DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Annapolis — Hotel in Annapolis

As a Hilton Honors Diamond member I enjoy staying at different properties within the Hilton portfolio. A trip to Auto Train in Virginia and the need to stop overnight before the final 1 hour push to Lorton brought me to Annapolis. I believe I did stay in this Doubletree many years ago and was not as dissatisfied as I was on this visit. ||I always check-in and choose my room the day before arrival, and this was no exception. Usually I get my Digital Key around 12 Noon of the day of arrival, but none came. Strike One. So upon arrival, I am met with a non-functioning automatic sliding door, meaning i had to use a smaller door with all my luggage. I should have known right then I was in trouble. Strike Two. Now since I didn't have the Digital Key it meant I had t stop at the desk on the way in. While there was no guest in front of me, the woman at the desk ignored my presence, instead talking in person to another staff member and blankly tapping on her keyboard. Then she called me over, and when I told her I didn't get the Digital Key she said she didn't know why, but that she would try to activate it again for me. To this minute I'm still waiting for it, and I'm already long gone from the hotel. I did get my complimentary water and cookies while there, which saved me another trip. I'd later find out that was a good thing.||So later in the evening I was yearning for a snack and remembered the market store next to the front desk. I knew I could use my food credit towards this, but would need to return to the front desk to charge those items to my room. When I got back to the lobby around 7 PM , there was not a long line, one that wasn't moving fast. Still only the same lone clerk at the desk and nobody at the second station taking customers. At times a woman sat at the second location behind the desk but she did not help out to move the line, as more people continued to arrive and get on the back of the line. All this time I was sitting in the lobby waiting for the line to go down, which it never did around that time. I returned after 8 PM and got my items from the store; by that time a new single clerk was behind the desk but she had had more success in clearing out the line of waiting customers. Truth be told if your Digital Key was working, some of them could have bypassed that line.||It was obvious that the building has seen better days and that it's in need for a good rehab. The elevators, while they moved fairly quickly, still had relatively long waits before they came. But the ride was jerky; the stop at the 2nd floor was particularly short almost causing my feet to leave the floor.||My room.... The Wifi and TV was easy to control. Climate control on a night were it was 13 degrees outside was hard to control -- either the heat would go off before the room was warm, or it would stay on too long making it uncomfortably hot. And when it came on, the unit was noisy. Also with the unit in the window, it caused the curtain to billow in -- never saw that before but I had a sense of loss of privacy despite the larger curtain being closed. Also, there was no luggage rack in my room, so I had to improvise and lift the heavy suitcase up on top of the refrigerator.||Bathroom.... No issues with hot water, but the counter space needs improvement. Not enough room to put down all my toiletries, pills, shaver, etc. Very cramped.||Sleep quality... Not a good sleeper as it is, but even though I purposely chose a room that faces away from US 50/301, I still heard highway traffic noise throughout the night. Which means the walls are quite thin.||My check-out in the morning was done over the app. So despite the Digital Key not working, at least something was.||Overall, despite the inevitable apology and invitation to come back another time, the answer here will be no. Too many negatives outweigh anything that could be done, especially the building's proximity to a major highway. This place does not live up to the standards I expect as a long time Hilton Honors...

My husband Gene and I just had our son graduate from the Naval Academy today in the class of 2021 and our stay at the Doubletree Hilton was EXTREMELY MEMORABLE because of the efforts put forward by the General Manager (GM) of the Doubletree Hotel Annapolis, Mr. Arnie Garcia!!! He is truly a "hands on type of leader" that "rolls up his sleeves and sets the bar high" for his team to emulate day in and day out!!!

Mr. Garcia is complemented by a PHENOMENAL Customer Facing Front Desk staff that includes Miguel and Elina who will bend over backwards to ensure your stay at their property is top notch!

Their restaurant staff also is made of a top notch group of true professionals like Patty and Wendy that are EXTREMELY customer oriented focused, efficient, and courteous in their approach of serving their customer's meals in their restaurant.

