Prelude: I travel weekly for work, logging well over 100 days of stays between Hilton and Marriott yearly. This is the WORST experience I have ever had at a Hilton. Here are the details.
Wednesday 3/4/26
We checked in for a 5 night stay for a conference. Front desk staff looks and acts bored and bothered. I had to go to an event that required me to put together some last-minute gift baskets so I went to the front desk asking for a sticky note and some tape. They said they had neither. I was kind of incredulous… what front office doesn’t have that? So I asked if maybe they just had some paper I could use to make a note. I get handed a sheet of printer paper. I explain that I need to make a personal note and attach it to a gift basket and do they have scissors I can use? Guy say yes and holds up the scissors. I tell him “Great, I will bring them right back” and he says “Oh no, I can’t let you take them to your room, this is property of the hotel”. WTF ?!? I just ended up going to the dollar store and bought the stuff I needed, annoying but whatever. That evening, I go to use the toilet in the room and noticed there is no soap in the bathroom to wash your hands. Had to go to front desk to get some. Minor annoyance again. Late that night, I notice there are only 2 towels in the bathroom for a room that sleeps 4. Weird. Push back the bed cover and the sheet has a giant brown stain. So tired at this point that I just put a towel over the stain and go to bed, thinking I will deal with it in the morning.
Thursday 3/5/26
Try to make a call requesting a room turn-down for a change of sheets. Phone does not work. Getting ready, wanting to take a shower and wash my hair. Send my teenage son to get some more towels at front desk so I can wrap my hair and he can also use a towel for shower. He returns with a hand towel and a floor mat towel because “that’s what the guy gave me”. I send him back saying I need actual full-size towels, 2 more please. He comes back saying “he won’t give me any more towels until I turn in the ones we soiled first”. Fed up, I walk up there and ask front desk guy what’s up. He claims “We are short of towels”. Seriously ? You are a hotel and you’re short of towels? I curtly tell him he’s going to have to find me one and he mysteriously produces 3 more towels. Back to the room to shower. Bathtub is kind of gross. Get hair all wet and figure out that the wall-attached soap, conditioner and body wash dispensers are all empty. Holler out to my son to please go and get some at the front desk (my bad for not checking before getting in shower) and he comes back saying “they’re out”. Just left shower unwashed and dried off with towels that felt a lot like drying your body with sandpaper.
Finally make it to breakfast. Same-old-same-old reconstituted eggs and sausage and potatoes. Yoghurt is frozen. Load up a plate and notice there are no drinks. Walk out of the breakfast room to see a mini fridge with water bottles and juice bottles, similar to other Hampton Inn Breakfasts. Grab a water bottle and head to sit down in the lobby area and get stopped by the front desk agent telling me “That water bottle costs $2” . Huh? I thought the breakfast was free at Hampton Inns? Yes, apparently not at this one for drinks. So I tell her “Fine , I’m not going to argue over a $2 water bottle, I am going to set my plate down and I’ll put the water back”. She tells me “No, I can’t let you out of my sight while you have this water bottle”. Really? You can’t let me walk over 10 feet to a dining area that is in your full view because I’m going to swipe a $2 water bottle? I ignored her and walked away, set my plate down and put the water bottle back and finished the awful breakfast.
Friday
Since the room came with just one half roll of toilet paper, I walk out in the morning, intending to go to front desk asking for more (shouldn’t have to ask !). Housekeeper and trolley are in my hallway so I ask her to give me one of the toilet paper rolls on her trolley. Answer: “No. Manager does not approve”. Annoying again.
After a full day of team events, get back to hotel around 6 PM. Go to the front desk to tell them that our room wasn’t cleaned today and was told “we clean only every other day”. Okay, but this IS every other day, so what gives? Was told there’re nothing they can do because cleaning crew has left.
We leave the property for a group dinner and return to hotel around 10 PM, exhausted. I go to use the toilet and the whole thing blocks and floods. I go to the front desk to report the issue where I encounter a tall, extremely rude, young male employee who can’t be bothered to be bothered. He tells me “Well, my maintenance crew won’t be here until Monday so I don’t know what to tell you”. I counter “Well, I need a working toilet, so figure something out, can I move to another room?” . He literally tells me “I can just give you a plunger and you can take care of it”. I’m stunned for a moment and then have the wherewithal to play the damsel in distress and tell him I don’t know how to use a plunger. He literally slams his phone on the desk and stomps out with a plunger, I follow him to my room. He plunges the toilet, fine. I try to engage him by asking him why he is so bothered (did I say anything that offended him?) and get told “I’m just tired, and tired of this job, stop reading into it “ (Hello? Stop projecting annoyance at your customers!). Went to bed exhausted again.
Saturday
Woke up to get ready, toilet is not flushing. Not overflowing, just not flushing. Walk up to the front desk to encounter the same lady from check-in, who could not be bothered to smile and wanted to charge me $2 for water bottle. Asked her for some help to fix the toilet. Was told again“maintenance won’t be back til Monday, so I can just give you a plunger”. Told her in no uncertain terms that I don’t plan to work as an impromptu plumber when I pay for a room. Get told that they can only move me to a new room when housekeeping arrives for the day, and I will have to come back to physically check out at that point, which won’t work with our event schedule. At this point, we were so fed up with the rude service and the endless small problems that are completely unnecessary and of their own making, that we ended up removing everything from the room and stored it in our car. I asked for the manager to call me back and she did. She wanted me to tell her everything that went wrong, but honestly, after 3 days of this crap, I didn’t have the energy for it. I told her I would just like her to cancel the remaining two days of our reservation without charge and to her credit, she did. I have never been so relieved to check into a clean, hospitable Marriott nearby that same night. The manager seems like she is trying but honestly, they need to either retrain their current staff or hire new staff, and really invest in this property to make It even close to worthy of the Hilton name.
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