Hilton Garden Inn Carlsbad Beach — Hotel in Carlsbad

**this a copy of the email I sent to the hotel manager, advising him this review would be made and listing our issues. I then waited a week with no reply from management.

My husband and I took our children to the hilton garden inn Carlsbad and honestly have never had a worse hotel experience. And we travel ALOT. We have all never been more stressed out getting ready to depart what was meant to be a break from a busy life and current world situations.

First room we had for two nights the wifi would connect and disconnect every few mins via laptop even after paying extra for "premium wifi" (a fee that was thankfully refunded) and hindered my husband's ability to work, phone hold info states a happy hour from 4-7 and none is offered, our first room was freezing cold even set to 80* on thermostat, the slider windows on the "balcony" in both rooms were dirty, no one was cleaning the pool chairs or courtyard tables/chairs (we cleaned two of the courtyard area tables and chairs throughout our stay to use the courtyard area and both times our cleaning left 3 towels completely black with the dirtiness and included cleaning other people's food & drink stains), our first rooms fridge froze everything on lower setting and was missing bottom bar of door drink holder. The first two days felt like a complete wash as we were so stressed we could not enjoy our trip at all.

They then moved us to an ocean view room for 2nd two nights as an upgrade...the highlight was the view was fantastic. However, this room was warm unless we turned the air down to 60*, on our final night we then began to have water trickle and then eventually POUR out of the ceiling in the bathroom at 930p, soaking not only the bathroom floor but the carpet outside the bathroom. We then had the maintenance in our room fixing the issue while kids needed to go to sleep for over 30 mins (they stated it was an ac issue), my husband still had many issues with wifi in this room but was able to work near the pool, this room had no bar to hold things in on top of the fridge door (but did have a freezer which previous one did not, although it did not freeze anything), finally none of the bottom sheets on the queen beds fit properly (which the front desk said they believe is due to how the company is washing them) & they would constantly pop off. The sheets are also horribly uncomfortable and I think if you stack 3 pillows together you would get to the size of one actual pillow. Again making the final two days of our trip feel like it was wasted with stress and constant issues. The final result was a refund of one nights stay, when we asked if we could instead stay for free on saturday to try and salvage our trip they said we would have to pay an additional several hundred dollars. Basically a waste of hundreds of dollars.

Even our kids felt stressed by this trip and out of all the many many many hotels we have stayed at this was the worst experience we have had, we wanted so badly to love this hotel. We even stayed at a less expensive and inclusive property in laguna this past week which was much cleaner and had a much better experience, even with covid procedures and current construction at the hotel...so that really says something.

I will say the staff was very nice and seemed to sympathize with us, although I feel there was definitely more that could have been done. Also, items asked for seemed to arrive within 30 mins, but trash could sit in hall for hours before being emptied. The pool even seemed to have an attendant who mainly sat in a shaded corner not doing much of anything. The majority of our 4 day stay was spent waiting for calls to be returned and things to be fixed, which meant we didnt even have the energy to enjoy the fun beach and other outings we had planned.

Lastly, be ready to spend some serious $$$ on a ok dinner dining experience, that may have an ocean view, couldn't tell you though because again the patio windows for the restaurant...

This hotel is HORRIBLE for several reasons:

1. We arrived earlier than check-in time of 3:00pm and the Front Desk Clerk said she would put a "rush" on the room and offered to text/call us when the room was ready. She said it would be about an hour and gave us a map to the Carlsbad Village to get lunch and walk around. She confirmed the phone number on file and we left the hotel. TWO HOURS went by and we hadn' received a text/call from anyone from the hotel. My husband & I went to the Front Desk to find several other guest waiting to check-in with only 2 desk clerks working. We had to wait another 30 minutes before it was finally our turn to check-in again … I mentioned to the clerk we were supposed to receive a text/call when our room was ready. The clerk was unapologetic and simply stated, "It's been this way all day (pointing to the line of 4 people behind us)!" - FRONT DESK FAIL

2. The hotel does not offer bellman service, which is totally fine. The Front Desk clerk stated there are bell carts at exits throughout the hotel. The 2 bell carts we found were broken with flat tires or a steering problem! It was more of workout trying to get our personal belongings to the room without the bags falling off the cart or getting stuck somewhere. - ENGINEERING FAIL