One key illustration of this point was that for today's Annapolis graduation, Mr. Garcia and his staff ACCELERATED the time they normally serve breakfast by "at least 2 (two) hours earlier than normal to include prep time by the kitchen". The hotel staff was keenly aware that the parents and friends of graduating Seniors at the Naval Academy had a very early start ahead of us and needed to get to the Annapolis Navy-Marine Corps Stadium as early as possible.

So for those parents and friends, likes ourselves, (totaling over 70 guests staying at the Doubletree) we were all able to get a hot meal in before leaving for the Stadium whose gates opened very very early. And for those visitors that arrived to the stadium early like ourselves, we got our choice of premium seating for such an important occasion!!! Now that is true being truly sensitive to your Customer's needs and leaning as far forward as possible to accommodate!!!

Please note during our son's 4 years at the Academy we have stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn Annapolis, the Hilton Garden Inn in Downtown Annapolis, the Hampton Inn Annapolis, the Hampton Inn Arundel Mills and NONE OF THEM measured up to the type of gracious and understanding Customer Service we received at the Doubletree Hotel in Annapolis! Did we have some speed bumps/missteps at this property during our many stays at the Doubletree Hotel.....yes they had some because no organization is perfect. The key for us was how QUICKLY Mr. Garcia and his staff bounced back and rectified/corrected those minor missteps in EFFECTIVE and EFFICIENT manner.

My husband Gene is a retired Senior Naval Officer, and we have come to learn that great leadership starts at the top and filters its way throughout the organization. The Leadership of Mr. Garcia and his staff should be commended for their honest, transparent, no-nonsense approach!!! Something truly hard to find these days!!

Mr. Garcia's and his team's professionalism, commitment to outstanding customer service was nothing short of outstanding! Thank you again for an OUTSTANDING Customer experience!!!

So for those Parents who have kids in the Naval Academy Classes of 2022, 2023 and 2024, if you have a choice in accommodations when visiting your kids in the coming years, Doubletree Annapolis has my highest personal recommendation.....as they will do their utmost to make your experience as memorable as...

I contemplated writing this review because the staff was friendly but this hotel is not up to par with other Double Tree Hotels. We booked a suite since we were traveling with a 9 month old and our puppy. Upon arrival we were never offered the cookies that they go way out of their way to advertise over and over on their answering service and online, as Hilton honors members we were not even offered a bottle of water at check in. When we got into the room we noticed the room was not very clean. Aside from the room being very outdated there was very minimal towels in the bathroom, red stains on the carpets and a funky smell throughout the suite. We allowed our 9 month old to crawl around on the floor while we unpacked to which she found a LARGE switch blade knife left behind by the previous guest, after further inspection we found old moldy limes on the floor as well. When my husband went to the front desk to complain about the room we were switched to another available suite. We paid extra money to check in early and spent the entire time of our early check in at the front desk and then switching rooms and we weren’t offered the early check in amount to be refunded. At first glance the second room seemed more suitable although still outdated and dingy with stained carpets etc.but at least this room had towels, however I found a small SLUG on our bed! Afraid of what we might find in room #3 we got rid of the slug and stayed in this room. The pool was nice and is pretty much the only reason besides the friendly staff that I rated this hotel a 2/5 however we were charged wayyy more for the poolside drinks than what the menu states- double to be exact, with no explanation as to why we paid double the price for each drink. Trying to salvage the rest of our stay we attempted to eat in the hotel restaurant. When we went down the restaurant it did not appear to be very crowded however we were greeted by someone at the door who said it would be a very long wait before they could seat us and was basically trying to deter us from eating there. We looked around at the many open tables and decided that it was probably best not to eat there since our stay was not going well thus far and left the hotel to grab dinner. This was incredibly upsetting to us because we specifically booked a hotel with all amenities so that we could relax and enjoy ourselves in once place and not have to travel around with the baby. The buffet breakfast was included with our stay so I have to say that is the only reason why we went to breakfast in the morning, the food was good but the dishes were not clean, there was lip marks on the orange juice glass I had and food and grease stuck to the “clean” plates next to the buffet. I am incredibly disappointed with this hotel, for the amount of money we spent on this one night I would have preferred staying anywhere else, definitely not the experience you would normally get at a...