Hotel Champlain Burlington, Curio Collection by Hilton — Hotel in Burlington

I genuinely have no idea where these positive reviews come from. Our stay at this property has turned us off of Hilton entirely, and we’re advising the same to our friends and family.

My husband and I stayed here in July. We picked this hotel for the location, which is the only thing it has going for it. Walkable to everything we wanted to do in Burlington. We had not had a vacation in quite a while and decided to splurge on a Hilton. This context shouldn’t matter because everyone deserves a pleasant stay especially with a Hilton price tag, but this happened to be my birthday week and I had recently finished chemotherapy. This was meant to be a relaxing week and we chose a hotel near to everything because I was still experiencing fatigue and needed the option to take breaks in our hotel throughout the day. We spent 500/day on easily the worst stay we have ever had.

Arrival is very strange. Valet made us leave them our keys “in case they needed to move the car” during our 5 minute check in. They directed us to pull up, park, and leave the keys, and gave us a tag. It indeed took us about 5 minutes to check in, during which there was no traffic at the front but the valets moved our car anyway - they backed it into the spot they originally told us to vacate - for no apparent reason.

The building seems spacious and luxurious at first glance but it is not well maintained. There was trash in a few of the hallways all week that no one ever picked up. The bathroom has literally just a tub/shower and a toilet - no surfaces or even a trash can. If you want to bring clothes in to change into after a shower you have to leave them on the toilet or floor. If you need to dispose of hygienic products you’ll do that in your common space. My medical supplies got to stay on the floor of the bathroom the whole week.

The “restaurant” is about 3 tables in the bar area. Unclear how one would have a meal there.

Front desk staff seem miserable, and I don’t say this to criticize them - it’s clear management is not good.

Halfway through our stay there was a paper slipped under the door saying there would be intermittent construction noise the following day between 9am and 2pm. A little before 9am on my birthday we were awoken by an excruciatingly loud noise, as though a jackhammer were on the roof directly above our room, which did not let up for hours. It was impossible to hear ourselves think. We got ready as quickly as we could and left. Expecting the noise to be done at 2, we came back at that time so I could rest. But the noise continued. We went to the front desk and asked to speak to a manager. When the staff asked what about, I practically had to scream “about the noise we can’t hear ourselves over.” We were informed the manager was not in but they would ask her to call us when she arrived. Of course she never did. At 2:45 the noise was still going so we left for our evening activities, our room unusable. When we finally got back after dinner the noise was gone but I was exhausted and we were very angry.

The next morning we woke up to the same noise. This had now disrupted our sleep and my ability to rest for two days (again, at 500/day). We called the hotel’s general manager who eventually returned our call the next day. He seemed apologetic. We asked to have one of our days comped as we could not use the room for the entire day. He declined but offered to comp for the hours from 9-2, when construction was happening. I tried to explain both that the construction went longer than advertised and that it rendered the room unusable for a whole day, but he disagreed. He said he would figure out prorating our charges to exclude those 5 hours. Now this seems particularly stingy to me, especially for a luxury hotel. But all we were comped at the end of the day was $50 which is absolutely not 5 hours off of a 500 night. We were so insulted.

I tried several times to reach Hilton Corporate to pursue a partial refund with no response.

Save your money and your sanity and stay...

