DoubleTree by Hilton Newcastle International Airport — Hotel in Newcastle upon Tyne

Room : The desk area was dusty and had a few hand prints. The sink area had dried water marks all over the top. The small shower head shot a jet of water out of the joint between the head and the hose. The ventilation system was noisy and ran all night even though the control panel in the room was switched off.

Reception : All four interactions over my visit was with the same female staff member. She didn’t wear a name badge like everyone else. The most contemptuous, apathetic person I have ever met. She offered no information without me having to ask. Simple things on check in like, where the lifts were, where the restaurant was or what time breakfast was served. This is the type of information that is automatically offered by reception desks at all other hotels I stay at. She offered none of this.

Restaurant : On the first morning, the sausages were over cooked to the point of being burnt. There was no orange juice and when I enquired, the waitress snapped “I’m just getting it, ok”. The chef must have thought he was at a karaoke, singing along loudly to the radio so the whole restaurant could hear. Not professional. The second morning I, and two other guests waited over five minutes to be shown to a table as the waitresses were too busy chatting along with the chef to notice anyone waiting. No sign of apology from them. Again, the food was mediocre at best.

Housekeeping staff : On check out, I was leaving early to get to Manchester for a meeting. When I got to my car, I noticed a red Honda Civic was parked in an area of the car park that was not a designated parking space. Although I tried, there was no possibility of me being able to reverse my car out of my parking space. All cars in the car park were covered in morning dew except for this Honda Civic, which was completely clear. I guessed that it may belong to a staff member who had recently arrived for work. I therefore returned to reception and asked if this was maybe a staff members car. The same female as mentioned previously said “definitely not, I’ll confirm with Housekeeping”. It transpired that it was a member of staff and 15 minutes later a young female moved her car to the lower car park where there were an abundance of available spaces. As she was reversing, I approached and asked her name. I told her that I thought it was appalling that she has parked in such an inconsiderate manner to block me in, completely thoughtless and selfish”. Her response was “Who the f**k do you think you are talking to”. At that point I left in disgust. This whole episode and delay made me late for my meeting.

I have been visiting Newcastle quite frequently over the last few months and this will continue over the next couple of years whilst working on a large infrastructure project. I have been staying at the Hampton in the city centre beside the railway station but on this occasion, I decided to try the Doubletree, expecting a slightly higher quality experience. I can honestly say that the Hampton outshines this Doubletree hotel by a long, long way. I have stayed in many hotels all over the UK in the last 4 years in my current job, mostly preferring the Hilton group. My stay in your hotel is the worst I have ever experienced and is an embarrassment to the...

As a Hilton Diamond member, this is a difficult assessment for me.

Hotels everywhere are stretched thin. Many of their staff were furloughed or released many months ago. Now, the properties are reaching capacity almost every night with guests who are travelling for the first time in well over a year; and the hotels can't re-staff quickly enough to properly serve their demands.

This particular Doubletree is very under-staffed due to COVID and the staff that are there are working extremely hard and impossible hours. Jessica and Kyrissa at the desk, along with Karen and Angie in the restaurant should be given commendation medals for going well-beyond the normal levels of service, and doing so all the while with smiles. However, as a Diamond member, I have to evaluate my experience vs. "the normal" and this property still has quite a ways to go before returning to normal. For example, because we would be quarantining for 7 nights, I provided explicit expectations for my room, to include top floor corner, away from lifts with lots of light and the best view possible. The room I was given could not have been more to the contrary. It was a lower room, as dark as it could be, with only one very small window looking out at a wall. At least I think it was a wall, as we truly could not see out of it. The window looked like it had never been washed. However, at 7:00 am, the next morning, Jessica had an ideal room available for us and we switched rooms immediately. Which begs the question, if the room was clean and available at 7:00 am in the morning, why wasn't it available the evening before?

When we arrived, the two staff working at the tiny registration desk were overwhelmed by the large number of people attempting to register. The person checking me in did not have time to be cordial and was very abrupt. I asked for a Diamond upgrade if available, and was told that I had been given an upgrade. That was false, as the room was as unwelcoming as it could be and the polar opposite of what was expected. This was corrected at 7:00 am the next morning by Jessica, and we were moved into an excellent room by 8:30 am, where we would spend the next 6 nights.

Would i stay here again? Absolutely, and hopefully I will some day in the future when COVID is well...

First things first, the bed was amazingly comfortable, probably the best night’s sleep I’ve had in a hotel. Also, the room was spotlessly clean. ||However, there were some issues with our stay. Whilst the digital key was great and worked well, walking in to a strange, dark hotel room with no key card to put in the light slot meant that we had to fumble around with our phone torches trying to find the key card that had been left in the room for us. I was also disappointed to find that there was no bottled water available to drink in the fridge. And there were no sockets next to the bed. Surely everyone charges their phones overnight on the bed side table?||Breakfast was extremely limited when compared with other hotel’s offerings. Personally at a top end hotel you expect a coffee machine with your selection of coffees and hot water for tea. Instead, you had two hot drinks dispensers (only slightly better than you’d find at your average village hall), one for coffee and the other for hot water, although neither were labelled as such so no one knew what was in each of them. The area where these were served was also a sticky mess that didn’t seem like it had been wiped for quite a while. The breakfast in itself wasn’t anything special. There was limited choice of what to have. It seems that the serving dishes weren’t being replenished as often as they should have been. And the quality of both the sausages and orange juice tasted cheap. ||Overall, quite a disappointing stay at what should have been a nice hotel. Considering you are paying a premium to stay at a “Doubletree Hilton” apart from the bed, nothing seemed worthy of a premium product. The breakfast at a Premier Inn is cheaper, tastes better and is much more plentiful. ||Not what I would expect...