Hilton Garden Inn San Jose Airport City Mall — Hotel in Alajuela

I am a Hilton Gold member. My first interactions with Hilton Garden Inn Airport City Mall San Jose Costa Rica started before our arrival. I requested information about the airport shuttle due to arriving in the domestic terminal. It took 4 emails and attempts to connect via Facebook messenger to get a vague message about picking the shuttle up at the hotel shuttle area.

We arrive at the hotel to find the lobby filthy. Rugs stained, couches stained with huge marks, dirty dishes on the lobby table. I attempted to check in and use a Hilton gift card for the stay. I had confirmed in advance that I could use these. The worker had no idea how to use them. The manager, Marlon, was not helpful to him at all. They asked me to step aside and wait for the manager. The manager COMPLETELY ignored us and continued to check in guest after guest. We finally butted in and he refused to problem solve or listen that we had already talked to Camillo about using these gift cards. He did not attempt to ask Camillo, call Hilton…nothing. As Gold members we stay at a lot of Hiltons and did not expect this type of treatment. So much for the Hilton promise. Marlon made us use a credit card and did not offer any assistance whatsoever. He also did not bother to tell us about the free breakfast from having Hilton status or where the pool was.

Once we checked in we were met with a room that was supposed to be quiet and a Mountain View. It overlooked the highway and had a noise that went on all night. The door handle on the both room was SO GROSS! Housekeeping clearly couldn’t have bothered to clean the spot guests touch most. We also had a tv that did not work. Called the front desk and were met with the same “we don’t know how to use the tv.”

This is literally the most poorly run Hilton I have ever stayed at. Their management needs to be retrained. They have no loyalty to guests with status. To make measures worse, in the chaos of check in I left my water bottle. When I went to retrieve it the next morning, I approached the front desk identified that I left my blue water bottle. I was asked my room number to which the worker said that my water bottle was not up there only one from a different room. She didn’t want to give me my used water bottle (half full with liquid) because the worker from the day before put the wrong number on it.

Seriously, heed our warning. Stay elsewhere. There are so many choices by the airport and the management/staff is just awful here.

Last observation, while in line to check in for breakfast a young boy comes down and asks if breakfast is free. He is told yes by the restaurant workers. He, his brother and teenage sister come down about 10-15 minutes later and are then told they need to pay for breakfast! The kids were so disappointed and the worker clearly lied to them to bait them in to purchasing breakfast. Also, another guest came to the front desk and said he was checking out, his coffee maker didn’t work and he was hoping he could get coffee to take from the breakfast. He was told no. He could go back to his room wait up to an hour for maintenance and get his coffee maker fixed.

Awful. Just an awful stay. Awful staff. Awful management. Not worthy of the...

When we have early flights the next morning, we always prefer to stay at the closest hotel inside or next to, the airport. In San Jose there are a few choices, but the Hilton Garden Inn seemed to have the best location, as well as having the nicest design and amenities on offer.||We were spot on with our decision and the hotel itself was more than impressive than we expected. Everything was clean, new, chic and spacious – from the lobby to the rooms to the rooftop pool. Overall, we would say it was perfectly made-for-purpose. ||One of the few things we took issue with was the quality of the food and cocktails. The flatbread pizza and fruit drinks were highly processed and barely resembled what they pretended to be. The manager came to our table to check on things, but because he swaggered around with an uber-‘Tony Soprano’ vibe, we felt quite uncomfortable saying anything. We were worried the understaff would bear the brunt as they scurried around him nervously. It was clearly down to Hilton corporate choices. They definitely need to buy more local product. To be clear, this was the only bad meal or drinks we experienced in Costa Rica and we road tripped around the country for the better part of two weeks. ||We also had a challenge getting news on the TV in our room. They had to send someone up with special codes and passwords that appeared to be a state secret (printed nowhere in the room). After several minutes of this kind lad keying in, the only news option was Fox. Are you kidding me? Most of the planet considers this channel laughable. When we tried to switch to a different station, it kicked us out and asked for the cryptic codes once again. We gave up! Life shouldn’t be that complicated.||Aside from this, the room was lovely and comfortable. The rooftop pool and bar were gorgeous and an amazing bonus. Hence, we’d possibly still recommend it for an early flight, but suggest you eat/drink elsewhere and lower your TV viewing expectations. We’re booked in the HGIA in London, in a few months and hoping...

BEWARE – housekeeping staff at this hotel will steal from you. When reported, hotel management will say they “investigated” but do nothing, not even send home the staff that was reported as stealing while they investigate the claim.

We had $40 cash taken from a zippered/closed pocket in a backpack that we didn’t touch for 24 hours; the only time we weren’t with our bag or had people other than us in our room was the 1-hour we left to the mall to let a housekeeper clean our room. We stayed several nights and we only had housekeeping in our room ONCE, the other days we always had our room locked and the do not disturb sign on our door. That one time was when something went missing! We reported the incident immediately upon returning to our room, noticing our backpack pocket was now unzipped. Security / management said they reviewed the cameras and didn’t see anyone but that one housekeeper entering our room. They said they “investigated” our claim but came up with nothing and did absolutely nothing. So the housekeeping staff who steal are still employed there!

The other reviews that say reception staff are rude are also accurate — two of the ladies I interacted with during our stay were unfriendly and one was even quite rude one morning. If you read the Hotel’s responses to those reviews here, they all say that they talked to the staff and the staff say they didn’t act that way. They will take the word of the staff over their Hilton guests, even if those guests are Gold or Diamond statuses. They will not do anything even if staff are officially reported as rude or thieves! To be honest, the reception staff look miserable to be there every day — the hotel management must be terrible to have created an environment as toxic as this.

I have been a Hilton member for years and have stayed in many hotels in the Hilton group all over the world, this experience was the worst. I would never stay here again unless absolutely necessary and there was no other option...