We had a great time on New Years Eve! Fantastic food, great bands and wonderful party favors.

My husband and I live in Marion and like to plan a fun evening for New Year's Eve with our friends each year. This year we decided to stick close to home and what a great decision that turned out to be! Best Western Plus Longbranch Hotel & Convention Center offered an all-inclusive package complete with a hotel room with a view of the pool, dinner for two and free admission to two local bands that were playing at the hotel...we even got cool party favors:) It also included breakfast for two!! We had a wonderful time and none of our friends had to worry about driving.
Because I live where the hotel is- I've never stayed at the hotel before and to my surprise- the rooms were newly remodeled!! It was so nice we're going to rent a couple of rooms for my sons birthday and let the kids enjoy the pool. Many thanks to the wonderful staff at the Best Western Plus Longbranch Hotel & Convention Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa!

The company I work for is headquartered in Cedar Rapids with locations in outside of Iowa. Our anual Christmas Party is held in Cedar Rapids, so many of us travel and stay overnight. This year we stayed at the Longbranch and I must say that it has been our favorite hotel to stay at in Cedar Rapids. The rooms were very comfortable and the beds were very nice - the pillows were the best I have laid my head on in a hotel. What was really outstanding was how nice and quite the hotel was. The staff, beginning with the manager to the cleaning folks were helpful and friendly, always asking if we needed anything. It was really nice to have shuttle service to the company party and back to the hotel. The drivers always had smiles on their faces. The continental breakfast provided in the cost of our room was outstanding! Plenty of good hot food and delicious coffee - the pastry was flaky and fresh - can't say enough about how friendly the staff was that was working in the breakfast area.
I am hoping that we can stay at the Longbranch next year - it has my vote!

The Longbranch hosted our two-day Toastmasters convention in November 2011. It was a nice location for a group of our size-- about 80 people. The staff wasy helpful and accommodating during the planning stages of the event- were very willing to work with us on special setups for displays, seating arrangement, etc. The dining servers were prompt, friendly and attentive.

The nice thing about this convention center is that they have various sizes of meeting rooms, from seating for 25 up to probably 125. In one of the larger rooms there is a nice stage, which was very handy for our speech contests.

The food was tasty and the portion sizes were satisfying. The sleeping rooms were clean and quiet-- ours was close to the convention rooms-- others were farther away in a separate building reached via skywalk. But I think the hotel made great efforts to give our attendees the closer rooms.

There is a nice pool and exercise room, and a substantial breakfast buffet.

My only complaint about this hotel is one I have at many convention sites-- no recycling program. Lots of plastic cups, paper and cardboard in the waste baskets.

So overall, this is a good place to have a small to medium sized convention. You'll have the full attention and assistance of the staff.