Kimpton Journeyman Hotel Reviews

The entire event was beyond awesome from the smallest detail to the overall experience. We could not be more than impressed and you exceeded all of our expectations!
You guys get A++++
Everyone commented on how wonderful was the venue, table arrangements and service. We thought as did everyone that the food was absolutely fantastic. My Mom who is a world class Condé Nast travel agent who has been to all 7 continents etc was really impressed. She frequently dines at Chicago’s best restaurant and she is not easily impressed. She thought the food, wine, service as venue were outstanding as did everyone else.
We are so very thrilled that we chose the Klimpton Journeyman hotel for our wedding celebration and will recommend to anyone and all!!
5 Stars!!
Pam and Bob
262-893-3089.

Sent from my iPhone

My fiancee and I were planning on having a very very small wedding since I am from Mexico and he is from WI. When we reached out to the Journeyman hotel, they gave us all the options to accommodate our "small" wedding that ended up in 25 people (we were literally planning to elope or just invite our parents). We had the greatest time ever, the prices were accessible, they were responsive anytime and helped us a lot to make our wedding day the most amazing day of our lives. I am so glad we found this spot and honestly if I go back in time and could change anything, I still wouldn't change a thing. Thank you to all the team for the effort!! specially to Liz.

Liz Shipe at the Journeyman hotel was an absolute joy to work with. She was super responsive and went above and beyond to help us plan our wedding in a month. The planning could have been very stressful in such a short space of time; but Liz ensured everything was easy and seamless. She helped us make every decision and was very accommodating. Everything was absolutely perfect on the day. The service of the entire team was first class, food was delicious and the entire set up was beautiful. We really appreciated (and didn’t expect) the extra little things from Liz that helped to make our day so special. Photos from Ashley Durham photography. Flowers from Vicki at LaTulipe.

We booked our rooming block through The Kimpton Journeyman, and were so pleased with our experience. The hotel offered a beautiful location and special spot for our out of town guests, many of whom weren't from the midwest, to experience Milwaukee. We booked the suite for ourselves, and were so thrilled with the beautiful accommodations and resort - style experience of the room. Adam was our point of contact for the rooming block, and was so easy and wonderful to work with. He helped us coordinate a welcome drinks event at the rooftop bar the night before our wedding, and even helped my mom when she had some specific rooming requests. The whole weekend, the staff was so welcoming and kind - helping us with our luggage, and working with use when it came to vendors coming and going from the hotel on the day of. I can't recommend The Journeyman enough if you are looking for a memorable spot to stay for your wedding weekend in downtown Milwaukee.

Wonderful hotel. We blocked rooms here for our wedding and it was the best decision we made. The staff was so wonderful to work with, from managing our hotel block to being so attentive and kind the weekend of the wedding, everything was perfect. We also held a private brunch in one of their event spaces and received so many compliments. Would highly recommend this hotel to anyone and excited to stay at more Kimptons in the future!

We got married at the Kimpton on October 20, 2018. Jaqlyn was our main point of contact and she was incredible. She was organized, responsive, kind and exceedingly helpful. The food and service was great. I would highly recommend to anyone wanting a Milwaukee wedding!!!

When this hotel opened up last summer we KNEW we wanted our wedding guests to stay here after our wedding (@ The Pritzlaff). After getting a block of rooms set-up (with the WONDERFUL Allyson) we began thinking about our rehearsal dinner and since we were staying at the hotel on Friday night anyways and their food is amazing we decided what the hell and hosted our rehearsal dinner in their venue space on the rooftop. Throughout the entire process The Kimpton was incredible to work with, answered all of our questions, were up-front about everything and left us with NO surprises. Come our rehearsal dinner the space was set-up beautifully, bar tender AMAZING (even knowing when to secretly cut one of our guests off without them even noticing because he had too much to drink), and the food was to-dive for. Please do yourself a favor and get the mashed potato bar! The space itself is gorgeous too. Later we headed back to our rooms and those were more than we expected as well — beautifully designed, fresh and clean. The morning of our wedding we were greeted with sweet treats and were checked on throughout the morning by the staff as we were getting ready to be sure we had everything we needed — they even brought up a high stool from the bar so our make-up artist and videographer could work easier.. I mean come on hospitality at its finest. I can’t wait for an excuse to stay here again soon because it was everything we could have imagined and more. Thank you for being apart of our special weekend and making all of our guest feel at home.

We had our wedding reception here a few weeks ago and man is this hotel just GORGEOUS! It’s a little bit more on the expensive side but you definitely get the quality that comes with it! Super dog friendly!! We had our dog as our ring bearer and the hotel has a dog bowl in every room. They made our time even more special by having painting done of him and leaving him treats and a bow tie with customized name tag! Such a special touch!

Food was absolutely amazing! Definitely not your typical wedding food! Such high quality dishes leaving you wanting more!

Had lots of changes with point of contacts due to COVID but everything ended up working out!

