Hilton Beachfront Resort and Spa Hilton Head Island — Attraction in Hilton Head Island

f there were an award for “Most Inept Hotel on Earth,” this place would be in the running. From the moment I arrived, it was clear that absolutely nothing here functions—not the key cards (which required 2 trips back to the desk), not the phones (never could get through so it required walking back to the desk each time for anything), and certainly not the staff, who seem to have been trained exclusively by watching outdated sitcoms about bad service.

While at the pool bar one day we ordered lunch, In particular I ordered the Cali chicken sandwich. The sandwich advertised as a fresh piece of grilled with bacon, cheese, avocado, lettuce, and tomato. What came out was an absolute abomination. I was served one fried chicken finger on a bun with cheese and bacon, no avocado, and one piece of lettuce. The fries were cold and could break teeth, but because the wait was 40 minutes, it had to suffice,

When attempting to order room service one night. I called guest services & room service no less than 30 times simply to get a busy signal every time, when I went to the front desk to inquire if there’s an issue, the gentleman told me I could simply order online so I pulled out my iPad and showed him where I had the menu pulled up and asked him to show me how to order, shockingly you can’t do that. I will give credit to the other clerk who called room service and let me speak with them from the front desk. Also our room had not been cleaned and I was told someone had asked it not to be, another fabrication.

We reserved pool cabanas for 4 days, I physically went w/ the assistant to pick out the chairs, gave her my name and room number & told her the dates we needed them. To my surprise at the time when I arrived at our chairs on day 3, someone else was already there and they told me they had no record of me reserving the chairs. After finding someone competent enough to help me and they were able to find chars for the 4th day, but not the 3rd day, but unfortunately day 4 was rain.

Our last evening, the toilet had overflowed, I put down every towel that we had & shut off the water. This was at 5:30 PM and I went to the lobby and reported it and asked that it be fixed and be given some new towels. When returning to our room after a night of dinner with friends and a nightcap in the hotel bar, our return to a room we had 3 new towels, the soaking wet towels still on the floor and the toilet, not fixed. This was almost 6 hours after it was reported in person with every detail. Most, if not all of the staff are very nice people, but it’s evident that ownership has invested zero dollars in REAL training. Another example: we ordered a $135 bottle of wine from the bar, the very nice but ultra undertrained bartender broke the cork (it happens) and then proceeded to try and put an air stopper in the bottle after he served it, which is the exact opposite of what you would do - a little bit of training would go in a long way.

Ownership/Management here deserves special mention. Their approach to customer complaints seems to be a mix of vacant nodding and the occasional shrugs. No apology, no urgency, and certainly no solutions—just a glazed look as if you’d interrupted their day by expecting the basics of hospitality. The staff at times seem bewildered by even the simplest requests, as if asking for a working room key or a clean towel is some kind of exotic luxury. Ownership is either absent or willfully ignoring the chaos. This isn’t hospitality—it’s a live demonstration of how quickly a business can rot when nobody cares. This could be a fantastic property—if ownership actually cared. The location is superb, the bones of the building are solid, but everything else is suspect at best with seemingly no one at the helm. Makes you wonder if Marriott pulled their flag a few years ago.

It’s not just neglect—it’s the slow, visible decay that happens when ownership checks out long before the guests do. With competent leadership and basic attention to detail, this place could shine. Instead, it’s a cautionary tale in missed...

