DoubleTree by Hilton Lincoln — Hotel in Lincoln

Buyer beware, especially if booking a Twin room

(My rating for this review specifically relates to booking a Twin room & only 1 breakfast being included).

I’m someone who regularly goes away for weekends with friends so I often book Twin rooms at hotels. I have never had an experience whereby a Twin room does not automatically include breakfast for 2 people.

I booked a Twin room (no 108) recently at this hotel as we wanted to visit Lincoln, particularly to visit the Bransby Horses (rescue charity). I checked in with my friend. We stayed 3 nights so 3 mornings we had breakfast, which was supposed to be included in the rate. Every morning when we went to breakfast, the staff couldn’t seem to find us/our room on the Breakfasts Registration sheet. The staff were very nice (special mention of Jane who was excellent) but, for some reason, no explanation seemed to be able to be found as to why we weren’t on the list. In any event, we were waved through & told it wasn’t a problem. At no time was I informed only 1 breakfast was included in my booking rate. At no time was I asked to sign an authorisation for a 2nd breakfast.

When we checked out, I was not shown the bill or given a copy. I was just told that it had been emailed to me & the amount taken automatically off my card.

It was only when I checked my email a couple of days later, that I saw the room rate was stated as £20 more a night than my original confirmation as I had been charged separately for my friend’s breakfast on top of the room rate.

Most hotels where I have booked a Twin room don’t even ask how many people in the room or confirmation of my friends name. It is just a ‘given’ that there will be two people in a Twin room who will require breakfast.

After several calls and emails with Hilton Honors and totally inadequate response from the hotel manager, I will not be using Hilton Hotels again under any circumstances. (I was promised a call back by Hilton Honors but never heard anything. I have asked them to close my account).

Some good points about the hotel. Great location for centre of Lincoln and lots of restaurants on the Marina, including a good independent Thai and Wagamamas.

Top floor bar very nice with great attentive staff (Josh). Nice cocktails & very reasonably priced (I’m used to prices in the South East).

All staff I had dealings with during our stay were all very pleasant and helpful.

Bad points. I can only suggest they upgrade their toilet seats asap. The ones they have are cheap and you basically fall off them. First time, fair play they replaced the seat within a couple of hours. When it happened again the next day, we sort of gave up. In a 4* star hotel, they should at least have decent (soft closing), secure toilet seats.

Room lighting. It was like being in a black hole. Unfortunately, this seems to be quite common with hotel rooms these days ie no ceiling lights. It was really poor/dim and not much better in the bathroom either for putting on make up etc

Corridor carpet needs replacing, very stained in places. Also, very odd smell in the corridor. Can’t really put my finger on it. Couldn’t decide if it was drains or something coming from the kitchen & through the air vents. The level of it was intermittent whereby sometimes it was worse than others but it’s definitely an issue.

Restaurant very meat based so we didn’t eat there as I’m vegetarian. Also to use someone like Marco Pierre White is a mistake in my view as divisive because he’s very much a love him or hate him guy & I’m definitely in the latter category. To have to look at a big picture of him on the wall when I was having breakfast was disappointing!

An important note re-breakfast:- They have placed the bacon & sausage in the same area as the hashbrowns and tomatoes with one pair of tong for everything. As a vegetarian, I used a fork to pick up my hashbrowns/tomatoes. These items should be in separate areas to avoid cross...

We booked the Double Tree for a stay in Lincoln while I competed in a sporting event. My team stayed at the Holiday Inn next door but we thought we’d pay a bit extra for the comfort.

We booked 2 night in a twin superior room. The hotel was pretty booked up but we hoped to upgrade once we arrived.

Upon arrival we parked at a local car park and walked round. We asked about parking but the hotel staff recommended the place we were already parked (then proceeded to charge us for parking anyway).

We asked about getting an upgrade but as there was a wedding booked there wasn’t any available (fair enough). We arrived at about 2pm so they set about finding us a room.

The room seemed fine, a bit basic for the price but I’m not a fussy person.

We went out for food and arrived back at about 10pm to get some rest before my event.

As we walked down the corridor towards our room (3rd floor) there was increasingly loud music. The music was even louder once we got into our room. They had mentioned there was a wedding party. They had, however, failed to mention the wedding party was above our room.

The bass was so loud that the walls and ceiling of our room shook. Now, we’re both laid back people so we tried watching some tv, but the music was so loud we couldn’t hear over it. There was no chance of sleeping through it.

We went down to speak to the manager, he was apologetic, said we should have been told and that the music would finish at 12 (which wasn’t ideal).

We walked around a while and came back about 12 at which time the music stopped, there was still some noise while they cleared up but by about 12:30 it was okay.

In the morning we went to see the manager. We were told by the night manager that he would inform them of the situation and they would resolve in the morning.

Perhaps unsurprising the day manager had no idea about the situation. She was quick to offer us a small refund. We were supposed to stay another night but as she was offering us free parking (this is where we realised they’d charged us), free breakfast (to share with the wedding revellers) and a slight discount off our second night.

We didn’t want to stay another night, this was the worst hotel experience I’ve ever had, and I’ve travelled widely.

Anyway they refunded us, as we were heading out my phone buzzed. Doubletree had charged an extra £60 to my account.

We went back to ask and they claimed they overrefunded me, then charged the difference.

The refund has just come in and it was just the refund for 1 night, not including the extra £60 or the parking refund.

Also, I’m not fussy but there was blood stains on the sheets and sh*t stains on one of the towels.

Avoid...

NYE event wasnt great. Really unorganised.

Edited after reply:

Only bottled beer available. Fridge had broken so the beer was warm. The bar person offered no resolution for this I.e. get another fridge from another area of the hotel etc. Very unhelpful. Had to request a bucket of ice for the beer. This was not resolved at any point of the night. And the beer wasnt cheap!!! Diet coke was warm and flat, again no resolution for this offered.

Who puts Rosemary on Beef?!!! Food was cold, sent it back, came back cold still. Young lad in charge of organising food distribution etc wasnt very organised. Kept sending food to different ends of the room meaning one person had food and the rest were waiting 10 minutes for theirs.

The food wasnt finished being served until 11.30pm. Giving half an hour to dance or whatever before midnight. Then we had to be out of the room by between 1 and 2. So all in all approx 2 hours to celebrate NYE.

The dance floor was very small, not big enough for the amount of people there. It was also wet. Many people slipped when either dancing or walking over it.

The ribbon decorations on the back of the chairs were quite badly done, loose enough to come undo and fall on the floor, again causing people to trip and slip, including one of the managers.

Toilet was blocked when we arrived to the room, we was asked to wait in for someone to come and look at it, this was after checking in on arrival, the room wasnt ready so we walked around the town for a few hours, for us then to arrive back and the room still not be ready for another 20-30 minutes.

Carpets in the corridor need a really good clean, so many stains on them.

When we checked out the next day there were quite a number of people complaining and complained on the night. Lady on reception wrote down our issues on a peice of paper which already had a number of complaints on it. We were promised an email never received so we had to go through the website. We did this the first week of Jan, manager has been very helpful and arranged refund which we were not expecting and were grateful for but it is now the 2nd week of feb and we haven't yet received...