vibe, with the check-in area feeling like it is setup on temporary tables. The pool ceiling has missing and damaged tiles, the bathroom floors were painted black and are now peeling with white showing, the hotel clearly is old and has had a newish veneer added. There is much to love, but the execution is all strange. It feels like it was excitedly created a few years ago, then forgotten by ownership and run with well meaning employees that lack the original vision and care and drive for excellence. The arcade area is a nice treat with a couple pool tables and games that we enjoyed. The EV charger in front was very handy.

Bad business. I recommend going anywhere else. It’s very important to support small local businesses, but not when they take advantage of others. I hope the way they run the place comes to light soon. They will not be around after the truth comes out, and then a quality hotel can buy them out. Then and only then will the Highlander become what is was meant to be.

If I was just rating the room, I'd probably say a 2.5. But the hotel overall was a 1.5. First the room. Everything worked but there was dust here and there and the doors and woodwork were pretty beat up. The bed was comfortable. We were on the 2nd floor overlooking the pool and the shades were ineffective in keeping out the light from the pool. My confirmation email (which took 3 phone calls to get) said that breakfast was included. Upon arrival they said it was "grab and go". Day 1 there was a bowl of fruit, some nutrigrain bars and Trix bars, and coffee, tea, and water. Day 2 the fruit bowl contained 2 oranges and 2 overripe bananas. What a joke! The pool was nice and big but it seemed that the area around it was never mopped, it looked dirty. The garage doors were never opened while we were there. The pool bar/food window was only open 1 of the two days. The hot tub was closed our entire visit. We got no housekeeping during our visit, which we weren't told about. We weren't given the wifi password on check-in and it wasn't displayed anywhere in the room so I had to go to the desk and ask (there are no room phones). I could find no info about their cancellation policy on their website or in my confirmation email. I texted to ask since their email encouraged texts, but they never responded. No staff could be found when I left, despite pushing their buzzer twice. After 5 minutes I just left. If all of their advertised amenities were actually provided, it'd be worth the price. As it is, I'd recommend going elsewhere.

We had heard the brunch buffet at the Highlander Hotel Supper Club restaurant was good. And it was! We were greeted and seated quickly, our server was Emily, friendly and helpful, and she said to help ourselves to the buffet. A nice selection of foods to choose from, so we started with scrambled eggs/peppers/onions. Sometimes buffet eggs are tasteless, these were yummy. On to potatoes, scalloped or fried, biscuits and gravy, bacon and sausages, sauteed veggies, ham and beef. I heard a cook call it steak, more like roast beef, not very tender. Cute little waffles and toppings, salad, fruit, and a nice assortment of desserts. We shared a piece of cake with cream filling and raspberries, very delicious. Under $30 a person. Oh, and really good coffee. If you're interested in a little history, The Highlander Supper Club was built in 1967, and the hotel, ballroom and pool followed in 1974. The Highlander enjoyed years of extraordinary success, but then a decline. Also in Coralville, the Iowa River Power restaurant was a favorite that recently closed, and the cook/server staff joined the rejuvenated and updated Highlander for a fantastic combination. It's a win-win situation now. We will go back for the Sat-Sun breakfast brunch buffet, for sure.

I recently went to brunch for Iowa River Power Company’s service and food. Sadly, that isn’t what I got. IRP is no longer there and the hotel doesn’t seem to be telling customers. I didn’t write a review that morning since I thought maybe it was an off day for IRP. (An EXTREMELY off day.) Now that I’ve heard what happened I’ve decided to leave a honest review. - The lobby looks beautiful online and in person. I loved the look of the front bar. This is one of the reasons I was excited for the highlander to finally have a real restaurant again. Actually being there and walking around however, the actual dining areas seem to be slapped together. I ate in the ballroom. Hated the chairs. The Chandeliers are very beautiful, but the place needs more natural light. I went to the arcade to check it out while waiting to be seated. HALF of the games don’t work. All excusable so far. -The Brunch was a cold, poorly executed, cheap knock off of IRP. I myself, like many others I’m sure, feel shorted by the Highlander not offering what they advertised. It's also an odd move not telling the public the IRP restaurant left. I’d say it was still a good deal if it was 15 dollars, and catered at Kwik Star. This place has so much history and potential. I hope they figure it out. That was not a supper club. That was not what we wanted.

We got ****** in because the pictures looked so good. This place is completely opposite of the pictures and stated “amenities”. First, it’s a very old hotel that has been lightly redone. It still looks very old and worn. We came in on a Thursday night for a med school graduation. One person working all the areas and he was not really interested in working at all. We stayed until Saturday. The lobby bar was never open. The Shake Shack/snack shack did NOT serve shakes (they were not willing to make them). They also did not serve alcohol drinks, even though there is a full bar and a bar menu. The really cool garage doors around the pool are never open and it was a beautiful weekend! No fires in any fire pit. If you spend the extra money to have rooms around the pool, be aware that you are essentially locked in from the pool side until a worker unlocks all doors at exactly 9:00 am. You can not open your door before that time. We would have liked to sit out there and enjoy a quiet coffee but were unable to. The tables that are outside of your door can not be used unless you get food from the hotel. That would be acceptable except the food is terrible at best and only offered on a very limited time schedule. We paid almost 1,000$ to stay here and are terribly disappointed that we did not stay at The Graduate downtown. We fell for the impressive pictures and the listed amenities. This place is dismal and disappointing. We come through this area often and we will never make this mistake again.

This hotel was built in 1967, apparently to try to bring a resort experience to central Iowa. The pool is the big attraction. Even room keys are designed to be worn around your wrist. The building has a heavy industrial feel - vinyl floors, limited space, huge windows, no desk chair (I stood up to work at the computer), poor lighting, shortage of electrical outlets, no elevators. The real frosting on our cake, though, was the "battery low" alarm going off in our smoke detector at 3:50 a.m. Of course, there's no one to fix this in the middle of the night; so no more sleep. Breakfast was very limited. We would have eaten our own cereal, but there wasn't any milk.

The owner seems to have no idea what’s going on. The restaurant portion seemed like a mediocre cash grab. I was very disappointed as this was a lot of people’s graduation weekend. They need to evaluate how they run their restaurant. The supper club is not back.