3. Thankfully we were given a remodeled room, because I couldn't imagine what a non-remodeled room looked like! The room was nice/decent, but the hotel room door was SO heavy opening and closing ... it slammed every single time it was opened or closed. This must've been true for the other rooms on the same floor, because our door shook every single time another guest room door opened or closed. We felt like our door was going to pop open or something, even with the door latch on! - REMODEL FAIL

4. Room amenities were decent (microwave, mini fridge, Keurig, spacious room, etc). The first morning I made myself a cup of coffee with the Keurig single coffee brewer and was unable to enjoy it, because the cheap paper cups they provide in the room leaked all over the desk! HILTON can afford better quality TO-GO cups! - HILTON FAIL

5. The Front Desk clerks offered complimentary beach chairs, umbrellas, boogie boards and other misc beach gear. When we asked for these items, the Front Desk clerk told us it's first come first serve and whatever is available in the storage bin. My husband & I were a little confused, but the clerk kept pointing to a storage bin on the patio. So when we opened the storage bin and we realized the complimentarty beach items were LEFTOVER BEACH ITEMS from past guests! These items were broken, rusted, and definitely a saftey issue! We ended up buying our own chairs and bringing them home. - SAFETY FAIL

6. The hotel's beach towels are horrible! They are old, thin, rough, smells like mildew with a hint of bleach. The towels were apparently a nice blue at one point, but have now faded or been bleached one too many times! Again, we ended purchasing our own towels for the beach/weekend. HILTON can afford better quality beach/pool towels! - HILTON FAIL

The hotel website pictures are VERY misleading:

7. The pool pictured is NOT even as big as it's pictured! The pool was so small with the water temperature at 80 degrees. There were serveral families with kids and young adults sitting at poolside when my family went. The young adults were openly vaping (NON-SMOKING HOTEL?) and drinking straight from a Tito's glass bottle. There were a couple hotel employees restocking the thin, old, rough towels but nothing was said to these young adults. Clearly the hotel had very little regard for other hotel guest safety or guest experience. - HILTON FAIL

8. The hotel gym was no bigger than a storage closet! It had a couple treadmills and elipticals with free weights. My family & I literally took up the whole gym at one...

Usually don't take the effort to write any review for any business, however, I feel this one needs to be voice. At first impression upon arrival, the exterior looks beautiful right across the beach. The front desk staff were friendly upon check-in. This is where it all stop once I enter my room. The facial towel are with human hair, the shower floor mat was missing, and the entrance door doesn't completely close upon closing. I placed the tag that indicates " Thank you, no house keeping is needed today" on the door. I interpret that is another way of saying 'Do Not Disturb'. In the middle of my nap someone knock at the door and they attempt to bulge in when I haven't had the time to respond to them. The second day, the tag was removed and they did entered the room and replaced the towels and shower mat. Prior to my arrival I was trying to see what kind of transportation is needed. I spoke with the front desk and they confirmed that there are taxi cabs around and they can schedule one easily for me if needed. With that in mind, I opted out renting a car. The day before departing, I have went to the front desk and requested a tax cab to arrive for pickup at a specific time. They confirmed the scheduling for the early morning pickup by calling my mobile phone. The next morning upon my departure, I went to the front desk half an hour early to confirm that there will be a taxi cab for me as scheduled. Not only that the staff at the front desk have no knowledge of such arrangement, they said there are no proof of such request. As there's no proof of such request, I asked them if they could call for one on the spot. The response I have was never heard of from any hotel. They said they don't provide that kind of service. In fact they won't be able to get any taxi cab at that hour. This is early morning 6:30am - 7am. My flight for departure is around 9am. The next review is for the dinning experience. The food is edible if you are starving. I ordered the fish taco. It came with 2 soft fish taco with side of chips. There are just a few cubes of the fish in the taco. The fish has no flavor....can't tell what fish it is by tasting. The chips contain some uncooked portion. The ones that has been fried completed tasted like your regular chip. The ones that are uncooked are chewy and some can't be bitten on because it's uncooked. The flour is still very white,...