Hilton Alexandria Mark Center — Attraction in Alexandria

We were there for 4 days during a major event, there are some things to be mentioned. Positive: Rooms were clean, beds were good, room service was great, water ran hot, handicap parking was available, breakfast service was good, breakfast food was good. Negative: at least 2 out of 4 elevators were not working, mainly only 1 elevator was running. with 30 floors and at least 1 ongoing large event that is horrible, we had to wait multiple times 10min+ before an elevator finally came and/ or was available. As we had a competition event it made it impossible for any of us to get back to our room in between the competition as we would not get back in time. Negative: the service at the bar/ restaurant was non-existent. it was empty when we all got there and set down, the 1 server brought us menus and NEVER came back to take our drink order or food order. After 45 minutes I left. The first time it took over 40 minutes to get her to come back to the table to even take my order. Never got a refill on my drink. The second day she never came back. There were 12 of us the 2nd time and 8 the first time. According to others this happened multiple times (I only went twice to the restaurant part). Negative: the WIFI service was non-existent and the data service appeared to be blocked and/or hindered. Generally it was impossible to send pictures, even messages were strongly delayed to get through. Calls were a hit or miss and only worked when outside. This happened to everyone w multiple service providers and even the event coordinator. This should NOT happen. Negative: we had lunch and dinner booked for 1 day of the event. As we were in a competition we were not able to all eat at the same time. dinner was scheduled for 4:15pm - 6pm however most of us could not start eating until 5pm or after. By 5:40pm we were asked to leave the room for preparation of the evening program part, we were not done eating, some of us had not even gotten their food, when we returned food and drinks were gone/ removed not only from the room but also from our tables. Baseline we paid for food we couldnt start/ finish and for many of us this was the only food we had all day w the event starting at 7am. There were also absolutely no drinks served w dinner, no sodas, no sweet tea/ unsweet tea no cold water. For a short while there was a coffee station and hot water station however this too was removed. Negative: it appeared there was no ice available in the hotel. The icemachines were primarily NOT working. we had to go check 5 icemachines on 5 different floors (remember the elevator issue) and finally on the 30`s floor we got literally 2 cups of ice out of 1 machine. Despite staff sending us to specific floors the icemachines did not work, were not even connected, did not produce ice. etc etc..when we asked for ice at the bar we were told it had just been thrown out for the evening and they had none! This is a HILTON - the price is hefty. I do expect the basic things to work and to be available especially when we are there for 4 days!!! For the money spent it was...

Just book with another company. This is the 3rd strike with a Hilton hotel- I'm not sure why I let it get to 3. For starters, the price is above many in the area- but it was as expected for a "4 starters hotel". You pay $33/ day to park in a lot that is NOT just reserved for guests and is a good walk to get to the elevators (upper lot is hardly lit- lower lots are well lit.). I was not expecting to trek a mile with my luggage from the lot(as theres no bell hop). I waited a good 30 min to get parking when they hosted an event here- again, paying 33 for this crap. At least discount your guests. There's no sinage on where the front desk is. Once I found it the receptionist was practically whispering- I have no hearing problems but literally had to lean my ear to her for her to tell me something about the room and parking. I guess she was nice- couldn't hear her. Get to the elevator and the lights and buzzer are not working, so you must step back and wait for the doors to just open for you to know. The room itself looked okay, the view was nice. The hallway was more updated than the room. No smart TV, no easy to access outlets near the bed- had to reach behind the bed, no microwave, bottled water, toothbrush, toothpaste. They had the thinnest toilet paper and had no bags in their trash cans.This room was supposed to be accessible, yet the accessible shower head did not work. You have to spin the shower dial almost as far left as it will go to get any sense of hot water. The chain lock is on the door but does not work- so take it off! The bed and pillows were not comfortable. My fridge didn't work and melted the icecream I bought :/ - but they were pretty quick to change the fridge out &the maintainence man was nice. The best part of this whole experience was that I kept the "do not disturb" sign on my door the entire stay, and when the maintenence man came to change the fridge, he had the front call me, rather than knock- he truly respected the sign. The pool looked all wrapped up with chairs stacked up and not maintained- they also needed a good foot and a half of water put in that thing. Upon checkout, you have to lug all of your things back across the building, to the lot, to use your keycard to exit, then drive to the front to return the keys. The lower level handicap button did not open the door (which i found out with all of my things in my arms) To top it all off, i drive around to drop the key off, and the receptionist seemed to be on a meeting- no greeting, smile, anything. Finally she acknowledged that i needed something and simply said "hello" in such an emotionless way. I nicely explained i was there to check out and handed her the keys. She said nothing. Not a thank you, hope you enjoyed your stay, NOTHING. I didn't want to inconvenience her any more by asking her to do her job and print out a receipt- so I just left.

Overall, don't waste your time or money here. I would never come back.

Btw-Rather than the owner commenting on all of these posts, actually take the feedback into consideration and...

We stayed at the Hilton Mark Center for a convention last week. We arrived on Saturday afternoon, checking in before many of the other attendees flew in. Our check in was quick, and we were happy with the process. My husband and I had requested a king bed, and our room had Lucy and Ricky beds (two double beds) so in the evening we went down to the front desk and asked if we could switch to a room with a king bed. It was incredibly busy, but we were told to come back down on Sunday after about 11:30 am to see what the had available after other folks had checked out. I went down about that time and they still didn't have one, but they said to come back later and they should have one. I waited a couple of hours and Diana said they had one that she thought that we would like, gave me the key cards so I could go ahead and move rooms. The new room was a couple of levels higher (26th floor) and in a great spot away from the elevators (our Lucy and Ricky room was right in front of the elevators and kids on field trips were really loud until wee hours) and I was SO SURPRISED to open the door to our new room and she had upgraded us to a huge suite! It was a lovely room with a huge living room, bedroom and massive panoramic windows with a great view.

The upgrade proved very helpful to our convention as we were able to conduct Zoom calls with 5-6 of our chapter's members in our suite with room to spare. It turned out to be great in that way, and much appreciated.

I did get the impression that the hotel was extremely busy due to multiple conventions overlapping and many people to accommodate. I have found this to be true around the country as we are moving back to business as usual after Covid. It's going to take awhile for everything to get back up to speed. I felt that this was most obvious in the housekeeping staff, that there might be some staffing issues. This is happening everywhere, and all of our needs were happily and promptly met to the best of their abilities. All in all it was a wonderful experience, and I want to single out Diana for her going above and beyond for us. It was so...