I have been planning our nonprofit organization’s annual conference and board meetings for almost a decade, so at this point I have booked a LOT of hotels. We are a good-sized group, usually around 30 rooms, and we have some very specific and occasionally weird needs. I also travel constantly and have been extraordinarily lucky to stay in some truly incredible hotels around the world. So when I say that the Kimpton Rowan Palm Springs gave us one of the best hotel experiences I have ever had, and hands down the best experience I have ever had as the person responsible for making one of these weekends for our group actually work, I really mean it.
First of all, the hotel is just gorgeous. The rooms are modern, beautiful and spotless, the views are ridiculous and the rooftop feels like you have somehow floated above Palm Springs. You can walk out the front door and basically the entire downtown is at your feet: restaurants, coffee, shops, museums, everything. And then there are those mountains surrounding you, changing colors throughout the day and turning pink and gold in the evening, reminding you every few hours that Palm Springs really has no business being this beautiful.
But as much as I loved the hotel itself, the thing I cannot stop talking about is the staff. Every single person we encountered was warm, kind, helpful, funny and gracious. It was the kind of hospitality that never felt scripted or transactional. People genuinely seemed happy we were there and genuinely wanted us to have a wonderful time. Our board noticed it too. All weekend I kept hearing stories about this person who had helped someone with something or that person who had gone out of their way to be kind. By the end of the weekend, everyone was raving about the hotel and essentially informing me that we would be returning next year (which is great, because I want that, too!). Apparently the committee has spoken. 😂
And then there is Megan, who worked with me on the group from the beginning. If you have ever planned a group event at a hotel, you know that the person on the other end of those emails can either make you feel like everything is going to be fine or slowly remove years from your life. Megan gave me years BACK. 😂 She was thoughtful, responsive, flexible and incredibly easy to work with from our very first conversation. She understood our group and what I was trying to create for them, made things easy that are so often unnecessarily complicated and somehow never made us feel like we were simply another block of rooms on a spreadsheet. We felt genuinely welcomed and cared for, and as the person ultimately responsible for everyone having a good experience, I cannot adequately explain what a gift that was.
Also super important: the food. The Rowan decided hotel banquet food did not actually have to taste like hotel banquet food, which for anyone who has had to suffer through the usual kind of banquet food hotels force at you generally... that is amazing. We had a banquet lunch on Sunday and I have eaten enough conference meals in my lifetime to know the drill and adjust my expectations accordingly. This was legitimately delicious. People went back for more. People were talking about it afterward. Multiple people were asking if they could get the recipe for the white bean soup. THE WHITE BEAN SOUP. At a hotel banquet. If you have attended enough conferences, you understand how extraordinary this sentence is.
Our executive team also had dinner Friday night at 4 Saints and it was wonderful from beginning to end. The food was beautiful, the staff was attentive and lovely and at some point during dinner the sun began disappearing behind the mountains while we sat high above Palm Springs. Everything outside turned pink and gold for a few minutes and it felt almost otherworldly. It was one of those moments where the setting and the food and the people you are with all come together and suddenly you realize you are going to remember this particular dinner for a very long time.
And I think that is what I loved most about our weekend at the Rowan. Beautiful hotels exist all over the world. Beautiful rooms and great restaurants and spectacular views are wonderful, but ultimately what stays with you is how a place made you feel. Somehow, over the course of a few days, this team made 30 rooms full of people feel like they were genuinely happy we were there. They made my job easier. They gave our board a beautiful place to work and laugh and reconnect and sit under the desert sky together. And when it was time to leave, nobody really wanted to.
I travel a lot and stay in a lot of hotels, and I plan enough of these events to know just how many moving pieces have to come together behind the scenes for an experience to feel effortless. This one did.
The Rowan is special, but the people who work there are what make it extraordinary. We came for a board meeting and left already talking about when we could come back.
Five stars, obviously. And if someone will please send me that white bean soup recipe, maybe six. ❤️
