Hilton Atlanta — Hotel in Atlanta

I noticed in other reviews that the GM welcomes offline outreach for feedback, so I tried to handle this offline, but have not received a response almost a month later. So, the only remaining recourse appears to be to paste the email below.

I wanted you to understand how unbearable the stay at Hilton Atlanta has been. The overarching theme is that the staff have no ability to demonstrate care or empathy. It is as though they have been trained to never say the word “sorry” or “my apologies”, no matter how egregious the oversight or situation. Both of the major incidents that “tested” the service recovery of your team were unacceptable to begin with, but the way they handled made both 10 times worse. Incident #1 was being given room 539 upon checkin on 7/10, and arriving at the room to find it fully occupied with other people’s items. This is honestly one of my biggest fears. When we returned to the front desk to mention this, the handling could not have been poorer. We intentionally went back to the same check in agent for the purposes of continuity. He barely even acknowledged the situation and simply said “so do you still need two doubles”? In what world is this degree of flippancy toward such a violation of privacy acceptable? We also cited concern about how the same thing could happen to us, and how he could ensure it would be prevented, and he said with great seriousness “you can lock the door”. I actually do not think he was trying to be patronizing; he simply was not trained to appreciate the gravity of the situation- which was that our belongings could easily be stolen if our room was given to someone else based on the same sloppiness. Based on this interaction, it was clear to us that we would not get any traction with this individual, so we asked for a front desk manager. She was only marginally better in displaying empathy, but she also had a smirk on her face that suggested she was more entertained by our concern at the situation than anything, which is totally inappropriate behavior for someone in a managerial position. We asked her how this could have happened and she freely and almost gleefully (?) admitted that it happens “all the time”. Based on this response, we really wanted to find another hotel, but it was so late that we decided to stay. She gave us a fake “upgrade”to a higher floor (exact same room) and promised she would call the room to follow up on how it was, but never did. This almost pales in comparison to my interaction with Cedric on Saturday. Upon returning to the room at 7 pm, with a very quick turnaround before dinner, we were dismayed to find that the room had not been refreshed — trash was still present and towels had not been exchanged. When I called 0, I made the mistake of asking Cedric why the room had not been cleaned, and he lashed out that the room is not cleaned every day - but towels are exchanged and trash is expected to be collected. When I mentioned they hadn’t, he offered zero acknowledgement of the inconvenience, and simply said “we’ll send them up”. Maybe I am old fashioned, but I thought the #1 rule of customer service is to take ownership and accountability. Anyway, I asked for four towels. An almost aggressively aloof woman showed up 20 minutes later, AirPods in ears to avoid interaction. I asked her to confirm that the garbage bag they were presented in had four towels as requested, and she with great disinterest said “mhm”. As soon as she had left, I checked and only two were provided. I tried to catch her in the hallway and she ignored me. When I called 0 again, Cedric once again answered. This was the really unacceptable part. He once again refused to offer an apology and simply said he’d send up the remaining towels. Worse, he tried to litigate that I had only asked for two. What is the purpose of fighting with the customer? It only served to further alienate me as a customer. One finds oneself asking if this kind of behavior is trained/by design, for some unthinkable reason, or if this hotel is just totally...

TLDR: A hotel built in the 1980's for the 1970's, and a Hilton in name only. Questionable pre-reservation transaction practices (actual charge for 1 night stay as soon as booking was made, not a credit card hold like most other hotels), took three attempts to get a tolerable room, chicken wing bones and other debris on floors, shakey and aging elevators, air filters falling out of rooftops, and an overall deprecated hotel design. Recommend staying at the Hyatt instead of this Hilton or the adjacent Marriott if in downtown Atlanta.

The whole enchilada:

Hilton Atlanta looks impressive online, but it's a shell of its former glory. The building's age is showing all over, starting with its slightly illogical drop off circle going counter flow to the one-way access street.

The hotel is in desperate need of a complete renovation. Wallpapers are torn or bubbling, paint is chipped and hasn't been repaired in years, elevators have broken lights, arrival bells, floor panels, bent doors, or missing sign fixtures, and the whole hotel has a slightly musky smell. A quick walk over to the slightly better Marriott and the far better Hyatt via the sky bridges will quickly remind you of what a hotel should feel like.

The general state of the hotel also made me wonder how well maintained the elevator systems were - if the obvious things weren't being maintained, what does this say about the machinery behind the scenes... The shakes of the elevators and damaged doors constantly reinforced this fear. This also brought into question the plumbing (toilets randomly pressurized) and if "quality" piping was used... I also found random debris around the hotel (chicken wing bones tossed on the elevator floor?!) and encountered adjacent bathroom faucets with completely different temperatures and water flow.

