Embassy Suites by Hilton Berkeley Heights — Hotel in Berkeley Heights

This review is not a direct review of the hotel itself, but of the hotel as a wedding venue vendor. The hotel itself is very nice; very clean and the rooms itself are spacious. The only thing we found weird with the rooms is that in the suite, you can’t close the bathroom door all the way, because it's a sliding door, which is a bit weird/creepy. Other than that, the hotel and hotel rooms are great themselves.The problem with Embassy Suite from a wedding vendor perspective is their lack of internal communication. We worked with Cortney from sales, and she was amazing to work with. She was very responsive and always went the extra mile for us! Cortney was the highlight of the Embassy Suite staff; make sure you request here if you setup your room block here. When we set up our room block, we had asked for the wedding block rate to be applied to the day before our wedding, because we had a lot of people traveling from out of state and internationally. They initially agreed to this, but said folks needed to book via phone because the online system won’t be able to handle that logic. We understood completely, and passed this information onto our guests. Upon calling, the majority of our guests were told that the hotel will not honor the wedding block rate for any night besides the wedding night, which was not what we were originally promised. Regardless of the above issue, some of our guests booked two nights. Some of the folks that had two nights booked were told they had two different rooms (one Thursday, and one Friday), and had to check out of their rooms on Thursday and get a new room on Friday. As you can imagine for guests trying to get ready for a wedding, this was extremely inconveniencing. At the end of the wedding night, we ran into an issue with the hotel transportation. Our venue to Embassy Suites is a 10 minute drive each way, especially at midnight when there’s no one on the road. The shuttle had two runs - 11:45 PM and 12:15 AM. The 11:45 PM run started off smoothly as the driver left on time, but never came back to the venue. As we learned from our guests, the driver took an extremely scenic route and took over 25 minutes each way to and from the venue. While we appreciate the safe driving approach, it did not seem like the driver knew the proper route to the venue ahead of time. Our family was still at the wedding venue until almost 1AM. We had to call our guests who were on the initial shuttle to ensure that the driver knew to come back to our venue to pick our family up - not to mention the bride and groom! Finally, we had the after part at Grain and Cane. Drinks were very good, but again, communication issues caused silly problems. The bar staff spelt the last name of the bride incorrectly - in two different ways! One wrong on the board above the bar, and wrong on the table reservation cards. Simple issues like this shouldn’t happen if the staff were detail oriented. Overall - this is a great hotel to stay at in the area or if you are a guest at a wedding. However, I would not recommend using this as a hotel vendor if you are a...

The hotel has a lovely aesthetic, but there is an issue with understaffing and overworked staff. When we checked in on a Saturday, the hotel had two weddings and a pageant taking place at the same time. Despite this, there was only one staff member checking everyone in, and no porters or other staff were available to assist. During our stay, we experienced a few issues, including a bathroom door that fell off the hinge in another guest's room, sticky soda on the table and floor in our room, and several light bulbs that needed to be replaced.

We had booked our room over a year ago, but the hotel had overbooked and had to give us an "upgrade" to a room on a different floor than the rest of the bridal party. Unfortunately, instead of a king-sized bed, we were given a room with two double beds. Fortunately, another bridesmaid was willing to switch with us to avoid sleeping in separate beds. In addition to the bed issue, the shower head was not working well, and no toiletries were provided in the room. Instead, bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and shower gel bolted to the wall.

The breakfast was decent, but it ended early on weekdays and they provided plastic utensils instead of real ones. Unfortunately, the hot items on offer at the complimentary breakfast were cold. Once the breakfast time was over, the staff quickly removed all the coffee carafes, which may or may not have been because there is a Starbucks in the hotel lobby. Although we were given complimentary drink vouchers, they were only valid for an hour and printed on a piece of paper with an expiration date for the same day, which seemed cheap and unprofessional.

On the first night of our stay, over 30 cars were broken into in the hotel parking lot, things were stolen, and windows were broken. This caused a lot of stress for the wedding party. Unfortunately, there were no security personnel or cameras in the parking lots, so the police could only take reports and not do much else.

It's worth noting that this hotel is known for accommodating weddings for expensive venues nearby and shuttles guests to and from the hotel parking lot. This situation has likely arisen before; surprisingly, there was no security in the parking lot to prevent these kinds of incidents.

Due to the lack of maintenance, the hotel was overpriced even with the 'wedding block' discount. The overall stay was satisfactory, but I expected more value for my money. It felt like a budget hotel with high-end pricing.

TL;DR: The hotel has a pleasing aesthetic but is understaffed. Experienced several issues, including the bathroom door falling off and sticky soda in the room. The hotel overbooked and gave an "upgrade" to a room on a different floor with two double beds instead of a king-sized bed. Breakfast was decent but ended early on weekdays, and hot items were cold. Over 30 cars were broken into in the hotel parking lot without security personnel or cameras. The overall stay was satisfactory, but the hotel was overpriced with a lack of...

This place would have gotten a five-star from me. I was able to get a room here with a king size bed for New Year's Eve they have a Starbucks and a restaurant at this location. Which was a pleasant surprise I love frappuccinos. Unfortunately it seems that a lot of the Starbucks are no longer doing frappuccinos because they don't have the right ingredients or their machines are not working. So I'm not judging this hotel based on the non frappuccino. They offered a free happy hour cocktail and free breakfast we were able to take advantage of the cocktail at the bar in the lobby and met Kathy who is one of the greatest bartenders if you go there please hook her up with a nice tip. The rooms were beautiful you have a living room a separate bathroom and closed door bedrooms. We did not actually get to eat inside the restaurant but instead had a great dinner from the restaurant this hotel had room service which was really nice and relaxing to know you can order from the restaurant and have delicious food but just in your room. The room came with a nice little kitchen table so it was perfect. It was New Year's Eve, you needed a reservation for this restaurant and the closest one that they could have given us was at 9:00 at night and I wasn't eating at 9:00 p.m. when I haven't eaten all day. I would have been grouchy by that time and I didn't want that to happen on New Year's Eve. We ordered a buffet style of different things and everything was delicious from the lobster salad, French onion soup, dumplings which have meat so I didn't eat that and I did try the lobster salad not realizing it did have bacon in it, and this year I'm going totally vegan so 2023 at least we know that there's stuff on the menu for us vegans. But they have a lot of great stuff for those of you who eat meat the person that I was with, ate meat and he said it was delicious. So the reason that I do not give this place a five-star is because on the 5th floor on New Year's Eve there was a horrendous smell looming the whole hallway and when I told the front desk about it they said they were going to spray and when they did it smelled even worse it was like funk on top of perfume funk if you know what I mean LOL. After speaking to other guests on different floors they did not have to go through that kind of smell. They offer great amenities like an indoor pool and a little gym which we did not take advantage of but we will if we ever stay at this hotel again. It's a little pricey but the beds are really comfortable. And sometimes comfort is worth the price. Breakfast, was excellent they had a person making eggs anyway you wanted them again me being vegan they had little potatoes so I was able to eat that and they were delicious they also had a fruit bar. With many other different selection of foods. Let's just put it this way we didn't leave hungry and a place that I would suggest if you're ever...