Hilton Birmingham Downtown at UAB — Hotel in Birmingham

Stayed a week for business, the building and location are great, but the service was poor. Hilton is my preferred business stay and I am a Diamond member. Upon arrival I was checked in with zero recognition of my Hilton Honors member status until I brought it to their attention. Not a huge deal, but when your used to a certain level of service - you easily notice when it is missing. I only mention my reward points participation as a certain level of credits and free continental breakfast are a couple of the benefits I should have received. Instead, I found out that I was going to be charged for my breakfast each day and my "daily credit" would pay for it. Mind you, this is NOT the way this is supposed to work. Mentioning this to the staff was pointless as they expressed zero concern. A couple of days later, I decided to get room service and prep for an evening business engagement. When I called The Lab restaurant, I was told that it would be 60 - 90 minutes to have room service delivered.... Surely they must be slammed, so I went down to the restaurant to order in person. I was greeted with someone that barely understood English and ended up taking my order. I was told to wait and my food would be out shortly... Start the clock. I noticed plenty of staff running around - most behaving like they were under tremendous stress and/or angry. The fact is; there were 7 people at the bar 11 people seated at tables inside and maybe another 10 outside. The way the staff was acting, you would think that they were slammed and dealing with a 2 hour wait. Not so much. The staff was mad about having to serve someone or to provide certain diet requests. Overall, the staff had absolutely no sense of urgency and could care a less if you were happy; but by God, you better leave them a big tip (overheard murmured from a server closing a check). Advancing the clock, my food: a wedge salad and chips and queso - was brought out after 55 minutes. They forgot to add the iced tea I ordered, so I figured I would ask the staff. Well,... that did not happen. They either completely ignored me or acted like they were insanely busy. [Sidenote here: I worked in a resort as a server and bartender for years and dealt daily with high volume and fast pace. What occurs here is NOT busy] After 10 minutes of trying, I left for my room as my evening meeting was approaching and I was starving. In the room, I took a few bites of the wedge and about the 5th or 6th bite, my mouth experienced a tangy/fizzy sensation... I cut deep into the wedge to find that it was spoiled, the tomatoes not smothered by dressing were slimey and wrinkled. I failed to make my evening meeting due to being sick for 3 hours. No more food from that hotel... Checking out was lackluster as well and I felt like they could care a less about their Honors members. One shining area of the staff was; without question, the housekeeping team - outstanding job!! Maybe Housekeeping should run the whole hotel. Overall, I find it sad that the service is so poor here. This hotel serves as a place to rest for not only tourist and business travellers, but for patients being treated at the nearby UAB facilities or relatives of those visiting members of their family that are ill. Hilton needs to do some serious work to get this hotel up...

The service here with exception of just three people (Lauren, Will, and MaryAnne), other staff members were complacent and borderline unfriendly.

At 7 o’clock, I asked for change so that I could tip the Bellman, and they said they had no cash. That’s weird.

I was told that for my seven day stay, I could park my Mercedes-Benz sprinter van in the overflow parking lot but on day two was told that a charter bus was coming in and so that lot would be blocked off.

Upon sharing what staff had told me previously, her first response was “Did they tell you it was going to be $24 to park there?“.

So her first response was not to help me remedy the issue but to tell me it was going to cost me extra?!

Fortunately they were able to find a way to unblock it and allow me to but the very fact that I had to navigate such issue is goofy.

“Sure you can park your sprinter van in the overflow parking lot until someone else we find more valuable shows up.” that’s how it sounded to us.

Add to that when you go downstairs to have dinner, the only drinks that they could serve kids, or Pepsi and sierra mist.

Our burgers were undercooked, the chicken at $37 a plate couldn’t be finished because it didn’t taste well at all. The ribs that were over $25 was also barely edible. You could probably make something comparable in a microwave.

Your price point for food does not come close to the quality. And at the risk of sounding condescending, McDonald’s would have been a better option.

When ordering breakfast there were four people in the entire place and it took 22 minutes to get a order of pancakes to go. And, why is this door from the cafe to hotel locked (see pic). It’s as if you don’t want guest to think your open.

The pool is extremely small.

The staff tends to bicker about one another so that everyone can hear.

Why do you have one of your three lanes blocked off with rope and then you park another one of your vans in the other lane leaving only one lane to pass through. And sometimes you have that lane blocked with one of your other vans? It’s as if you do not understand how to make it convenient for your guest. You end up having to back out into traffic versus pulling through. Dumb.

I started with 2 stars when I wrote this, but each day the experience has gotten nothing but worse.

I’ve traveled 40+ weeks a year for over 20 years and this must be one of the worst run hotels I’ve ever come across globally.

We spent $4,000 for two rooms and that’s $6,000 too much for this hotel.

Rooms were clean and The Lab bar has a fairly...

This was the worst hotel experience that I have ever had. The first room needed to be adequately cleaned. I noticed tape on the wall, which was not a big deal but a red flag. On deeper inspection, the ceiling was peeling, and a white substance was on the wallpaper. When I asked for a new room and attempted to inform the staff about my concerns, they were disinterested in my complaint and immediately offered me free parking and a new room. The entire new room smelled like urine. There were yellow stains on the ceiling.I didn't even sit my belongings down.

I came downstairs and said that I was not staying, and they refused to refund or credit me for the stay because of my booking. She told me she could not check me out because the room had to be cleaned first, and housekeeping was just on that floor and wouldn't return until the morning. The woman at the front desk then began staring at me blankly without speaking in a confrontational manner and offered no other solutions. I asked if she was the manager, and she said no, but she was a supervisor. I asked if the manager was at the location, and she told me that she was not. I then asked her for the manager's email, and she said that she did not have it. I asked her for the manager's card, and she gave me a generic call number. I then asked her to write the manager's name on the card. The entire interaction was completely unnecessary. I feel as though the staff knew the rooms were not up to par and the least that could be offered was a credit to use at a different location. I was looking forward to my stay and was utterly disappointed. I understand the booking process; the rooms were unacceptable and entirely not up to par with what was the Hilton's reputation.

I called the customer service line and was told that my complaint wasn't put in and could not be put in until I was checked out, I was hung up on after a worker could not answer my question because of a language barrier, after an hour and five attempts my complaint was filed and is still being processed. I was able to reach the manager who was personable and offered to give me points but it did not appear on my account. Overall the affair took 2 hours of communication, and the issue still is not resolved, and I was cheated out of an experience. I will not patronize this Hilton location or the 3rd party site again.

I was in such disbelief but I did get a few photos and I didn't mention it but the pillows...