Hilton Garden Inn Frederick — Hotel in Ballenger Creek

Beware of slippery bathtub/shower floors. Both my wife and I slipped; I caught myself but my wife didn't. But what made this so terrible was the attitude of the staff, up to the General Manager, who refused to return my phone call. I made a complaint with Hilton Customer Service and the GM's response to Hilton Corporate was: "All tubs are anti slip installed by Hilton approved vendors, guest declined medical treatment and refused to fill out an incident report. No compensation is being given at this time". 1) I did NOT "refuse" to sign an incident report. When I came to the front desk to sign the report, the front desk person, who BTW was incredibly rude when I reported the incident, was busy with multiple people. When I returned the next day to sign the incident report the front desk person at that time could not find said report. 2) The anti-slip surface in our particular bathtub was worn away. I left a voicemail for the GM as I wanted to speak with her about it. I wanted her to come up to the room and see for herself how slippery it was. My sister-in-law was also staying at the hotel and her bathtub was not slippery. What the GM doesn't realize is that over time, the anti-slip wears away and I wanted to show that to the GM. 3) The front desk person, "Ansi", when I reported the incident, refused to give us a rubber bathtub mat stating it was "not Hilton policy." I found this very curious as the night before I stayed at the Hilton Hampton Inn in Aberdeen, MD, and they very graciously offered me a rubber bathtub mat. In fact the GM at that hotel explained that they have the mats because the grit, over time, wears off. 4) There is a sign next to the Garden Inn elevators that reads, "The Hilton Garden Inn PROMISE: Our goal is to make your stay better and brighter. If something isn't just right the way you like it, simply let any hotel team member know, and we will make it right, Guaranteed." This is a false statement, they did not make it right. In fact, they exuded a very rude attitude when I brought the situation to the hotel staff's attention. I went out and purchased a rubber bath mat which made the bath/shower floor perfectly safe. The hotel made it abundantly clear they would NOT reimburse me for the mat. The bottom line is that this is a safety issue that the hotel needs to recognize. If the Hilton Hampton Inn in Aberdeen, MD, recognizes it, why can't the Hilton Garden Inn in Frederick, MD, recognize this? That is why I tried to get the GM to come up to the room and see for herself how slippery the bath/shower floor was. The GM proved that the Hilton Garden Inn PROMISE is not...

Super disappointed with our stay here. I only stay at Hilton properties and when available usually select Hilton garden… this particular location was not what I have become accustomed to and is a poor representation of one of Hilton’s more upscale chain hotels. It does not live up to the name or the price. Paid $175 for one night, checked in around 11pm via the app.. used digital key and went straight to our room.. there was no luggage carts at first but caught someone returning one when I had started to carry in our bags. Tired from 6 hours of driving we got to our room. The property itself is quite outdated, there is nothing modern about it.. and also zero old school charm which some Hilton garden inns have. First thing I did, go to use the bathroom.. notice the tissues had been shoved back in the box clearly not new from the previous guest.. I lifted the toilet lid and saw quite a lot of barely dried urine all over the toilet seat. I declined to mentioned it to my tired pregnant fiancé and just cleaned it up quickly. Next to the bed by the nightstand there was multiple pieces of trash on the floor, candy wrapper.. bottle cap, peanuts. Quite visible without searching for it. Our room had a door to an adjoining room which I could hear two people speaking at normal volume clearly word for word like I was in their conversation, never been to a Hilton garden that had this. The smoke detector had two bright green lights that flashed about every 5 seconds the entire stay.. so bright you could see them through a sleeping mask, lighting up the whole room. In the morning I showered amongst the peeling outdated wallpaper, a shower light with mold and rust on it.. and the other light fixtures with a crack and burn marks. For close to $200 bucks we checked out at 9am… 10 hours I wish I had chosen to drive through the night and slept in our own bed. On the way to our vacation destination several days prior we stayed at the Hilton garden inn Raleigh Durham and had the complete opposite experience .. checked in at 1am, charming corner room with windows on both sides .. quiet and spotless slept like a baby. Did not expect to is from our stay at Frederick, MD when all the other locations I’ve been to have been great. This property needs help, salty I paid hard earned money to stay here.. I think there was a Hampton right around the corner could have stayed there for like $50 less.. or even a non Hilton property amongst the other six or so places...

I recently hosted a holiday party for over 100 residents of a local Frederick 55 plus community at this Hilton location, and unfortunately, it was by far the worst event I’ve organized in my 15 years of experience. The level of disorganization and lack of professionalism from Hilton’s management team was unacceptable and deeply disappointing.

The event coordinator, whom I worked with for months leading up to the event, was completely absent on the day of the party. There was also no hotel manager on-site to address concerns, leaving me with no one to escalate issues to. The only people available to assist were the front desk, kitchen staff, and bartenders—none of whom were adequately informed or prepared to handle the event.

Staff appeared to have no clear instructions. I had to step in multiple times to direct them on their duties, including asking them to bring out desserts, which didn’t happen until nearly 9:00 PM—hours into the event. Despite being told this would be a buffet dinner where attendees could eat as much as they wanted, the hotel ran out of food entirely. When I asked the kitchen staff what happened, they explained that the food had been portioned for the number of attendees, but no one was assigned to serve appropriate portions. This led to a chaotic situation where some some residents were left with nothing to eat after paying a price to attend this holiday event.

The vegetable and cheese displays were also grossly insufficient. They were barely enough for 50 people, despite the event having over 100 attendees. Many guests didn’t even get a chance to enjoy these appetizers.

The entire experience was humiliating. I had to inform residents, who had paid for this event, that there was no food left and nothing could be done to resolve the issue. Many guests left upset and frustrated.

While I want to acknowledge that the staff who were present worked hard under these circumstances, the overall lack of preparation and management oversight made this event a disaster. It’s clear that the Hilton management team failed to meet even the most basic expectations for hosting an event of this size.

I would not recommend this venue to anyone planning an event, as the lack of accountability, communication, and professionalism resulted in a deeply...