My wife and I are business owners. We receive millions of American Express points every year. We use them for airfare and hotel stays. We transfer our points to hotel chains. In the past we have stayed at Hilton affiliated hotels, but this was our first trip to Hilton Head to stay at the Hilton Beachfront Hotel and Resort. We found a run-down old Mariott rebadged as a Hilton. Even worse was the staff and how they treated us on our special trip. We arrived at 4pm and were sent to a room we selected, with a partial ocean view. The air conditioning was broken and the room was 80 degrees. We called the front desk and a maintenance worker was sent to our room. The worker stated “They know the AC does not work in this room and its not supposed to be booked”. We return to the front desk and met with Vijay who at first introduced himself as “the manager” but later changed his title to Front Desk Manager. Wearing no name tag I had no choice but to deal with him and his rotating titles. Vijay decided to tell me he was named after his father’s favorite movie star in Mumbai India, as sort of an introduction. Then he said “ I have no rooms left for you”. I explained this was a celebration of our anniversary and my wife’s birthday and reserved weeks earlier. Vijay smirked at me, smugly. I watched others checking in and asked why their reservations were available to them, and we were left waiting in the lobby. “We have to make money too”, Vijay commented. This is an obvious dig at our stay being a rewards points stay. Then as I walked away a front desk clerk asked Vijay what was happening and I heard him say “white people problems”. Finally around 6pm we were given a room over a roof view. Small and difficult to get to for two senior citizens, the room was not what we had reserved. Vijay did not make any accommodation for the smaller room with no view. From that point further Vijay was nowhere to be found. As we navigated to our room off the beaten path through the hotels underbelly, we saw black mold and leaks on the ceilings. The small room was very worn down. There were several substandard repairs. The next day we were moved to a more appropriate room on an upper floor. The bellman lost several of my wife’s hats enroute to our room. We told the bell captain, but none of her hats were found. They were souvenirs of past trips and she enjoyed having them to wear. They were now gone with no excuse. On our second day we interacted with the 90% foreign staff that spoke hardly any English. Nobody could give directions or advice on enjoying our stay. Disabled parking was hundreds of yards away, as the other disabled spots near the entrance were filled by shuttle busses and non guest vehicles. Not a one had a disabled placard. The food quality on the property was awful. No server could speak enough English to understand the meaning of Chardonnay. We could not request anything, due to the language barrier. We dined elsewhere and had to walk in a dark scary parking lot far far away after dinner. We could not use the valet parking due to my vehicles handicap controls. All in all this property is below Hiltons standards. Dirty, poorly staffed and unfriendly. The big surprise came at the end of my trip to find out the hotel charged me $300 for my stay which was paid entirely by reward points. This is against Hiltons rules, as you see on their website. In closing I advise you to choose another resort when on Hilton Head Island. Vijay at the Hilton Beachfront Hotel and Spa have nothing but contempt for their guests and the hotel is a dirty...

We stayed here from April 9th-13th. My first vacation out of state with my fiancé and our twin boys and I’m pretty dissatisfied with our stay and the follow up about our stay. The property is beautiful, but so is everything else in Hilton Head so that’s not really something that stands out. The app would not work more times than I could count, the elevators were down, out of three they only had one working for some time and then thank goodness they got a second one going. We were on the 8th floor, it was a hassle with our boys using the elevators. The room was okay, way less extravagant than expected from what is advertised online. Very basic. Our TV had a big line down the middle of it. No microwaves in the room. The coffee pot would only work half the time. The vending machines were messed up, we pressed water and gave us a Mountain Dew. Pressed Coke and gave us Ginger Ale. That was annoying. We asked twice for no room service, even went down to the desk and requested nobody come into our room and they ignored our request. Every time we would leave they would come in our room. That was frustrating. We went down to check out the breakfast buffet that they offer and that was a joke. Almost $30 a person for their buffet that’s no different than what you get for FREE at any other hotel I’ve ever stayed at. Their parking is horrible. We actually totaled our vehicle. The parking garage is complete ass. Would have loved to park in the parking lot but the entire time there was no spots available. The amount of times you can visibly see that people have hit this half wall by the literal chunks of concrete missing, because this half wall is in such a blind spot, you would think they would fix it or do something about an obvious problem but they’re only “attempt” was to put some sort of barrier on the wall but even that was torn to shreds. I’ve never been to a hotel that charges you $15 a day to park yourself let alone not use that money to fix their parking garage. While in the midst of packing our suitcases and getting ready to leave back to Michigan I get a random charge on my card for $106.43 from Hilton I didn’t realize until getting home. My experience following up with my stay is even less impressive. Called the first time and when I was supposed to get transferred to a manager the call disconnected, called back two more times and didn’t get an answer, on the fourth call everything went automated until I started pressing a bunch of buttons and then it started ringing. Got connected with another woman who transferred me back to the first woman I spoke to. When finally getting the chance to speak with someone else about the charge on my card to no surprise they didn’t know what I was talking about. When I had expressed my concerns about the hotel that I stated above the response I got was “we’re sorry to hear about that ma’am” in the most unapologetic, monotone voice. It’s so obvious that they don’t care about their guests, and being a Hilton Resort they should hold themselves to a much higher standard. It truly is a damn shame. We have a trip already planned to come back to HHI in the near future because everything else we got to experience was absolutely phenomenal, but we will never be returning to this hotel and I do not recommend anyone to stay here. Take your business elsewhere to a place that genuinely...