At one point in my stay an air vent came loose and landed just next to me from 2 stories up (see associated pictures). There was no communication about this incident, despite sharp metal and screws raining from the sky and a small herd of hotel staff coming to the scene.

Hotel room quality is also suffering - it took three tries to get something usable.

First room: Broken/clicking AC fan you could hear through the door before entering. See associated video.

Second room: VISIBLE water damage on the ceiling, a musky, moldy and smokey smell, and the number plate was paper like someone had ripped the old one off. Wish I had taken photos but I just wanted a functional room.

Third room was finally usable, but the ottoman had clearly been around awhile and was multiple shades of used brown (see photo).

Other problems: AC blatantly lies to guests and leaves rooms at 75F+, little sound insulation from hotel doors, pillows were strangely weak, showers have awkward and arguably unsafe shelf placement, and shower caulking started to disintegrate in my stay.

This is all overshadowed by the hotel/Hilton's questionably legal pre-payment process. Unlike the completely legal method of applying a hold on your card once you arrive, Hilton Atlanta CHARGES YOU A NIGHT STAY the moment you book the hotel. Even if booking 6+ months ahead, they apply an actual transaction on your card like you spent a night!

I'm not sure what neo-capitalist dystopia I woke up in, but last I checked, you only get paid when people actually use a service, NOT BEFORE STEPPING FOOT ON THE PROPERTY. I ended up rebooking through an alternative site to prevent this pre-charge. Refund took 3 months to sort out, needing a credit card dispute to finally refund the pre-reservation charge. They really wanted my money it seems.

Asking Hilton's accounting department about this policy gave me nothing more than "this policy is in the fine print". This reflects very, very poorly on Hilton as a company and will likely steer me away from other Hilton properties in the future.

It's embarrassing Hilton let's this place hold their name, and I also felt embarrassed for not having the courage to cancel my reservation once I saw this hotel's...

Over a period of three days, I had two stays here of one night each. Both rooms were on the 26th floor, and it probably goes without saying that they were virtually identical and extremely dated. Except for the wide-screen TV, things looked much as I imagine they did in 1975 and at any rate just as they do at every Hilton property in the U.S. Which is not a huge deal, even if it gets a bit tiresome. One wonders whether Americans even realize that showers can come with handheld shower heads, or that it is possible for the shower to be separate from the (tiny) bathtub. The Hilton hotels in the U.S. either don't know or don't want their guests to learn such possibilities exist, and thus seem never to offer anything else.||There is no executive lounge here, which is surprising for a hotel of the flagship Hilton brand and of such size and prominence. Or maybe it's not surprising - the Hilton is increasingly motivated by the desire to do less but charge more, and the absence of a lounge fits that philosophy well.||The gym was to a decent standard. That's the only non-negative thing I've got to say about this place.||I didn't like the internet connection. It was too quick to disconnect me.||I tried calling the front desk on a Friday morning. Eight attempts between 09:00 and 09:45 all resulted in a busy signal. I ultimately gave up, which is obviously the outcome Hilton considers preferable to bothering their staff. That interpretation was amply confirmed by what I saw when I then headed downstairs to find four staff members at reception, but only one guest. All the same, at reception they wanted nothing to do with printing a boarding pass and a train ticket, and sent me instead to the business center. The train ticket never got printed. Thanks, Hilton.||Then there was the breakfast. For the $33 charge, the buffet probably ought to have had some more choices. Even the most standard items were missing: no beans in tomato sauce, no grilled mushrooms, no grilled tomatoes. There were no seeds and as for nuts, only pecans and almond slivers. There were of course no vegan or vegetarian sausages available on request. Even water had to be requested. Eggs made to order could be had, but in my case the eggs sunny side up were inedibly liquid and I scarcely touched them. It was odd that the servers didn't seem to care why I was not consuming the eggs I'd requested, but one simple answer could be that Hilton didn't bother to tell them that they should ever go beyond the absolute bare minimum of service consisting of showing diners to their seats and bringing the bill (which would also explain why my water was never refilled). Another simple answer could be that waitstaff can already be sure of their tip, as there is an automatic gratuity of 18%, which is absolutely ridiculous given that guests mostly serve themselves from the buffet. And so it is that the grand total for a breakfast I fervently wish I'd gone without came to $41.88, which is nothing short of disgusting and a complete ripoff.||To other guests or potential guests, if you have to stay here at all, then when it comes to eating you are much better off taking the very short walk, all indoors, to the food court inside the Peachtree Center. The food court has options open early enough for breakfast. The variety is much more interesting and costs less. If you have an F&B credit from the hotel, your best bet is to use it at the Marketplace, not at the restaurant!||To the Hilton: Take your stock answer to this review, your canned assurances (all meaningless) that you will carefully consider my criticisms and your trite expression of hope that I will give you another chance, and stuff it. That's about as nicely as I can...