Only thing we wished they would have had would be some sort of shuttle service offered to help get guests to and from the ceremony.

Great hotel! Will definitely be staying here again in the future!

My husband and I hesitated to write this review following our wedding at the Kimpton Journeyman Hotel this fall. So much of our wedding day was wonderful, but looking back on everything it’s difficult to look past some serious communication failures that made getting to our big day stressful and confusing.


First the good: the venue itself is beautiful and the Founders Terrace offers wonderful views of downtown Milwaukee, including Lake Michigan and the Hoan Bridge. We had a small wedding (20 people) so we rented the Founders room for a seated dinner and the adjacent private rooftop area for our ceremony and cocktail hour. Both were perfect for our celebration and had plenty of space and seating areas for mingling. We ultimately arranged a custom bar menu, which we were excited the venue accommodated. The bartender assigned to our event (Juan) was beyond amazing, as was the Beverage Director (whose name I can’t remember) who was delightful and floated in and out to ensure things were going smoothly. Really everyone we encountered the night of our wedding was wonderful!


Now the not-so-good: While the day-of experience went well and more-or-less to plan, communication leading up to the event was a bit of a mess and really marred what would have otherwise been a great overall experience. I’m generally inclined to focus on the positives and the fact that our wedding day was beautiful, however communication with the Event Coordinator was so comically bad/non-existent we want to caution couples who may be considering this venue based primarily on reviews and offer a counterbalance to the very positive reviews that we read about the venue (and that helped sway us to select the Journeyman despite a high minimum spend requirement).


When emailing the Event Coordinator, it took an extended period (and generally a reminder email) before we’d get a response. We didn’t want to nag, but once two weeks passed we felt it was reasonable to flag the original message and ask if she had an answer to our question. On more than one occasion the response was that the Journeyman was hosting a ton of weddings and that she was swamped. We understood this, and tried to give her the benefit of the doubt since we know the wedding industry is ridiculously busy right now. But it got to the point that it was early October (the month of our wedding) and we were still trying to confirm items that we began discussing in July. As an additional complication that worked against us in this particular case: we were an out-of-town couple – we ultimately flew to Milwaukee in September to meet with the Event Coordinator in person with the hope of being able to iron out details that we just couldn’t get moved forward via email. She was very nice in person and we left no longer worried that we were going to be ghosted by our wedding venue, but then we didn’t receive any follow up on the items she said she would send us for more than two weeks (and only after we inquired again and said we were really stressed because we hadn’t so much as gotten an email confirming that she received our message in weeks). Ultimately this led to a flurry of activity the week before our wedding as she started confirming details.


We understand that this is OUR special day and that it doesn’t have the same weight for vendors and others involved in coordinating, however we really felt like an afterthought throughout the entire process of coordinating the event at the Journeyman. This feeling is amplified even more when I re-read reviews here that rave about the same Event Coordinator. It’s clear that she has provided amazing customer service to others and that lack of communication is not always an issue. This just means we’re left wondering why others received this level of service and we did not.


Beyond the communication issues with the Event Coordinator, we also encountered problems when we tried booking a room for the night before our wedding (we received a comped hotel room the evening of our wedding with no guarantee the room would be ready in time to use at 3pm so we paid to get the room the night before to make sure there was a room for me to quickly put on my dress). After being told that the hotel was fully booked and that we’d need to call back each week to see if any rooms became available (which we did all summer), we inquired at the hotel when we happened to be there in person to meet with the Event Coordinator. The staff at the front desk were super helpful and noted that Kimpton had been experiencing some sort of booking issue, but got us the room without any problem.


Overall I think our biggest takeaways from this experience are: 1) the venue was probably hosting more weddings/events than their staff could stay on top of with the intense return of weddings following the pandemic disruption in 2020-2021, and 2) we should have tried involving someone else at the hotel and not limped along to the finish line worried we might not actually have a ceremony/dinner/drinks. It might not have helped, but it probably wouldn’t have made the situation worse.


A final important footnote to round out this review: we emailed the Event Coordinator about our final bill shortly after the wedding and received an auto reply that she was no longer at the Kimpton Journeyman Hotel.


If you’re considering the Kimpton Journeyman Hotel for a wedding, proceed with caution. It’s a beautiful venue in a nice location with good food and drink options. Communication might be great, or it might be nonexistent and make confirming important details (dinner menu, bar, etc.) stressful and very difficult at times. With the communication issues we experienced and separate difficulties booking a room at the hotel via telephone, it’s clear the hotel was experiencing some challenges in summer/fall 2022. Extend grace knowing that the wedding industry is super busy right now and venues are struggling to stay on top of things sometimes, but know going in that you may not have the super positive experience many other couples detailed in their reviews on this website and elsewhere. In the end we don’t regret having used the venue because the space is beautiful and everyone at the hotel that night was superb. As an out-of-town couple, however, we would have continued our wedding venue search if there had been any indication that communication would be as difficult as it was (especially at this price point).