Stayed here as a family of four with two teenagers while my senior in high school was exploring UVM as a potential college. Booked the hotel over the phone. The Rep on the phone was very nice and offered me the government rate because I work for the Federal government. I asked if breakfast was included because we would be leaving early in the morning to be at the university and needed breakfast as a convenience. We checked in, no details provided about breakfast --- whether it was included, the hours, process--nothing, nor was the charge for parking mentioned. We were not informed about anything about the hotel's amenities and were left to find our way on our own. When we went to our room, we were surprised to find how tiny it was for four people and the view was of an HVAC unit. I called the front desk and asked for a room with a better view --- we would have accepted anything but the view of an HVAC. The Manager informed us, "certain rooms are reserved for the government rate." I asked why the quality of the room was determined by whether the guest was a government employee and she responded, "Because the room is a cheaper rate, so you get a lower quality room." I explained that the Representative on the phone told me she was "happy to inform me that I was able to find a great room for you and your family at a great rate." She didn't say anything about it being a "lower quality room" due to receiving that rate. In fact, she indicated it was a "great room". I explained to the hotel Manager that it didn't seem fair to offer a lower rate to government employees and then expect that to mean lower QUALITY. She offered us a better room but charged us $50 more per night. We accepted just to avoid my daughter having a bad experience with our trip. We just wanted her to have a good experience with college visits overall. After losing confidence in the hotel's management practices after our check-in experience, I came down for breakfast ahead of my family in the morning to scope things out because I didn't want my daughter to have a stressful start to her day --- I didn't trust the hotel to provide a good start. I was told breakfast was NOT, in fact, included as I had been assured by the Rep who booked the reservation for us on the phone. It was embarrassing the way the Manager handled it, out loud in front of the other guests. So, again, to avoid any negativity, I just quietly left, went and got my family, informed them breakfast wasn't included as we'd been assured, and we went to eat breakfast at a cafe. We had to rush because we didn't allot time for eating outside of the hotel on that first morning. The wifi was not good and the hotel did not provide access to Netflix or any streaming apps. We ended up watching a movie together on a laptop using the hotspot provided by our cellphone plan. Finally, when we checked out, our bill was exactly double the cost of what we had agreed to when we booked --- there were the parking fees, which were never mentioned at any point, then there were the additional charges and fees associated with the "upgrade" to a "higher quality" room -- which we expected all rooms to be "higher quality" and not tied to whether or not I was a government employee. It was so insulting. Throughout this whole process, we quietly and calmly raised a question here and there but didn't make a big deal because we wanted our daughter to have a positive experience with her college visit. I agree with other reviewers that the only nice thing about this hotel is the location. The staff are uninformative and unhelpful, the Manager is cold, you really have no idea how much you are going to be charged. I wouldn't stay again.

Update: The response from the Hilton Customer Service, below, instructed me to call the hotel. As of May 9, 2023, a hotel manager has not returned my phone calls. The desk clerks inform me the manager is busy, so I have left several messages with my contact information over the...

My husband and I decided to come to Burlington for our honeymoon - it did not disappoint!! From check-in to check-out, our stay at the Hilton was amazing. There were some bumps in the road, but the staff were so accommodating and genuinely wanted to ensure we had a wonderful time, which we did!

Upon arrival, we were gifted a lovely charcuterie board and bottle of delicious white wine for our honeymoon. The view from our room of Lake Champlain was stunning. The hotel has ample amenities and we actually preferred that there was no coffee in the individual rooms, because the coffee bar setup on each floor was so much more elaborate and efficient! We loved the sparkling water on tap and selection of teas, coffees, and hot chocolate available 24/7 for self-service and think it is overall a much better design!

We were able to bring our 1 year old dog with us, as this hotel is dog friendly, which is a major bonus!! There is a $50 per day charge for bringing your dog, but we felt it was worth it to have our whole family together. Burlington has many dog friendly businesses - we were even able to take our girl to the big dog park along the fitness trail on the waterfront, which she loved! We had a blast playing in the snow with her. If you’re in need of accommodations that allow your dog to come with you, definitely book this hotel! Some breweries in the area also allow dogs - we recommend the tap room at Queen City Brewery, which our girl loved.

Food and beverages were very good at this hotel. Breakfast setup was easy to navigate and had a nice array of options - our favorites were the fruit smoothies and breakfast sandwiches, though the pastries were also delicious and great for grab-n-go! We did not have a chance to try dinner at the restaurant, but we will definitely be back and make sure to stop in for a cocktail and meal!

A few helpful tips and info:

There are a lot of added fees at this hotel. Please make sure to use the daily $10 voucher you get as part of this, for use on any food and beverage purchases. We used ours at the sundry shop for sweet treats and beer. The fees might seem off putting, but we believe the costs were worth the great location, views, and exemplary service. Parking in the adjacent garage is very convenient, as you can walk directly into the hotel from the 3rd floor. There is still construction/remodeling at work until later this spring. In our opinion, this did not affect the quality of our stay at all, and we look forward to coming back in the summertime to see the improvements! No services were interrupted on our end due to the remodeling. Best views are on the top two floors (6 and 7). Our specific room number was 715, which we feel had a spectacular view of the entire lake. It’s a west facing room, so you get incredible views of the sunset. The spaces are tight (smaller than expected bathrooms) but the bed is comfortable and the setup works! I’m a plus sized woman and I felt fine in the smaller space - it was economical and just enough to move around.

In summary, if you’re going to explore everything Burlington has to offer, we highly recommend staying at this hotel - especially if you’re bringing your pup with you! We had a beautiful honeymoon with our girl, and we look forward to returning soon!

Two exceptional staff who assisted us were Travis and Dean at the front desk! We thank them both for a...