DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Austin - University Area — Hotel in Austin

I recently attempted to stay at your Double Tree Austin TX location, only to be shot down and treated poorly by Manager Nancy. I had originally booked 2 nights online(10/24 & 10/25), through Hotwire, as friends and I were meeting in Austin for the Lizzo concert. At the last minute I was stuck at work, missing my flight. As an acute care dialysis nurse, working in the hospitals with extremely sick patients means that sometimes I have to be willing to alter my plans at the last minute. I am used to sudden small changes. First, I cancelled and rebooked my flight to Austin for the next soonest flight, at 7am on the 25th. Then, I called the Double Tree and spoke with Sophie (or perhaps Sophia) with a patient waiting for my dialysis machine to be ready (it requires about 10 minutes of testing prior to use). As the patient and I waited for the machine to be ready, I explained to Sophie that I would not be making my flight that evening, and had instead rescheduled for in the a.m. She was kind and gracious enough to make a note that I would be checking in very late at 9am. As mentioned, the room was paid for already. I just wanted it known that I was going to be late but still intended to stay and check out on time on the 26th as originally planned. It sounded like that was it, easy enough, problem solved. The next morning I landed in Austin, ubered over to the Double Tree and discovered for some reason I could not be checked in...manager Nancy was called and after some efforts tapping around on the computer she told me nothing could be done, I was out $400, and they didn't have any rooms. Tired (as I had worked until 11pm that previous evening), worn out from traveling, I asked "But what about the note" - which I had been told they could see - Nancy snapped at me, cutting off my questions regarding the fact that I had tried to check in the prior day so that my room would not be given away. Sure, I was standing there in my yoda pj pants and didn't look like some high class professional traveler. But I was clean, not funky or stanky, just ready for a nap but perhaps I gave the impression of one who could not afford an evening at the double tree? Nope...not so, remember it had been paid for. So, I gathered my credit card and ID and informed her there was no need to be $h!tty and left. I calmed myself at the denny's in the parking lot and nibbled a BLT while I figured out a new game plan for the evening's stay. Needless to say, I am not ridiculous enough to think the loss of my dollars will hurt the Hilton brand but I won't be back anytime soon. As a woman who often travels solo, finding oneself alone AND without a place to stay is not safe. I'd prefer to take my chances on Motel 6 - at least they'll leave the light on - than risk finding my room sold out from under me again at any Hilton property. Do yourself a favor, book with any other brand. Avoid this location if at all possible. Never once, standing there in my baby yoda pjs ready to literally go back to bed for a few hours, did anyone question if I needed help finding a room. I would have gladly ubered to another property if it had been offered (and there are multiple Hilton locations in the Austin TX area). I never would have treated a patient the way manager Nancy treated me. I felt judged, ignored, put slightly into a sketchy situation - all because they didn't want to honor the reservation I had made months prior in August because they probably sold the room out from under me for double what I had paid. Sad, just...

Price for rooms did not match the service. When I was asking for assistance the answer seemed to always be no, and getting to yes was not something the staff was interested in. I arrived 2 hours before check in and was told “there are no rooms available, you will have to check in at 3”. This was obviously not the case, that at 1 in the afternoon there are no rooms available. What they meant was my room wasn’t available, I had to talk them into allowing me to switch my room so I could check in. If they were trained to be helpful they would have offered this as a solution, but they just wanted to stick with no. It was like I had to negotiate to make more money for the hotel, by freeing up a king view bed for a standard room. Then, my wife needed Q-Tips, and scissors to finish her makeup, so I asked the staff at the front desk. I watched the front desk staff open a single drawer in a plastic tote, and return with. No sir we don’t have any. So let me get this right, I’m paying nearly 400 dollars for a hotel room, and I get about 6 seconds of effort from the staff to try to be helpful to guests. I think it is reasonable to be accommodated with simple toiletries. It was like I was bothering them to ask for anything. Then I repeated the question because I’m not a moron, I know they have scissors, and I was told that they couldn’t allow me to use them For safety reasons. Ok fair enough, but I knew right then and there that they just didn’t want to be helpful, even if they could. They wanted to do the bare minimum, nothing extra to please a customer. Thankfully, the housekeepers weren’t “trained to protect guest from themselves” and allowed me to use there scissors. But don’t cite patient safety with scissors while you have food delivery people walking in the hotel to deliver food. If they were really Concerned with guest safety they wouldn’t have that liability. Also, if you want ice you have to go the sixth floor. So let me get this right, you have 5 floors that don’t have ice on there floor. This can’t be coincidence, this has to be deliberate negligence that you allow 5 floors to not have ice. The mirrors in the rooms is basically just a backlight, so for the women that need a lot of lighting for makeup it’s not in there rooms.

Overall, the reason I took the time to write this review, is because I have been a Hilton honors member for nearly 10 years, and this was by far the least accommodating experience I have ever had.

I have stayed at several hotels with Hilton honors that provide better service, at a much cheaper cost.

I would recommend finding another place to stay, for...

We booked this hotel due to the location of it. The parking fees were advised up front. Expensive when you park yourself. The first night, our floor was SO loud. Girls running down the hall, laughing, screaming. But, what can you do? The second day is when everything went WAY left. We found live roaches in our room. I immediately called the front desk. We had no food out in our room. Only in the fridge. I explained we had found bugs. He said, “well, I’m the only one here. I can move you rooms, but we only have a king”. The problem with that, er had 3 people staying in the room and had booked 2 queen beds. I said, “can’t you get a cot?” He said they could and would call me back. About 3 minutes later, he called back saying they could move us to a room on the same floor with 2 queen beds. Great. I go to the front desk and get the keys. They moved us rooms (it was appreciated), but they moved us to a room that had dead roaches in it. I grabbed them in Kleenex and put them in a cup to show the manager in the morning, but I was livid. It was also past midnight and we were exhausted. At this point, at least they weren’t alive. And we checked EVERYWHERE in the room they moved us to. The next morning, I took the evidence to the front desk. The front desk manager apologized, took the evidence I had and said she would show housekeeping. She asked what should be done. I said, “I think you guys need to compensate us for this. That is not good”. She said she would speak with the general manager and call me back. She did call back and said that they comped one night and took care of our parking. She emailed me a receipt. While I appreciate them taking care of one night, we spent two nights and that means that we had roaches in that room both nights. I had to come home and unpack everything in my garage. The rooms had the cards in it stating who cleaned the rooms. The rooms may have been “cleaned” but they were not clean. Again, I appreciate what the front desk supervisor did, but I will NEVER stay here again. This whole experience showed me that they do not value the concept of clean. Attached are photos of some of the bugs I found. While the location is great, I’ll stay somewhere else when I...